- Obama Says U.S. Long-Term Debt Load ‘Unsustainable’ and warns of skyrocketing interest rates . You don’t say?
- A nine hundred thousand dollar model solar house remains dark, uninhabitable, its pipes frozen and burst. “Seven months ago, officials gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the $900,000 house owned by the city of Troy that was to be used as an educational tool and meeting spot. But it never opened to the public. And it remains closed.”
- GM whacks 1,100 dealers, reports CNN. “GM (GM, Fortune 500) is not yet in bankruptcy court, although CEO Fritz Henderson has said such a filing is “probable.” The company has until the end of the month to win agreement from creditors, unions and dealerships on a turnaround plan. If it fails to do so, the Treasury Department, which has been bankrolling GM’s ongoing losses, has said it will force the company to file for bankruptcy.”
- Meanwhile, GM may import cars from China. “DETROIT (AP) – As thousands of General Motors workers await word on more U.S. plant closures, reports that the company plans to import Chinese-made vehicles to the U.S. have created a political problem for the automaker and the White House.”
- As cars come in from China, outrage builds in Canada as orders from across the border are canceled to conform to stimulus rules. “Ordered by Congress to “buy American” when spending money from the $787 billion stimulus package, the town of Peru, Ind., stunned its Canadian supplier by rejecting sewage pumps made outside of Toronto. After a Navy official spotted Canadian pipe fittings in a construction project at Camp Pendleton, Calif., they were hauled out of the ground and replaced with American versions. In recent weeks, other Canadian manufacturers doing business with U.S. state and local governments say they have been besieged with requests to sign affidavits pledging that they will only supply materials made in the USA. “
- In a related development, Fox News reports that stimulus checks are being mailed to dead people.
- And the Telegraph reports that “Islamists linked to al-Qaeda on verge of toppling Somali government”.
- Congress considers Laws That Could Save Journalism.
Meanwhile in Washington, it’s Panetta versus Pelosi. The CIA Director said:
There is a long tradition in Washington of making political hay out of our business. It predates my service with this great institution, and it will be around long after I’m gone. But the political debates about interrogation reached a new decibel level yesterday when the CIA was accused of misleading Congress.
Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques that had been employed.” Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened.
Now what did he mean by that? Is the US having a run of bad luck or is the accumulated weight of hucksterism, fantasy and deception finally being felt? Who knows. Maybe something will turn up.
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I am waiting to hear Obama’s exit strategy from the banks, auto, insurance, parts suppliers, state and local govt. The Dem’s constantly demanded an exit strategy for Iraq. Maybe watching California’s exit strategy from it’s debt will offer a clue.
No wonder Michigan is in such good shape. The ALOeTERRA Solar House, built by students from Lawrence Technological University, was to serve as a sustainability education center in the city of Troy.
According to the univerity: “This house demonstrates that homeowners can help reduce the nation’s energy consumption by making practical decisions in their own homes. Most homes can be made much more energy efficient, and it is possible for a compact home to generate all the energy it needs from solar power.”
Joe Veryser, an associate dean of architecture at the university, commented: “What I heard repeatedly was that somebody turned off the breaker during the winter and forgot to turn it back on, which caused the pipes to freeze and then break.”
Maybe it was the proverbial last person leaving Michigan who turned off the light.
Fortunately government stimulus funding is financing energy saving renovation of low-cost housing. But maybe people will need government trainers regarding switches.
Gosh, an 800-sq-ft house for only $900,000? Buyers will be lined up around the block.
I’m surprised they didn’t use the freezing and thawing of the pipes to generate energy.
# 1. Richard:
California found several millions worth of waste that could be saved.
But the exit strategy has been delayed:
Some of those cuts hurt members of the Service Workers Union, which raises a sizeable pile of money each month from dues.
SO:
BHO admin proclaimed that they could not make those cuts in waste and fraud, or else they would lose 6 Billion Dollars in “Stimulus” funds!
—
Expanding service workers union backs Obama Politics Reuters
Feb 15, 2008 … WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign got a major boost on Friday, winning the endorsement of the influential …
Pakistan’s troops advance against Taliban
Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gillani said taxes would be eliminated in areas where the army had damaged property.
Gul Maeen, 40, who walked four days on a withered foot to reach the Jalala camp, was not impressed. “We would hope they’d help us rebuild our houses,” he said. “But for that, we need peace first.”
Independent defense analyst Shireen Mazari said the displaced were poor enough that they probably don’t pay taxes in the first place. The only way a tax plan might work, she added, would be if it provided tax breaks for investors to create jobs and growth.
The U.N. refugee agency said it had registered 907,000 people displaced by the fighting since May 2, in addition to the 565,000 forced to leave their homes last year amid violence.
Only about 80,000 people, generally the poorest or those with few alternatives, are in the camps. Most have moved in with relatives and friends or created makeshift settlements along roads and in fields.
“Gul Maeen, 40, who walked four days on a withered foot to reach the Jalala camp, was not impressed. “We would hope they’d help us rebuild our houses,” he said. “But for that, we need peace first.””
ONCE again we see the poor downtrodden can’t help themselves looking to the all powerful gov’t to fix their broken lives. Sad, so very sad. He says we need peace first? Then let him pick up his rifle and go make it happen. If the people of Swat did not tolerate those that would break the peace. They would have peace, maybe. But if they just look to the “government” for salvation they will only get misery and wholesale lots of it.
“I am waiting to hear Obama’s exit strategy from the banks, auto, insurance, parts suppliers, state and local govt.”
We all know that the Dems search for an “exit strategy” was an alternative to “winning”.
On the economic front, the only exit strategy from the current government debt load is — to win! That means, economic growth.
Unfortunately, our intellectual superiors in the Political Class are dead set against growth. They have set themselves an impossible conundrum, and their default exit strategy will be failure of the political system, accompanied by something that may have echoes of the French Revolution.
I attened the university in my home town (Humboldt State, part of the California State system) for one year before transferring to a UC school. It had a brand new engineering building when I went there, designed to use “passive” solar technology to heat and cool the entire buidling. This was coastal northern California, where the temperature is pretty moderate all year ’round. 50′s in the winter, 70′s in the summer.
The building, which became known as the Temple of Doom for the huge cracks in the slab foundation and constant plubming problems, was miserable year round. In my 8:00am classes, everyone was wearing coats inside and constantly blowing on their hands to keep their fingers limber enough to take notes. By 2:00pm it had become uninhabitably hot – a greenhouse without enough ventilation – and students dripped sweat onto their lab notebooks.
Calling it a “Temple” was more accurate than we knew at the time, since these projects are mostly religious offerings to Gaia.
The video clip Wretchard has reminds me of dear old Humboldt State as well. I has a show on the college radio station which led to a part time job at a local commercial AM station. The AM station had a WWII vintage transmitter that used vacuum tubes about the size of the light bulbs in that clip. The were huge, and nobody made them any more. one day we blew a tube and went off the air. The engineer scrambled to the station and replaced the tube. When he fired the transmitter back up, it blew one of the other tubes. We only had one spare on hand. He called around frantically, and finally located a spare somewhere in Montana. They expressed it to us, but we were off the air for three days.
You might say the radio station didn’t have an adequate design margin for transmitter tubes. The Temple of Doom didn’t have an adequate design period. Glad those sort of mistakes don’t happen on a national scale…
JMH:
Have you seen “Humbolt” the movie?
If not, I recomend it.
Much of it shot in or near Arcata.
—
We sold our farm to a guy that created the semi-famous “Dickmobile” in Mckinleyville.
Panetta versus Pelosi is pure blue on blue conflict: the CIA is 99% Democrat at the top.
The death of Detroit means the death of the web-press media. There can be no mouthpiece without a patron.
Clipping the dealerships ensures that 2-3 hundred-thousand jobs are lost. Thousands of dealer lots must find a new purpose. What a hammer blow to commercial real estate values and the banks that lent against them. BTW, many dealerships are sitting on GM and Chrysler corporate property which they obviously will liquidate ASAP.
The economic structure of modern America makes a ‘buy American’ scheme ruinous. It’s a poison pill against the taxpayer. Pulling installed materials out of the ground is brutal. Normally such items can never be sold again: in heavy construction all contracts specify NEW materials ONLY — period. Consequently there is no market for refurbished products at all.
We’ve got to stop importing Somalian troubles. As it stands immigrant Somalis are all over the crime blotter. There are some situations that have no pleasant solutions, and this is one of them. Our priority must be for our own citizens: do no harm!
As for Somalia: keep the islamists off balance with a minimum of force. Keep it isolated and pull out the NGOs. We must acknowledge our limits. The shake-down economics of western food aid are DIRECTLY responsible for the promotion of gangsters. Their ‘business’ consists of ‘clipping’ the NGOs.
Without the largess these players would have to divert their efforts towards fishing and farming. As it stands the NGOs have witlessly put all the tribes on a war footing.
Peace is impossible until the food aid is stopped!
Farming is completely uneconomic until the food aid is stopped.
The NGOs are making everything worse, much worse, because they don’t understand the law of unintended consequences. Good intentions are taking Somalia straight to hell.
About that silly house over in Troy…
First thing, frozen pipes, storm damage and other stuff like that are the reason why we have homeowners insurance. Now, would I be out of line wondering why the city of Troy does not have this million dollar building insured? The second thing I would really like to know is the long term maintenance costs on this place. The biggest problem with spectacles like this is very few people ever peek behind the curtain to see what’s really going on.
“the L.A. police have stopped Paige no fewer than eight times in the past year
“to check it for safety .”
“I think the reason the police stop me,” Paige says, “is because
‘The Dickmobile’ is a symbol more powerful than the symbol of the police car.”
Harvard Crimson – Defiling America’s Deity
Like most pieces of art, either driven or stationary, the new cars have provoked a great deal of discussion. Paige’s phallic “Dickmobile” is perhaps the most controversial.
Built on a 1954 Hillman Minx chassis, the head of “The Dickmobile” is 18 gauge steel stretched over a pencil wire frame, while the body of the car is molded fiberglass. The entire vehicle is painted in various shades of pink, except the purple exhaust columns that run along the sides, and the rear of the car that is painted a pubic hair black. The plush interior of the car is upholstered in tufted black naugahyde and has a rosewood dashboard and paneling.
The reaction of most drivers and pedestrians to “The Dickmobile” is one of bewildered amusement. “People don’t know what to think,” Paige says, “but most begin to laugh and make jokes.”
One group that hasn’t found “The Dickmobile” particularly funny is the Los Angeles Police Department. Although the Dickmobile is licensed by the state, the L.A. police have stopped Paige no fewer than eight times in the past year “to check it for safety.” “I think the reason the police stop me,” Paige says, “is because ‘The Dickmobile’ is a symbol more powerful than the symbol of the police car.”
Once when Paige was cruising down L.A.’s prestigious Wilshire Boulevard, he was stopped by two policemen who admonished him for driving an obscene vehicle. The officers were particularly worried because of the large number of elderly residents in the area. “The police were afraid they might have heart attacks if they saw ‘The Dickmobile,’” Paige said. One 70-year-old man who happened by proved them wrong. “Do you know what that is?” the old man queried as he broke into a fit of laughter. “It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.”
THE ADMIRERS of “The Dickmobile” haven’t all been oldsters. On Sunset Strip one evening, Paige was approached by a buxom young woman who jumped on “The Dickmobile’s” hood and demanded that her picture be taken with the car.
The ‘house-off-the-grid’ is a terrible concept.
It stands as an Eutopian folly of the first rank: we’re a social animal that lives on connections.
Their technical problem was that ALL of the PV energy was required just to maintain the pipes in winter. Each night the batteries ran lower and lower. Below a certain voltage the inverter cut out and the building lost AC power. Some custodian shut down the heat strips so as to return normal function.
Ultimately the design was flawed: not enough PV energy is available to make their dream house a reality.
BTW 800 square feet is a cottage. Where could anyone park enough batteries to make the scheme work?
I’d back-charge the EE and the Architect: their E&O policies should be able to cover the bill.
Panetta was installed at the CIA to ensure that the agency would not start generating leaks to the press designed to damage Obama the way it did with GWB.
That’s a difficult task already, and he could never expect to succeed at it were he and Obama to allow the CIA to become Nancy Pelosi’s pinata. So now he has to push back.
Many people in the CIA must by now know a lot of gritty details about how Obama has adopted one GWB policy after another behind a thin verbal veneer of ‘Change’. That plus their demonstrated ability to leak to the press and get away with it adds up to a pretty effective threat.
Massive tax increases are already baked into the Federal fiscal cake. In fact, since they are GWB’s tax cuts from his first term, their “expiration” are not even regarded as tax increases by the denizens of the media. In Washington Parlance money was “spent” on these tax cuts so ending them might be termed a spending cut by the masters of spin. After all, President Obama promised spending cuts. By the same token, any extension of the unfair Bush tax cuts will be termed a fair tax cut — but by Obama, not Bush.
So when Obama speaks of our fiscal blight — excuse me, plight — he is preparing the way for a larger “give back” of the Bush tax cuts on the part of the middle middle class — and further massive tax increases on those higher up the income tree (who are, in many cases, rapidly descending into the new muddle class: we’re not quite sure where they will end up, class wise, but the new taxes will need to follow).
14. blert: “The ‘house-off-the-grid’ is a terrible concept.”
Actually the concept is sound. As it promotes self sufficiency and individualism. It allows autonomy and sovereignty. Yes, we as a race are social animals and need community. But to extend that idea into the statement that we need to be literally connected is a bit much. I see the “off grid house” as a defense against viral or systemic infection on a societal scale. And as such my home is self sustaining. I am connected to the grid to obtain the benefit of being able to sell back to the utility which enables me to pay for my autonomy with other people’s money. If the SHTF today I am fully capable of meeting my families needs for survival with a level of comfort that is equal to today’s modern society. I would not be able to have a job outside of the farm fulltime but then again I would not need one.
15. Nomenklatura:
In all the worries that constantly run in the background of my mind. The one about our alphabet agencies is the most troubling. I pray to the dear lord above each and every day that those people that run and control those agencies have a clear and unbiased perception of the meaning and intent of our Constitution and Bill of Rights and of the Ten Commandments as well.
GM whacks 1100 Dealers. Lessee, 1100 dealers . . . I hear about 150 employees each … thats 165,000 jobs. Been in a domestic dealership lately? Sales staff is mostly minority. Mgt isnt nor is the tech staff in back. But its not a problem – the UAW jobs are safe til the taxpayers run out of money.
The One says that we cannot sustain this deficit pace forever. The exit strategy question is a good one. I for one dont think there is an exit strategy, unless he means to take our savings and investments.
The USA today is California five years ago. The problem that California has is not liberal or conservative, it’s sanity versus insanity.
If a majority of my fellow citizens want to elect a liberal government that will follow liberal policies, I can’t object to that. Everybody gets their turn. But they don’t get to drive the bus off the cliff.
Be interesting to see a breakdown of how many of the people being laid off are black and therefore presumably voted for Obama.
I’m thinking that most auto-workers left in Detroit and Michigan would be black. Bankers maybe not so much nor real estate entrepreneurs, but union members of janitors, security guards, prison guards, school teachers — the unions Obama is trying desperately to pander to probably have a high percentage of African-American members.
These are the people who elected him, so these are the people who should be most affected by his policies.
Re: the Troy solar house:
Ugly, cramped, unaffordable, AND defective!
A house that only Algore could love. For you, of course. Not for himself.
Bogie @21
At only $ 1,125 per square foot…
How can you call that unaffordable?
Something about the water damage estimate makes me think that the space has fire sprinklers which spewed filth all over the place.
What a gold-plated boondoggle.
JF’s right, Blert.
And I wouldn’t use a disasterous passive-solar project in Michigan to rate “off-grid” technology in general. Given that our nation spans several latitudes with significant oscillations in regional solar radiation with the seasons, it’s kinda simplistic, doncha think?
First, one myth about “off-grid” needs slaying: there is no “off” grid. If you count the road networks and wireless networks that most “off-gridders” rely on, and consider that an “off-grid” home may have several, interoperable power “grids,” including a common, “tied-in” municipal power grid, then you’ll see the reason why the preposition “off” may be misused here.
The Off Grid movement seeks simply to proliferate private grids. And the trade off in social connectivity is negligible. In fact, what the off-gridder gains in independence, cost-stability and self-satisfaction more than makes up for any losses.
And technology is facilitating the “off gridders’” virtual networking more and more every day. Gregarious, social people who live “off-grid” (which equates, to Midwesterners, with living a multi-mile distance out of “town”) will find a way to punch through obstacles between them and their social “fix.” Just try to stop them! In my “off-grid” home, emails ping and Blackberries hum, satellite TVs blast and the wireless internet spits full-color PDF’s, all day long. Connectivity finds its way!
So, constructing redundant safe-guards into our key utilities is good, old fashioned common sense. Period. Which should deal a fatal blow to at least one persistent urban myth: not everyone living in the country who builds safe-guards against ‘single-point” grid-failure into her home’s power supply is a Ted Kysczinski-type “Uni-Bomber.”
To close, Blert, I’m writing to warn you to watch out for the false equation my radar sees fermenting in the wings, “Off-Gridders=Home-Schoolers=Gun-Owners=Right-Wing-Militias.” It’s a pat, tempting formula for urban Progressives to mouth, but it’s real effect is to demagog individuals’ attempts at rural self-sufficiency in an era of unprecedented urban subsidy and Federal centralization.
The real story ’round Michigan’s failed solar project is, it’s another “Big Dig.” I’d keep the focus there instead.
And leave off-gridders out it. Gettin’ off-grid is just one impulse of Glenn Reynold’s “Army of Davids,” and a predictable one at that. I call it good ol’ American innovation at work, and I wonder if Australia isn’t seeing a similar democratization afoot.
I’m not up on everything that’s gone down with the Pelosi hubbub, but does it make any sense to think of this as intentionally manufactured, a power move by the WH to take down Pelosi for some as yet unclear reason?
steveaz:
Your comment is terrific, and I agree entirely with your point of view. Living about five miles outside of town, at 1,000 feet on a mountain in the coastal ranges of Northern California, backed up against a sizable wilderness, with fairly dependable sunshine, I have often thought of going, at least partly, “off the grid.” My neighbor across the road, a wealthy vintner, has about an acre of solar panels (on a 1,400-acre estate, to be sure!).
But I just haven’t gotten off the schneid, yet.
Cascades? It becomes impossible to choose which obama position to ridicule ( Alinsky #5)first.
Then nancy p. goes over the falls sans barrel, screaming contradictory statements all the way. If she be in the bayou we’d done fixed her right up.
I done be hear’n Habu went up to Montana, riding and hiking, shoot’in and just hav’n fun. Bought hisself a 2008 Nissan 350Z convertible from an a stake sale. Only had 6,000 mile on her. Trailered it up there behind his Suburban.
He told me he ain’t com’in back til mid Septembar.
He was just shaken his head at the fool in the WH when he done pulled away.
Says ta say ya’ll hab a gud summer, he be back later..and he wish gud health on all than their kinfolk.
PT,
Then Habu won’t be posting again till mid-September?
I will miss him. Is he going completely “off the grid”?
Jamie Irons
Blert #14:
I have a good friend who has a house totally off every grid. No phone, no lights, not a single luxury.
It is in the Green Mts of Vermont, and is powered entirely by photovoltaic solar cells feeding batteries with a propane generator backup and a gasoline generator backup backup. He loves it, but is not crazy enough to try to live there in the winter. He has a waterfront house on an island in Florida, and come October, that’s where he is until the following May. At least he is rarely troubled by hurricanes.
I know another guy who just put in a $50,000 phototvoltic system that can run his whole place – until it gets dark, at which time he is back on the main grid. No storage. He sells his excess power to the power company during the day. He claims that it gives him around a 5% return on his investment, but I can’t see how that could work out. He is betting that Obama will screw up the electrical power industry so badly that the costs of power will balloon upwards to a point where his system becomes financially attractive
Maineman:
I imagined the same possibility (a WH take down of Pelosi) but in discussion with someone who lives in DC and writes for The Hill, I had to admit I couldn’t think of any particularly good reason the WH might want to take her down. There are others out there who have more to gain from a Pelosi take-down, so it makes sense for them to be ahead of the WH in the line. Included in that number would obviously be Republicans, at least one Democrat who might replace her as Speaker, other Democrats who want to trim her sails to enhance their own power in Congress, and even some people out of power (in the CIA, for example) who don’t like her. What would the WH gain by taking her down? Not sure — she hasn’t exactly opposed the WH in a way tthat they could redress by embarrassing her.
In any case, and no matter who is behind the attacks on her, the bottom line is to paraphrase Kissinger’s comment about the Iran-Iraq war: it’s too bad it ever has to end.
F
RWE @28…
I’ve looked into the IRR of PV for my house.
Due to 30% unlimited Federal Tax Credit (Form 5695)…
Plus PG&E rebates ( vs capital investment or structured vs peak output )…
My internal rate of return — after taxes — is about 13%.
It’s the crazy Tier 4 and 5 pricing ( $.35 & $.45 per kW-Hr !!!) and the subsidies that make it possible.
Obviously, it’s different everywhere else.
My beef is with staying off the grid with PV. It runs up your cost something terrific. It also means none of the subsidies mentioned herein apply!
Now if you’re out in the wilds and it’s a seasonal residence PV can make perfect sense.
As for myself, a 13% after-tax internal rate of return at low risk is motivation enough for me. I know of no other investment that pays off that rich with Federal, Utility and Personal guaranties, and it’s inflation adjusted, too!
If Taxman Waxman flushes the Cap & Trade through the House then my IRR would be nearer to 19% after taxes. That’s what happens when you are left out of the tax increase on distributed electric power.
Jamie:
Possumtater has a hibernation mode that allows him to moniter for threats even while “asleep.”
RWE:
Flight 3407: deviance and dangerous complacency
“Off grid?” Get real. If things get ugly the wonderful people in charge of the government will put you “on grid” very quickly. Remember the problems in California last year, with the brownouts? The government of California wanted the Feds to make the adjoining states sell them electricity at the rate California wanted to pay. It didn’t work THEN, but welcome to the age of Obama. If any blue states have energy problems I’m sure the Federal Government will arrive on the scene to force their more prudent neighbors to bail them out.
The list grows:
Down’s children,
Christians,
(We’ll get the Jews w/policy)
…all grist for The One’s Compassionate Mill.
Which Grinds…
TOP WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR SUGGESTS FIRST FAMILY NAME DOG ‘MISS CALIFORNIA’…
Doug (#31):
Ahh, I see…
Jamie Irons
Doug (#34):
To call Mr. Axelrod “classless” seems like a desperately unwarranted insult of classless people.
But what can one say of NPR?
My God, what are we coming to!?
Jamie Irons
Finally, there was the conversation weaving between, of all things, Miss California U.S.A. Carrie Prejean, the same-sex marriage opponent who the panel had already mocked at length, and Bo, the Obama family’s Portuguese water dog.
When Mr. Axelrod was asked how involved he was in the selection of Bo, he jokingly answered that he “only got called in for the final three.”
But as Mr. Axelrod was trying to set the record straight – he actually was not consulted – Mr. Sagal asked about the two runner-ups.
“One was Miss California,” Mr. Axelrod cracked to the audience’s laughter.
—
“the same-sex marriage opponent ”
—
She distinctly stated she was not an opponent, but a proponent of traditional marriage.
Hey, it’s only our language.
…Or, was.
Liberal Taliban Issues Fatwa Against Miss California
Not even Dick Cheney can incite the blood-curdling rage of liberals at the sight of a sexy Evangelical Christian. Paula Jones, Katherine Harris, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and, most recently, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, have all come under a frenzy of attacks from liberals.
Christians are supposed to be fat, balding sweaty little men with bad complexions. It’s liberals who are supposed to be the sexy ones. (I know that from watching “The West Wing” and all movies starring Julia Roberts.)
But sadly for liberals, in real life, the fat, balding sweaty little guy with the bad complexion is Perez Hilton and the smoking-hot babe is Carrie Prejean.
This apparent contradiction incites violent anger in liberals, triggering their famous “fight or flight” response. So liberal masturbators are, once again, launching furious attacks on a beautiful Christian in a fit of pique similar to the one directed at Joan of Arc.
– Coulter
This time in real life, the fat, balding sweaty guy was Axelrod.
About that silly house over in Troy…
My guess is that some one turned off the power when it was closed for the winter: to save energy. Or if it was already winter – when they left for the night.
#19:
Marcus Aurelius: “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
The eastern world, it is exploding
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’
But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.
Don’t you understand what I’m tryin’ to say
Can’t you feel the fears I’m feelin’ today?
If the button is pushed, there’s no runnin’ away
There’ll be no one to save, with the world in a grave
[Take a look around ya boy, it's bound to scare ya boy]
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.
Yeah, my blood’s so mad feels like coagulatin’
I’m sitting here just contemplatin’
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation.
Handful of senators don’t pass legislation
And marches alone can’t bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin’
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin’
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.
Think of all the hate there is in Red China
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama
You may leave here for 4 days in space
But when you return, it’s the same old place
The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace
Hate your next-door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace
And… tell me over and over and over and over again, my friend
You don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction
Mm, no no, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.
New book out on LeMay:
When the Nukes went off, he said:
“I killed more than that in one night over Tokyo!”
Author points out not only how many Japanese and GI lives he probably saved,
but also that 250,000 Asians and Filipinos were dying EACH MONTH at the hands of the Japanese,
so Curtis was truly a weapon of mass benevolence.
The Family Dog.
AUDIO: NPR LIVE AUDIENCE LAUGHS UPROARIOUSLY…
There is an intelligence analysis method called “content analysis” where in much information is gleaned from open publications by ranking the topics by prominece and frequency of mention. I am sure there are many here who know the process well.
I am intrigued by the bullet point sequence of W’s basic post. As Trangbang 68 said…it don’t look good.
I used to enjoy listening to NPR back in the 1980s. Garrison Keilor was actually funny before he became famous for a few weeks.
Don’t know if he was turned into a deeply embittered sourpuss by the almost instantaneous dissolution of his marriage to a Danish woman. He had rhapsodized about the approaching nuptials for months and months, possibly torpedoing it, possibly idealizing it so no woman could live up to the elaborate fantasy he’d constructed; maybe he was hideously deeply humiliated by the instant self-destruct after he’d publicized the thing so much.
But maybe he just was turning into such a megalomaniac, believing that he was the new Mark Twain, the New Will Rogers, and the New Ed Sullivan all rolled into One Unmarried Scandinavian Agriculturalist. And no other human could stand to hear his voice one more monotonous second, unless they were another liberal monomaniac.
But he became just another piss-ant hack like Franken, whose comic skills rotted so badly he had to turn to crooked politics to keep working.
That’s it, folks. The Senate can become the official home for failed Liberal Comic Wannabees. Couldn’t do much worse for the country than it’s been doing for the last five decades, eh?
Dears, something happened at some point and we got all transferred to some alternate universe, we are truly in la-la land:
Lead pollution in the air stimulates the formation of ice particles in clouds. A team of scientists from the USA, Germany and Switzerland has found that particles containing lead are excellent seeds for the formation of ice crystals in clouds. This not only has a bearing on the formation of rain and other forms of precipitation but may also have an influence on the global climate. This is because the heat given off from the earth’s surface is more efficiently radiated into space by ice clouds (cirrus) with lead-containing particles than has been hitherto realized.
In comparison to clouds with a low lead content, clouds with a high lead content thus actually help cool the earth. Over the last twenty years, there has been a continuing decrease in the rate of anthropogenic lead emissions. This may mean that the greenhouse effect is now even more pronounced because lead-containing clouds once previously helped limit it.
What was one of the causes of the fall of Roman civilization… poisoning from lead plumbing?
How long before insane national leaderships start pumping particular lead into atmosphere?
OK, this must be it–there is this alien Azool and it wants to take over earth. One problem-humans. Solution — trigger new ice age which would depopulate large swatches of the planet and whatever manages to drift/remain in temperate areas would be reduced in a few generations by lead poisoning. It picks numerous goracles and subliminally suggests “ideas”. The beauty of it is that the stoopid humans will do that all by themselves, as long as it is wrapped in some “feel-good” doogoody pablum.
Indoctrinate the youth and then tell them to pay back for it, all 0ne needs to do is to frame it in some goody-feely blather. “Good li’l slaves, good li’l slaves”.
It reminds me the modus operandi of another Hussain regime where a family of an executed member was receiving bill for bullets or rope.
India thinks Pak N-sites already in radical hands
twobyfour:
That is indeed highly alarming.
How reliable do you assess Debka to be? During the early part of the Iraq war, I used to subscribe, but then I decided (perhaps wrongly) that they were too often “wrong”…
Jamie Irons
Jamie Irons/50
I dunno, I were always having a bucket of salt handy. But it is possible that this may be verifiable from another source. That is why I posted it, someone may know something. The second reason is WHAT-IF.
Debka has usually a good track on inside-Israel intel. Outside not that good, but India intel has good ties with Israeli intel, and who would know beside Hindus are Israelis.
The question in the context is not really if, but when.
twobyfour:
Thanks. Yes, I think your take strikes the right balance.
Jamie Irons
A word about economy:
Davidowitz: “If the consumer isn’t petrified, he or she is a damn fool.”
Dear two by four,
Thanks. Don’t need a weatherman to tell… etc.
Should the Times of India report linked courtesy of two-by-four be established to greater satisfaction, my previous blog lurking musical accompaniment will have to be upgraded from the previous little known but well loved “There’s A Bathroom On The Riiight” to the more red alert appropriate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbI0cMyyw_M
Other’s tastes may vary.
As well they should.
While of course, that circumstance is still permissible.
JMH:
Have you seen “Humbolt” the movie?
I have the DVD, but haven’t had a chance to watch it yet. Problem is, by the time the kids are in bed, I’m worn out myself.
What would the WH gain by taking her down?
Pelosi is an alternative power hub to Obama. That alone is enough to mark her for destruction. Not coincidentally, Jon Stewart has started to mock her (apparently, the woman who may be the most easily mockable person in America was never mocked… until now).
Obama is pre-emptively taking out a potential counter-power who also happens to be a loose canon. Every time she flaps her botoxed gums she risks tossing dirt on the Messiah’s white robes. He won’t be happy until all the leadership positions are filled with pure yes-men. Simple as that. And she’s such an imbecile that the takedown will be easy. But it’s so obvious that even Pelosi is suspecting that other Dems are behind it.
peterike/57
What amazes me how she walked into that trap, hook line and sinker, deer in the headlights style.