Is This The Last Week?

It's being widely reported that Russia says they are going to start fueling Iran's nuclear reactor a week from today, on 8/21. 

While most Americans are "sleeping in", paying attention to sports, and the usual crap, the mid-east is heating up.  In June, I posted a piece based on Donald Sensing's "Sense of Events" blog that noted many Israelis are expecting war soon.  Let's go over a few things that are approaching and tie them together.

First, there was that silly border skirmish between Israel and Lebanon when an Israeli team started trimming a tree.  Even the UN admits that tree is in Israel, not Lebanon.  What's going on?  Isn't it a common military tactic to probe your enemy?  Find what they respond to and how?  There is a lot of speculation that Israel intends to use the opportunity to reduce as much of their enemies as possible.  It is a matter of survival to them. 

Second, there is the next flotilla getting put together to try and break the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza (tons of supplies come in by land).  This will be this September.  This attempt will feature a boat named "Audacity of Hope", and among those coordinating is Bernadine Dorn, wife of Bill Ayers, and - at the very least - someone who has been closer to the president than anybody I've ever known.

Then there's Iran and this reactor.  Fueling this reactor complicates things for the Israelis.  If you bomb a reactor with fuel rods in it, you have a much more serious contamination problem than if it's not fueled.  It adds pressure to do something "while you still can". Iran has played a master game of delay, asking for negotiations, putting everyone off, all the while working as hard as they can to get the bomb.  Time is running out.

Remember this hour glass in "The Wizard of Oz"?

It's a Law of Debate and Argument in General

The weaker the facts of an argument, the more strident the tone.  Example #1, Rep Ed. Markey (D-Ass) who said,

“An iceberg four times the size of Manhattan has broken off Greenland, creating plenty of room for global warming deniers to start their own country," Markey said in a statement. “So far, 2010 has been the hottest year on record, and scientists agree arctic ice is a canary in a coal mine that provides clear warnings on climate." 

Uh, that would be false, false, and false for $300, Alex.

2010 has not been the hottest year on record.  That was 1934.  The second hottest year was 1998, and it has been cooling since then.  If the CRU "Climategate" scandal taught us anything, however, it's just how crappy that temperature record is.  You shouldn't trust it.

Second, arctic ice is not a "canary in a coal mine".  In the first place, arctic ice is more cause than effect in northern climate.  But the implication that something is "bad" about the arctic ice is just plain wrong.  This year has had both higher coverage than the ensemble average of the last 10 years, and it has had times with less ice coverage: it is now pretty much in the thick of the typical pattern, tracking hear 2005.  Nothing shocking going on here.

And third, this is not a disastrous iceberg.  The scientist who reported it is quoted as saying,

What the press is not widely reporting is that Professor Muenchow also said :

years of data on the glacier itself show that after this month’s event, the mass of ice is still, on average, discharging about the same amount of water it usually does – some 600 million cubic meters a year, or about 220,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. “Even a big piece like this over 50 years is not that significant.  It’s just the normal rate,” he said. Muenchow warns people not to jump to conclusions. “An event like this, this specific event, all flags go immediately up, ‘Oh, let’s explain this by global warming.’ I cannot support that,” he said. "  (emphasis added - GB)

So the large chunk of ice falling off Greenland is just one of those statistical flukes.  They're not going to all be the same size: some bigger, some smaller, and one of them is probably going to be really big.  (In my experience, people who aren't comfortable with statistics don't think of this obvious fact).  This is how glaciers work: the snow falls in the winter and the glacier grows downslope, where they break off or melt. Greenland has been pretty cold this summer, and that probably held this one together long enough for a big piece to break off.  

I can guess that Rep. Markey hasn't heard/doesn't care that Argentina is having their coldest winter in the last 50 years ("Colder than Antarctica!"), but Markey and the warmists won't talk about it.  If it's cold, it's just weather.  If it's anything else, it's climate change.  

Example #2 is that overstuffed "sex poodle" with the clogged "second Chakra" - Al Gore.  Gore was enraged (dare I say, engorged?) at the failure to pass the Crap and Tax bill.

Al Gore told a conference call of supporters tonight that, “this battle has not been successful and is pretty much over for this year.” Gore bitterly denounced the Senate and federal government stating several times, “The U.S. Senate has failed us” and “The federal government has failed us.” Gore even seemed to blame President Obama by emphasizing that “the government as a whole has failed us… although the House did its job. [emphasis added]”

 Just warming up, Gore went on to say,

... “the government was not working “as our founders intended it to” and laid more blame at the feet of fossil fuel interests who conducted a “cynical coordinated campaign” with “unprecedented funding” and “who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars just on lobbying.” He criticized “polluters” for “dumping global warming pollution into the atmosphere like it was an open sewer.”

"cynical coordinated campaign"?  "Open sewer?  No inflammatory rhetoric there!

Look, in Gore's case, I get it.  He's in it for the money.  He has made almost a billion dollars off this gig, and the gravy train is derailing.   It's hard to believe he takes it seriously and believes the tripe he's selling, since he certainly doesn't live what he preaches.  It's hard to imagine a divinity school dropout has the intellectual engine to understand the science, so he just parrots what he hears from the real criminals, guys like Hansen at NASA - who never met a temperature curve he couldn't adjust upward - and Mann at Penn State (the guy who invented a way to make any random data look like a Hockey Stick). 

In Markey's case, well, you just can't buy that kind of stupid.  No, wait.  We can.  We are paying him, after all.

Edited right after first post: some issues with the links fixed

It's August, Where Are the Hurricanes?

Back at the end of May, I commented on the NHC predictions of a busier than normal hurricane season.  Here we are in August - still about a month from the statistical peak of the season, and those predictions have not been borne out.  It would take a record-breaking September and October to come close to the NHC predictions.

Back in May, if you recall, people were predicting hurricanes would rip the repair ships off the BP Deep Water Horizons well, and throw that oil up onto the land.  Some speculated lightning strikes would ignite the oil and the coast would experience a flood that carried fire!  Epic disasters of Biblical proportions. 

We are up to tropical depression #5, which fizzled this afternoon and was pronounced dead without ever making tropical storm strength and getting a name.  This is the IR satellite photo from this morning.  Frankly, my cats have barfed up scarier looking things than that.

It shouldn't be a surprise that some of the leading hurricane research centers are in Florida: the National Hurricane Center in Miami and Florida State University.  At FSU, researcher Dr. Ryan Maue has been tracking the total amount of tropical cyclone activity (Accumulated Cyclone Energy - ACE) around the world.  He reports findings so far removed from the hype that it should make your head spin.

Global TC Activity remains at 30-year lows at least -- The last 24-months of ACE at 1090 represents a decrease from the previous months and a return to the levels of September 2009...Since Hurricane Katrina (August 2005) and the publication of high-profile papers in Nature and Science, global tropical cyclone ACE has collapsed in half. This continues the now 4-consecutive years global crash in tropical cyclone activity. While the Atlantic on average makes up about 10% of the global, yearly hurricane activity, the other 90% deserves attention and has been significantly depressed since 2007.

and the zinger that got me:

Northern Hemisphere year-to-date ACE is nearing 50% below normal. The Western North Pacific is at 17% of normal (or the past 30-year average).

17% of normal?  That's amazing!  If anything, we should be standing around wondering what happened to the tropical cyclones.  No one I know enjoys getting hit by one (well, no one enjoys the preparation and clean up although the storms can have some entertainment value) but they are a vital part of the global weather system, distributing heat and moisture from the tropics into the northern parts of the globe when summer tends to shut down circulation from higher latitudes to lower.  It is not entirely a joke when I say one of our main exports is humidity.

Dr. Maue's plot of ACE.  Note we are at levels not seen since the 1970s.  

I find this quite interesting.  I "grew up" as a homeowner in south Florida before the left end of that plot.  I don't recall any hurricanes in the early 1970s - I remember going through a few while growing up in Miami (Donna, Cleo, Betsey) and I remember David in 1979 - which was just a brush for us.  Betsey was in 1965, so that was 14 years with no storms.

In 2004, we had two direct-hit hurricanes here and a couple of swipes.  In 2005 we had a couple of brushes.  I don't count tropical storms, although the one we had last year, Fay, dropped more rain than all of the 2004 hurricanes combined.  2005 is just about the last peak of that chart.  The possibility of getting back to a decade or 15 year quiet time sounds good.  I suspect, though, that somewhere on Dr. Maue's website there's one of those disclaimers the stock brokers use, "past performance is no guarantee of future results".

Edited  8/12 for a dumb-o error.

About That Whole Global Economic Collapse Thingy - Part IV

It's starting.  Well, okay, it started a while ago.  It's shifting gears.  Moving onto that Teflon slope that's been greased. 

The Federal Reserve has announced it intends to use its massive real estate holdings to buy our own Treasuries, thereby monetizing our debt.  This is seriously bad stuff; so seriously bad that Bernanke swore to congress in 2009 that he'd never do that.  Nice to see a man of his word in action, idnit?  The New York Times has a decent descriptive piece on it.  The risk of a total collapse of the dollar and runaway hyperinflation has increased with this action.  It is hard for a bozo like me to assign a number to that risk, but it is certainly higher. 

First, Denninger fisks the Federal Open Market Committee minutes and translates them into Redneck (i.e., plain spoken English).

Then The Prudent Investor talks about what it all means. 

At the heart of all the economic troubles in the world today - from this to the problems with the Greek economy, the PIIGS, and the Japanese lost quarter century is a conflict of economic visions.  Virtually every government on the globe today is following a flavor of Keynesian economics, named for John Maynard Keynes.  The alternative view, typified by the Austrian school of economics (often credited to Ludwig Von Mises) is not followed by nations, as a general rule. There are, of course other prominent names on both sides.  Milton Friedman did much to discredit Keynesian economics, as did Friedrich Hayek. 

Here's what it all comes down to: what's a dollar worth?  In Austrian economics, a unit of currency has a backing of some kind; historically this has been a commodity that people value, such as a small amount of gold, or silver, although anything could be used.  The disadvantage to this system (in the eyes of politicians - and the history of this idea goes back beyond the Roman Empire) is that the money supply is fixed by the amount of that commodity.  In general, that supply never expands as fast as nations want.  A physical standard like gold requires fiscal discipline to live within a budget. In "modern" economics, currencies all float with respect to each other.  A dollar might trade for .80 Euro today; next week it might trade for 1.0 Euro, or 0.5.  The price is an indication of the globally felt trust in that currency. 

In all honesty, Keynes did not advocate the fiscal policy practiced in his name today.  Yes, he did advocate for government spending during recessionary phases of the business cycle, but he said governments shouldn't do that when times are good.  They should pay off their debts when good times bring more revenue.

It's worth noting that China has let it be known that they are working to back the yuan with gold.  They announced they own "a mere 1064 tonnes" of gold, sixth in the world and only 1.6% of their holdings.  With the trillion dollars they hold, they can buy a lot of the world's gold, and are likely to have a major affect on the price.  It seems they see the problems the rest of the world is having with Keynesian economics and want no part of it.

In passing, let me just note the Stupid party passed, and the Stupid president signed, their $26 Billion emergency funding for "teachers' jobs".  So the combined stimulus money of over $800 Billion didn't help, but 3.3% of that will?

An August Surprise? Maybe September or October?

Over the weekend, James Pethokoukis at Reuters ran a story enlarging on some rumors that have been going around for a while, rumors that the administration "is about to order government-controlled lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to forgive a portion of the mortgage debt of millions of Americans who owe more than what their homes are worth."  The estimate is that 20% of the mortgages in the US are "under water".  That's around 15 million mortgages with a total negative equity of $800 billion.

1) Republican leaders believe this is going to happen since GOPers and Democratic moderates in the Senate are unwilling to spend more taxpayer money on more stimulus. But such a housing plan would allow the White House to sidestep congressional objections and show voters it is doing something tangible about an economy that seems to be weakening.
2) Wall Street banks are alerting their clients privately to this possibility.

Go read it. 

Most people seem to realize this is a bad idea and are opposed to it.  It may be a bad idea, but it also may a be politically motivated idea - to get Stupid party voters to show up and vote for the Stupid candidates. Perhaps it could stem the tide that is running against them right now.  Giving Stupid people free money is a proven vote-getter.

Why is this a bad idea?  Let's start with the simplest question: where does this $800 billion come from?   We are deficit spending at a record pace, so it's can't simply come from taxes.  Sure, some will come from taxpayers today, but most of it either comes from selling bonds, which our children and grandchildren will have to pay back, or it will come from the creation of money from thin air, which will cause inflation now and for years to come.

What about the people who lived frugally, and well within their means?  Do they get rewarded by paying taxes to bailout the 20% who got stuck in a bubble market when the music stopped?  

There are always unintended consequences to every action a government takes.  In this case, the biggest benefit really flows to the bankers.  Everyone knows the banks are being hurt by having so many bad loans out there; so like the first stimulus program, and the TARP money, this goes to make the bankers.

And in return for bailing out the bankers, you get to enslave your children and their children to the government.  No, thanks.


We can't go on blowing bubble after bubble.  In general, stimulus programs are not capable of working - see The Broken Window Fallacy.  Something like the "cash for clunkers" can pull demand in from the future, but create a crash in the future.  You can't pull in demand forever: that requires infinite supplies.  It can't happen.  Japan has tried virtually everything we're trying, and they still have lost 20 years (it's not a lost decade - it's more like two decades). Watch the video on Japan at the National Inflation Association.  It will curl your hair. 

Meet The Zoo

A couple of months ago, I noted losing our cat to a long term illness.  It was a sad time, and many folks left warm comments.  Allow me to introduce the new extended clan.

It was plainly too quiet in the house, so a few weeks later we were drawn to the local pet rescue center, and after meeting her briefly, brought home Aurora.  Aurora, known most of the time as "Roar-ah", is 3 years old, and apparently a mix of Lynx-point and Lilac point Siamese. She is blue-eyed, with a fairly thick coat. 

She is playful and very interactive.  She's gradually warming to being held and petted, which seems like a new thing to her.  She originally had, and is still getting over, a tendency to cringe when you go to pet her.  I think she must have been abused to some amount.  There is a special place in Hell for someone who would abuse a small cat.  Someplace where they get a face full of 00buck every few seconds for eternity. 

The next week, we met Mojo.  We had originally gone to meet another cat, but somehow, Mojo got into my head and I knew we had to take him home instead.  Meet Mojo.

Mojo is his given name, but we mostly just call him Moe.  Or Moe-man.  Or Moe-cephus, Moe-regard, Moe-ritius... you get the point.  Moe has an outrageous personality and is just a lot of fun.  He's the kind of cat who has to check out everything.  He opens cabinets, opens drawers, and hates closed doors.  Today, I found him on top of the tallest piece of furniture in the house, with a satisfied look on his face. He is not really fond of being carried or held, but has crawled all over us and licked us like a puppy.  Moe is also 3 years old.  And, yes, he is pure white with lots of pink skin showing, and golden-eyes. 

Moe's favorite place to sleep - on Mrs. Graybeard's pillow.  Or her head.

I'd like to say that they get along perfectly, but there is some jealousy - mostly on Moe's part.  I think the basic problem is he was a single cat in a home with a family (which he lost), while she was in multi-cat household.  He is just not used to sharing attention with anyone.  He will be sleeping quietly, then have to get up and go swat Roar-a.  I have seen her swat him, but not lately.  They have a tendency to alternate sleep periods, which helps.

So that's the latest in Castle Graybeard (a reference for those in the age groups that remember Castle Grayskull - as viewer or parent of viewer).  Never a dull moment. 

Count Me In

Thanks to Brigid, I found this little mission going on:

Struck me as an easy, small thing to do, so off to the big e-tailer (home of the smiley-face boxes) I went, on a quest to find some yo-yos to send off.  Had a weird experience where the page said one price ($2.something) and when I put a dozen in my cart they came in at another ($4.something).  Had to do some stuff, came back to the computer and the $2.something price was gone.  To make the long story short, I went and found an online yo-yo shop (isn't the net wonderful?) and 10 are on the way.  Well, they will be as soon as they ship - supposedly Monday. 

I can't say I recommend this shop because my experience with them consists of an online order that I haven't received, yet, but if you're adventurous, you can go try YoYoPlay.com 

(And, really, if you don't visit Brigid's Home on the Range, you're missing one of the highlights of the Internet gun culture.  Mrs. Graybeard and I both visit a few times a week; Mrs. GB says that Brigid's recipes are a treasure, and are clearly written by and for someone who already knows how to cook well.) 

"First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Lawyers"

Said to be from Wm. Shakespeare, in Henry VI.

I guess most of us have heard some of the stories of people who make a living suing stores and restaurants.  Kind of a traveling circuit, going from store to store, faking a fall and starting a lawsuit.  They are, of course, supported by a cottage industry of lawyers who take these suits.

The business plan has expanded to suing over the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA.  From Walter Olson at the Cato Institute: 

It’s an open scandal, especially in states like California that offer enhanced penalties or liberal procedural rules, that serial complainants and their lawyers carve out profitable practices visiting dozens or hundreds of businesses and leveling ADA complaints that they then settle for cash.

Enter the case of one Mr. Antonineti vs. Chipotle in the 9th Circus, perhaps the most liberal court in the US.

...where a panel including Judge Reinhardt ruled that Chipotle's business model of allowing customers watch their burritos being made at 45-inch-high counters violated the ADA because the counters were too high for those in wheelchairs to watch. (Chipotle instead would take ingredients to a customer's table, and even let the wheelchair-bound taste them from serving cups.)

The 9th Circus overturned a lower-court ruling that tried to stop the business model of suing companies over imagined ADA offenses.  The district court had noted:

Antoninetti's "history as a plaintiff in accessibility litigation supports this Court's finding that his purported desire to return to the [r]estaurants is not sincere. Since immigrating to the United States in 1991, Plaintiff has sued over twenty business entities for alleged accessibility violations, and, in all (but one) of those cases, he never returned to the establishment he sued after settling the case and obtaining a cash payment."

I'm sure that people who read my writings realize this is not a "victimless crime", and no crime that goes after every business and insurance company is victimless.  We all pay for it, whether it's the ever-present warning label on everything, or the disappearance of products we grew up with?  Something I hear all the time is how much harder is to find land to hunt on, or rockhound on, or set a telescope up on, or put a shooting range on...  Remote locations that people used to go to are shut down as the land owners react to the fear of lawsuit.

It's not just this sort of suit.  Since we have an overpopulation of lawyers, they are evolving new business plans centered on pretty much suing everyone about everything.  To quote the original (Cato) article again:

As a phenomenon, the ADA filing mill has much in common with other forms of baleful legal “entrepreneurship” such as patent trollery, mass “citizen suit” filings against small businesses and school districts over paperwork lapses, and — the most recent to emerge — copyright mills such as the recently formed RightHaven, which has begun to acquire the rights to old newspaper articles and then mass-file lawsuits demanding thousands of dollars from bloggers, mom and pop businesses, and others who’ve ill-advisedly reprinted the articles online without permission.

Gee - an overpopulation of lawyers.  And what do state game commissions do when there's an overpopulation of any other scavenger?  Pay bounties for carcasses?

I'm just sayin'....

New From People's Automotive Collective Number 1!!

Is that what we call them?  Government Motors?  Barack Motor Works??  Whatever we call them, I give you the Chevy Volt Song and Dance! 



(don't laugh - you're paying for it)  Seriously, could this be any dumber? 

About 5 years ago, I bought my current car, a Toyota Matrix.  It's a conventional gas engine, and gets around 28 mph in my city/highway mix.  At the time, the Prius was the darling of the market; while I was at the local car store, I even saw an elderly gentleman come up the counter and inquire about getting one.  He was told there was a one year waiting list! 

Naturally, being a techno-geek, I had to ask myself how much they cost and how much I'd save with their superior gas mileage.  This is a simple analysis: the Corolla costs $17,000 and gets 28 mpg.  The Prius costs $23,000 and gets 50 mpg.  How many miles would you have to drive per year to save that extra $6000 in gas over the course of a four year car loan?  Any middle school algebra student could set this up.  This depends on the price of gas, so let's assume a value higher than we're paying now, say $3/gallon for regular. 

The answer is just about 32,000 miles per year, or 128,000 miles of driving is required to save the selling price difference in gas.  If you put more than 32,000 miles on your car in a year, the Prius makes sense.  If you drive the national average of about 12,000 miles, it takes over 10 years to break even.  That's a bad investment.  By that time, other costs, like replacing those batteries, will be a bigger concern. 

With the volt, one side of the question is simpler.  Let's assume you can live with a car that gets 40 miles on a charge; you live less than 20 miles each way to work, and you won't drive more than 40 miles in a day on a weekend.  The question here is how much gas equals the cost difference of that $18,000 for a conventional car vs the $33,000 for volt - how much is $15,000 of gas?  Using $3/gallon, again, that's 5000 gallons of glass.  At 28 mpg, that's 140,000 miles worth of driving.  So if you buy a conventional gas engine car with a typical mileage, it will not pay for you to get that Volt unless you drive over 140,000 miles in a reasonable amount of time.  The life of your loan - 4 or 5 years - seems like a good time period to make it pay. 

The harder part to answer is just how much it will cost you to "fill it up" from your wall outlet.  You remove the gas you're burning in your car and turn it into coal or natural gas at the local power station.  I simply have no data on how the costs compare, so this limit of cost above is "at best".  It will cost you more to run your Volt than the $0.00 I assume.  It certainly costs the collective, um, community more.  If everyone switched to using electric cars, many more power plants would have to be built (as I pointed out elsewhere, the smart grid doesn't fix this - it makes their life easier, not yours). 

That limit of 40 miles on a charge seems to put the Volt in the category of over-priced toy.  Possibly useful as a second car, possibly useful as a house-sized UPS for after the SHTF (or latest hurricane). Not really useful as a car, though. Most useful as a status symbol to tell people who don't even know you how environmentally responsible you are.   

Bad dance for a bad car.  I guess they go together well. 

Made of Win

I'm a home-shop machinist, and one of the things many machinists make are metal 3D puzzles called burr puzzles.  Lots of guys make them.  Typically brass bronze and aluminum, I have seen them made with precious metals. 

This one's different, though, from Gizmodo:

It has a gun, a single shot, muzzle loaded 45, buried inside that design.  Watch the video.  Full screen. 

It's by one of the masters of this are, GarE Maxton.  His web page is worth a visit. 

Solar Flare Perspectives

It must be a slow news cycle for people (in this case Fox News) to be putting out headlines like this:

Solar Tsunami to Strike Earth

I know there's a lot of talk of the damage a solar flare can do, including burning out the power grid and generally making it seem like we've been nuked.  And a really big flare can do that.  The biggest flare ever recorded actually killed some people, in the early days of land telegraph.  The long straight wires (something new in all of history) picked up energy from the flare and shocked some telegraphers. 

Not this one.  If you want to look for that size flare, set the alarm for a few years from now (here's the kicker: nobody knows when).

See, solar flares vary over orders of magnitude in size.  The smallest go from C1 to C10.  Next up, M class flares also go from a 1 to a 10.  Finally, the biggest flares are X class or X-ray flares.  There's no top to that scale, but in the peak of the last solar cycle, back around 2003, X class flares were hitting every month.  An X10 flare hitting directly can make auroras visible in the southern US.  A monumental flare in 2003 made them visible in north central Florida.  I have heard a big flare in the previous cycle (1990s) caused an aurora visible in the Caribbean. 

This flare was a C3.  This was pretty, it was neat to look at, but the most it's going to do for us is move some auroras a little farther south than usual, and maybe add some static to the shortwave bands.  If you're in the northern part of the country, or Canada or such, enjoy the show.  Seeing a good aurora display is on my bucket list! 

The Left is Like A Fungus

It just never quits looking for a place to push in and grow.  Sort of like chronic jock itch.  It's why they've successfully marched through the institutions and now dominate education, the media and so many other aspects of life.

Boston Latin is regarded as one of the finest secondary schools in the US.  The founding of this school dates back to 1635, just one year before Harvard.  Founding fathers such as Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock attended.  

Today the "Youth Climate Action Network" wants to destroy it in the name of making it an "Avant Garde Sustainability Curriculum".  Go read. and hat tip to the Gormogons.  

The mentality these students have already learned is that when you are in the planet-saving business, you pay for your schemes with someone else's money, just as the Obama administration pays for its current spending sprees. Just as all government pays for anything.  "Unfazed by the hefty price tag." Indeed.

"If the only goal were reducing energy costs, it might make the most sense to cover the roof with solar panels." In other words, if you need to reduce energy costs, the solution is to install the world's most expensive, least efficient energy source in a northern city with limited sunshine. 

I know I'm not the first person to say this, but isn't your first responsibility as a teacher of physics or chemistry to actually teach physics or chemistry?  Isn't this like teaching a second or third level class without teaching the fundamentals?  Maybe you teachers are bored and want to make your job seem more "relevant", so let me offer some advice from an old guy who sometimes finds work boring: quit your job and get another one; don't destroy the students' little skulls full of mush!

After attending Boston Latin, you'll be able to join the other useless, smug hippies

Don't Get Too Excited About the November Elections

Harry Reid and a Blobfish - Reid's the one with the glasses.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is said to be in trouble and may not be re-elected.  Indeed, pundits are predicting the Stupid Party might well break the iron-clad majorities the Evil Party currently holds in both houses. 

I wouldn't get too excited about that.  Congress is almost irrelevant. 

Every President has had executive assistants, and while I understand the use of the term Czar originated under Richard Nixon - for John Love as Energy Czar - it is pretty pointless to debate who had the most czars.  After all, if you want someone else to have more, just call your appointees "special adviser" or something - standard practice is "change the words, not the reality".  Presidents issue Executive Orders all the time, and in general deference to the position, incoming presidents don't usually just cancel existing orders. 

But it goes beyond that.  It really doesn't matter if the Senate won't pass a Crap and Trade bill, the EPA is poised to do it as executive regulation.  In a characteristic moment of "journo-list" buried candor, candidate Obama said "prices would necessarily skyrocket." under his Cap and Trade system.  Since that isn't politically likely to pass, EPA can regulate it and we're all hosed anyway.  Remember, the kinds of CO2 reductions the AGW folks call for are beyond merely draconian; you could take every car off the road and come nowhere near achieving that they want.  There are numbers and sample calculations in my post "Imagine There is Man Made Global Warming"  I concluded with this paragraph I'd like to remind everyone of:

And that's the dirty, stupid little secret.  Imagine there really is manmade global warming.  Use their numbers.  Calculate how much effect you would have on temperatures by virtually destroying everyone and everything you now know or ever have known, and it has no effect at all.

Illegal immigration is among the most contentious issues between us and the Ruling Class.  The last time a "comprehensive immigration reform" bill came up, callers shut down the capital phone systems insisting there be no amnesty.  Don't worry, they'll do it by executive order:  ABC News reports "Obama 'Scheming' on Immigrant Amnesty? " The source document, an internal memo says:

"administrative relief options to… reduce the threat of removal for certain individuals present in the United States without authorization."
"In the absence of comprehensive immigration reform," it reads, "USCIS can extend benefits and/or protections to many individuals and groups by issuing new guidance and regulations."

As usual, they're backing away from this faster than from a turd in the punch bowl.  It's just brain-storming.  Just thinking of ways to address the problem.  Rrriiiight.  In a time when there is almost total blackout of news about the Mexican drug wars and their impact here?  Rrrriiiight. 

These are shining examples of why the approval rating of congress is at 11%, and is dead last in trusted public institutions.  It's also a good example of why we shouldn't get all excited about changing the trash out in Washington.

“Politicians and diapers both need changing regularly and for the same reason.” Mark Twain

Straightening Out Some of the Daily Lies

Let's get a couple of things straight, here.  Yeah, this post is going to end up with a lot of "me, me", but so what? 

While I am happily a Christian (non-denominational, so leftists would automatically say "fundamentalist nut job"), I have Jewish ancestry.  My mom was born Jewish, and although her kitchen is about as Kosher as mine is, and I know much more Torah than she does, she considers herself Jewish.  I figure that's between God and her; believe me, I've tried.  My closest family was not in Europe at the time of the Holocaust; at least, none that I've ever heard of.  The first Americans on both sides of my family came in the great wave of immigration that marked the early 20th century: my mom's side came from the Ukraine and my father's side from Italy; I'm second generation.  So imagine my surprise, sitting in my mom's house, 25 to 30 years ago, when a friend comes over and I see the tattoo on her inner forearm: the familiar string of digits of an Auschwitz camp survivor.  This was a woman I knew by name for years, a friend of one of my aunts, but had not met - I was already an adult living out on my own. 

Mrs. Graybeard and I have talked about how affected we were of the images from the Holocaust as we were growing up.  To this day, I almost reflexively weep at them.  I know it's not a simple step from a story like this to it happening again, but NOT ON MY WATCH.  I don't care if you're Mahmood frickin' Ahmadinejad or some pseudo-call-yourself-a-christian KKK asshole, I will kill you if it comes to that.  I stand by Israel. 

A friend sent me a PowerPoint slideshow about what life was like in the 1940s, done to jaunty Benny Goodman music.  One page made me stop and shudder.  I have seen this photograph before and seeing it to Benny Goodman was just wrong.  It is extremely, painfully sad; this poor man, the "last Jew in Vinnitza" - what's he thinking?  Here he sits with his coat neatly in his lap as if he's waiting for a train, or an appointment.  He can clearly see the pile of bodies before him, so he must know what's coming, but he doesn't appear to be praying, nor crying, nor fighting for the last minutes of life.  Would you do that?  Would you sit there stoically?  If you know you're going to die anyway, would you try to at least bruise your executor?  If you're going to die anyway, wouldn't you at least try?

We are in a time like predicted in 2 Timothy 3: "There are difficult times ahead. As the end approaches, people are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting, stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse, dog-eat-dog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic to God. They'll make a show of religion, but behind the scenes they're animals. Stay clear of these people." (translation "The Message")

This is as good a description as you'll ever find of the "Social justice" crowd and black liberation theologists who are currently trying to influence public life.  There is no place in scripture that says salvation isn't a personal commitment and a personal confession to God.  That's the whole point of it!  Saying there's such thing as group salvation, as our President has claimed, is like your psychologist saying your mother is your problem, so send her in for therapy and you'll be fine.  Never quite works that way, does it? 

Aren't we supposed to be charitable?  Of course!  But there's a vast, vast difference between me giving to my neighbor out of the kindness of my heart and the government taking by force (government is always force, remember?) to give to whomever they deem to give to.  In this case, it's literally the difference between Heaven and Hell. 

Glenn Beck has talked about this, and drawn flack from it from people who claim to be Christian.  They are wrong and Glenn's right.  I wouldn't change my opinion on that if a well-regarded Christian scholar, like the Pope, were to come out and say Glenn's wrong, but he doesn't either.  The Pope says "social justice" is demonic.  This is life or death serious.  If your church is talking group salvation or social justice, they are deceived.  Find another church.   

The social justice folks are like the people Paul wrote about in his letter to the Romans (Romans 1: 21..) "Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. The result was that their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they became utter fools instead….Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies." 

The entire purpose of the first amendment to constitution, the vaunted separation of church and state, is to prevent the kind of nonsense scripture they're plugging here.  Black liberation theology is Marxist at its core.  Excuse me, but the only way a white person can achieve salvation is by giving back to the colored races what we took?  First off, it shows a deplorable, stifling ignorance of history; many, many nations and virtually every group has been enslaved at some time in the last 10,000 years.  Didn't these guys ever read the Old Testament?  Second off, there isn't a person living who has injured another or been injured by another through slavery in this country - the institution was outlawed over a hundred years ago.  As I said a few paragraphs ago, my family wasn't even in this country when the "Original Sin" of slavery was being committed, and you'll find the vast majority of the rest of country wasn't here, either. 

But even worse than that, when the Government provides all, it makes people dependent on them.  It makes us all slaves to the Government.  Black Liberation Theology and Social Justice movements seek to create slaves, not free men.  God wants free men and free will.  God wants individual choice and individual liberty.  They seek to create addicts dependent on the "Beneficent Government" for their very existence.  Is there a worse category of slave master? 

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy." - Winston Churchill. 

Jim Wallis, Rev. Cone (who founded black liberation theology), Jeremiah Wright, and - yes - Barack Obama, are advocating a position that has more in common with the people who ran the gas chambers and mass graves in Vinnitza than with the Pope. 

QoTD

I am a warrior. I will not quit. I will not give in. I am a survivor and I WILL survive. And when the angel of death comes knocking at my door, I may be taken, by force, BUT bet your ass that sissy bitch will go home bruised, beaten, broken wings and deflowered.

MikeH over at Behind the Parapet.  Go read the whole Warrior Spirit series.  

How's That Whole "Most Transparent Administration" Thing Working for You?

It has not been widely reported, but the FrankenDodd financial reform bill that just was signed into law has removed the Securities Exchange Commission - the SEC - from public scrutiny.  They say they are no longer are required to respond to Freedom of Information Act inquiries. 

This is a bad thing.

Remember Bernie Madoff ?  (a name that seems to come from the Ministry of Truth itself - I mean, come on ... a big swindler who made off with a bunch of money, named Madoff???)  The stories in the aftermath of the Madoff scandal said the SEC was alerted to him several times, but they were too stupid to do anything?  More here.  And here (you've noticed these are all evil, right-wing news sources?)

Markopolos said the SEC is in need of a major overhaul. Senior managers should be replaced, lawyers should be separated from financial investigators, and the agency should hire employees who have years of Wall Street experience, he said.

The SEC has never been particularly well known for transparency.  As Denninger says,

Oh, by the way, this would mean that a Madoff or Stanford "thing" would leave the SEC immune from FOIA requests by the Press (including the "mainstream" along with media folks like myself) to discover whether they had effective and early notice that they intentionally ignored.

Isn't that convenient, given that they did exactly that with Madoff and, it can be argued, Stanford as well?

Indeed, the SEC, The Fed, and Treasury have all tried to refuse compliance with FOIA requests into the backstories of the financial meltdown.

There have been successful lawsuits against the Fed, in particular, with judges ordering them to release information, and they have steadfastly refused.  Quoting Denninger again:

FOIA requests that could (and in some cases have, when they were forced to be complied with via lawsuits) reveal double-dealing, "sweetheart" treatment, and even willful blindness that, in many people's opinion (including mine) reaches the level of intentional collusion that, in a private context, would lead to civil and/or criminal racketeering charges.

I got your transparency right here!

When you consider how much disdain this ruling class shows for you, me and the rule of law, how much longer until something breaks?

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.  - H L Mencken

Today's A Good Day for Wasting Time

Sitting around waiting for the antibiotics to kick in well enough so the fever and aches go away.  A good day for mindlessly surfing.

You are 0% hippie.

 

Ok, you conservative soul.  Do you even believe in global warming?  Loosen that necktie a little, and try some organic food.  It actually does taste better.  And go to a farmer's market--they're fun.

Are you a hippie?
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As a matter of fact, I don't "even believe in global warming" - in the mass media/over-hyped sensationalist version we get from the pols. 

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Science/Math Nerd   (Absolute Insane Laughter as you pour toxic chemicals into a foaming tub of death!) Well, maybe you aren't this extreme, but you're in league with the crazy scientists/mathmeticians of today. Very few people have the talent of math and science is something takes a lot of brains as well. Thank whosever God you worship, or don't worship, so thank no deity whatsoever in your case, for you people! Most of us would have died off without your help.
Literature Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
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Summer in Florida

When we first got an HDTV a few years ago, Mrs. Graybeard and I naturally spent most of our TV time watching HD programming.  One of the first movies we watched was "The Chronicles of Riddick".  You have to understand this is not even really good scifi.  It's a fun movie, it's a visual treat, it's a fantastic display of special effects perfect for HD, but don't pay too much attention.  To quote a review I read, "Furyans, Necromongers, Elementals, The Underverse, the Threshold...it so clearly wants to be epic that it forgets to tie all of these disparate worlds, universes and civilizations into a coherent story. (Director) Twohy clearly makes the mistake of not realizing that there is a huge difference between being grand and being simply confusing and the more ideas that are introduced, the more lumbering it becomes…"  

A large portion of the movie, and one of the longest action sequences, takes place on the planet Crematoria (yes, all the names in the movie are that cheesy) .  Crematoria is a planet that has a tremendous temperature variation (probably an impossible amount) with daytime temperatures of 700C and night time temperatures far below zero.  When the sunrise terminator sweeps through, the force of the heat gales that come with it are literally enough to blow you apart, disintegrating flesh and blowing pieces off until you die.  There's a scene where a character (Purifier) destroys himself by walking into the sunrise terminator and self-immolating. 

The first time I saw that scene, I said, "We've been out bike riding on that day".  Mrs. Graybeard said, "I know I've been on the Causeway that day". 

And that's what life in Florida is like in the summer; here in Central Florida, it's August plus or minus a week or two.  Stay out of the sun.  Do your outdoor stuff near sunrise or sunset.  Don't expose bare skin to the sun for longer than necessary - and even then, use sunscreen (SPF 3 million is adequate) if you need to be out for any length of time.  And thank God everyday for air conditioning.

70 Years Ago Today

Thanks to a link on I Own The World we learn that in 1940, on this day, Bugs Bunny's cinema debut took place in the "short film" A Wild Hare.   So here's something completely different from my normal blog fodder.



I can't tell you how many wonderful memories of Looney Tunes I have - and not just as a child.

Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, another of my favorites:



Alas, they don't make 'em like this any more!   

Communists and Other Idiots

Not feeling well tonight.  Short post and going to bed really early.  Not sick because of it, but I tried reading "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way The Wind Blows", link courtesy of Glenn Beck. 

You've heard of turgid prose - the web site for the annual "worst writing" contest?  This is more like rotten, foetid prose.  Written in the venacular of the 60's radicals, it is the worst crap I have ever tried to read.

Seriously, I can't imagine how anyone with an IQ above the freezing point of water could fall for this crap.

We are within the heartland of a worldwide monster, a country so rich from its worldwide plunder that even the crumbs doled out to the enslaved masses within its borders provide for material existence very much above the conditions of the masses of people of the world.

I take that back.  Anyone with an IQ above the freezing point of water expressed in degrees C.

This is a shining example of why people with degrees in the hard sciences tend to disregard the poli-sci majors, not even classifying them as highly as pets or farm animals.  Except for the usual bunch:  Ass Buttstain, Dr. Berwick (who, honest to God, says increased supply raises prices), John Holdren.  Moe-rons like that. 

Thoughts on "Everyone Needs to Read This"

The other day, I posted a link to the great article by Angelo Codevilla  in the American Spectator, America's Ruling Class and the Perils of Revolution. There is a lot of buzz about this among the conservative and libertarian blogs, in particular this interesting piece on Chicago Boyz. They also wrote an introductory piece here. I believe both articles are worth the time to read, but let me pull a couple of points from the first.

Though starting out with the observation that they don't particularly agree with all of Codevilla's article, they are largely in agreement on the observable facts:

What is hard to deny though, is that Codevilla is pointing a finger at a visceral problem of a self-aware ruling class in the process of ossifying and separating itself culturally and legally away from and over the ruled – an alien thing in American history. Something the ancient Greeks as well as the Founding Fathers would recognize as an “oligarchy“, a threat to democratic self-government and constitutional liberties.

....

Our oligarchy is in its newborn infancy, but it is hungry for power, venal in its corruption, covetous of security, impatient of democratic accountability and intolerant of dissent. Beware of legislative moves, cloaked in high-sounding phrases, to regulate speech, circumscribe criticism of public officials, grant police powers to private corporations like BP, tax farm the many to benefit the few, and generally exclude the public from important policy decisions by making citizen participation in governmental process more complex, opaque, indirect, financially burdensome and personally risky.  (editor's note:  I believe I can see examples of everything he quotes here)

Using this as background, the question in the second article is, "so what do we do?"  Can we defeat this self-established oligarchy, or are we destined to sink into a third-world, banana republic status?  There is much evidence we are perilously close, if not already there.  Can it be done at the ballot box, or is the cartridge box the only way out?  Is it as Billy Beck says, "All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war."?

Allow me to enter my thoughts.

First, we are very far behind the curve in this.  Busy with our jobs and lives, we've lived in condition white with regard to the politicians, electing the least offensive and asking them to do their jobs honestly.  This takeover has been going on for a long time.  In a way, it's almost pointless to ask how we got here, at least for now; we're here.  We're in the equivalent position of a kid walking to her car with her iPod playing, or on the phone, oblivious to her surroundings, then suddenly looking up and seeing a half dozen guns pointed at her.  We have a more important problem than how we got here.  Pardon the crudeness, but she knows she's getting raped, she has to work out if she survives.  I see the "Country Class" - the non-ruling class - in exactly that position.

Second, while we can't think the stupid party (R) is going to save us from the evil party (D), we probably need to shift to that party simply because the gang rape goes slower, giving us a longer time to search for a way out.  My default position, like most of you, is "vote out the incumbent", unless I know better for some reason. 

Third: the national political parties are not your friend.  Neither R, nor D.  The local scene is where the counter attack has to begin.  Back in the 2004 election cycle, I sent some money to the national party (Stupid side).  It wasn't big as contributions go, but I thought I might help the cause.  By the end of 2004, I was convinced they had spent my entire contribution asking me for more.  Seeing such bad stewards of the money, I vowed not to give to them again.  I have, though, contributed to candidates I think are worthwhile. 

Fourth:  we need to start spreading the messages about how far from the constitutional republic we have strayed, and the truth about big government.  Look at this piece of propaganda.  We have to counter it. 

Don't look at me on this: I'm obviously not capable of writing less than 1000 words on any subject and I couldn't draw a cartoon to save my life.  Advertising guys ought to be experts at saying catchy things in the fewest words possible.  This cartoon will influence people, and the message can almost fit on a bumper sticker.  We make fun of people who go around quoting bumper sticker phrases, but a good message should be something you can put on a bumper sticker. 

Finally, an observation from the Boyz:

...if you are the type of person who reads and understands Codevilla-like analysis, yet don’t ever consider running for office, then I think you might start to see the scope of the task ahead of us.  Look who you are leaving the political field to when you – and others like you – don’t even consider running, working your precinct, or encouraging other good people to do so.

It's true that we have an awful system that seems to select for the very worst people to run for office - another situation where we don't have the luxury of worrying how we got this way.  There's a story, probably apocryphal, that a person wrote an advice columnist asking how to do genealogy research on a budget.  The answer was "run for office".  I have read that under the current campaign finance laws, Reagan could have never gotten his campaign together - it took too long to raise the funds.  We are selecting for rich people willing to spend their entire net worth to be our candidates.  Somehow, I don't think the pool to select from is very big. 

The Boyz' column suggests, as many have, that we have the time to go through a few election cycles to right things.  I don't agree here.  When the laws that have passed since 2009 go into full force, by 2012, the republic is arguably gone.  We become nothing but a cow to be milked by the ruling class.  We need to get a truly obstructionist congress in place that won't let a single law get passed by the President.  Not.  Even.  One.  Even at that, with the network of czars that he has in place, the congress may be irrelevant and everything will be done by executive fiat.  After all, if they can go through the year without issuing a budget, a constitutional requirement, how relevant is congress?

John F. Kennedy once said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."  That is the course we are inexorably on if the Ruling Class continues to shut down dissent, close access to discussion, pass laws opposed by the majority of the country, or create their society by executive orders.  

I'm Seriously Glad They're on Our Side

We all have our perspectives in life that others may not exactly agree with.  I happen to be madly in love with the A-10 Warthog.  I could write pages on this beauty.  Srsly.  If "form follows function" is a workable definition of beauty in engineering, this is one of the most beautiful planes ever made.  It is also extremely well-designed for its mission. 

But don't take my word.  Check out this excellent article on the beauty. 

If you're a tank driver, and you learn A-10s are coming, leave.  Or die.  Your choice.

Everyone Needs to Read This

There's an Article in The American Spectator that is seriously good reading.  "America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution 

This was published recently, and has been recommended a few times.  It's seriously good reading, and seriously important reading.

A Problem and a Symptom of Something Bigger

The story broke today that under the health care act (Obamacare) a tax increase was put in place that will severely impact small businesses; in this case, especially gold coin dealers.  It has gotten some attention around from Mike at Sipsey Street Irregulars (one of my everyday reads), but not as much attention as it deserves.

First, this law affects every small business transaction over $600 per year, so if you're a pizza shop and buy $750 worth of flour and tomatoes or whatever, both parties have to fill out an IRS form 1099.  This is an absurdly low amount and almost at the level of requiring a 1099 for every small business transaction.  If you buy a central air conditioner for your house, the contractor and the supplier he buys from will both have to fill them out. 

Section 9006 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will amend the Internal Revenue Code to expand the scope of Form 1099. Currently, 1099 forms are used to track and report the miscellaneous income associated with services rendered by independent contractors or self-employed individuals.

Gold coin dealers are concerned because, with gold prices at around $1175, a sale of a single coin to a single person gets a 1099 form.  In the case of a dealer selling to an individual, the way I read this, only the seller fills out the form.

Starting Jan. 1, 2012, Form 1099s will become a means of reporting to the Internal Revenue Service the purchases of all goods and services by small businesses and self-employed people that exceed $600 during a calendar year. Precious metals such as coins and bullion fall into this category and coin dealers have been among those most rankled by the change. 

One dealer says,

(he) estimates that he'll be filling out between 10,000 and 20,000 tax forms per year after the new law takes effect.

It's important to recognize this isn't a tax on gold coin transactions.  It is a tax on every small business transaction there is.  I'm a fan of the axiom "that which can't continue won't continue".  Prices for everything sold in the country can be affected - so they will be.  If it suddenly costs a company an extra $100 for Mrs. Ferdburger's air conditioner, that cost - by definition - gets passed on to Mrs. Ferdburger.  In the gold coin realm, you can now buy a single American gold eagle for around $75 over spot.  That will go up to reflect the higher costs for the sellers. 

That ought to wipe out any semblance of an economic recovery.  Every item that costs over $600 per year to sell will go up in price.  That pretty much covers everything north of Wrigley's gum in price, for even a corner store. 

It seems easy to predict that supplies of some items will go away, or they'll become hard to find. It won't necessarily be precious metals.   There is an opportunity for some software company that can automate this process and help keep form 1099-related costs down to make a lot of money. 

That's the problem.  The symptom is that this tax attack was not in a tax bill, it was in Section 9006 of the Health Care Bill.  How many more turds are buried in there?  What about the similarly sized financial bill that just passed?  How many turds in there?  There are predictions of hundreds of rules that have to be created to implement just the finance bill.  What about the stimulus plan?  Did you hear the Stimulus plan, one of the first thing the regime passed, includes a government plan to monitor your body mass index?   What does that have to do with economic stimulus?  When you pass 2000 page laws that are more like cat litterboxes than legislation, don't be surprised if you find turds in them. 

This is one reason to side with those who say we can't vote our way out of this mess.  You can't sue to stop Obamacare; you need to tear up all 2200 pages, close down all of the bureaucracies that opened, and send all those new government employee droids home.  Ain't gonna happen by electing the elephants.  

It's like going to the doctor for some annoying problem and discovering it's a symptom of cancer.  This administration is more hostile to American life than anything I can compare to.  They're a cancer to the US. 

The soon-to-be much more expensive American Eagle

About That Whole Global Economic Collapse Thingy - Part III

(See part II - especially the first paragraph)

I don't believe I've ever posted a link to a commentary from Kitco.com, but this one, by Clive Maund, is worth reading.

I relate this story to you because most market commentators right now are ..... - “Don’t worry, everything is going to be alright, earnings have recovered and companies are paying dividends - the stock market has recouped most of its 2008 losses so everything’s back to normal - that drop in 2008 was just an aberration and now everything’s back to normal and its business as usual.” According to our interpretation of the charts if you fall for this spin you are going to get seriously fleeced in short order, and this could also apply to those who listen to the siren calls of those exhorting the virtues of Precious Metals stocks at this time. So let’s make this as clear as possible - if there is another market crash soon as expected, investors are going to do what they always do, which is go into blind panic and toss almost everything overboard, and that can be expected to include gold, silver and PM stocks. Yes, we fully understand that the fiat money system is rapidly approaching its nemesis and that gold is the ultimate safe haven and is set to soar as currencies become worthless, but that won’t help it much short-term during the crash phase, which is likely to result in a heavy reaction in gold back probably to its long-term uptrend support line. Silver will be treated as a base metal and will plunge precipitously as in 2008, which it is now perfectly set up to do. PM stocks will tank and many PM stock investors will be devastated as their cheerleaders slink into the shadows. All of this looks very, very close.

If you look at the charts he shows, which are the S&P500, the XAU (a market index of primarily precious metal mining stocks), and the Baltic Dry Index, you see a consistent pattern.  They are all pointing to a serious downturn coming.  Timing is hard to extrapolate, but it looks like this coming fall; October to December at the latest.  (Oh, great.  I'm supposed to travel to give a conference paper right in the middle of that.  Anybody else read Patriots?)  Extrapolating off the end of a curve is always risky, but that's why people do this technical analysis stuff.  

The Baltic Dry Index is particularly interesting because it is an index of the cost of shipping dry cargo.  It's already down 50% from its May peak.  That means that the amount of bidding for cargo shipments is way down, which implies a lean Christmas coming.  At this point, mid-summer, if cargo hasn't been scheduled for shipment in the next couple of months, it ain't coming.  In a way, it's another measure of the size of the Ghost Fleet of the Recession (old article).  Maund says,

What this means is that the second major downwave has already begun, it’s just that the stock market doesn’t yet realize it...

That pushes the old pucker factor up by about 50%.  Are you prepared?