Trivia of The Day

Mother's Day vs. Father's Day.  

Mother's Day is the busiest phone day of the year:

"We found that Mother's Day is far and away the most popular day to place phone calls across the world, registering more calling traffic than any other holiday, including New Year's and Valentine's Day."

Father's Day has the highest number of collect calls of the year:

It gets better. Children often call dad to send their love but do so on his dime: Father's Day traditionally marks the year's busiest collect-call day for AT&T. And those who remember to send greeting cards do so in significantly smaller numbers.

For all you other fathers out there: enjoy your day.  Have a barbecue.  Do some shooting or fishing or something you like.

And pay for the call.


 

Luncheon Counters of the Third Kind

My friend Bob from WB4EJE.com sent me this menu today with one of those "remember when?" emails that go around. I do remember eating at a Woolworth luncheon counter as a kid. Note the prices.

Then I got thinking about the prices.  I've been watching the price of silver and gold, and it occurred to me to compare some of them.  This menu is from around 1960, when our coins were still 90% silver.  You can easily figure out what these prices turn into at today's prices, with silver closing at $19.17/oz.  The face value of a dollar in silver coins today is $13.61.  So that "Super Deluxe Ham Sandwich" at 40cents is $5.45 in today's money, and the king sized coke $1.36.  Not bad.  The triple decker chicken salad sandwich would be $8.85.  To me, that's a bit much for a chicken salad sandwich.  The first Burger King whopper I ever saw cost 29 cents - $3.95 in today's money. When you look at it in terms of silver as a standard, the cost of food hasn't changed that much.  It's the dollar that has gotten worth less, due to the relentless inflation caused by the Federal Reserve.  It is worth 1/13.61 - just over 7% - of what it was worth 50 years ago.   

Here's how you convert: a dollar in face value is 0.71 Troy ounce for 1964 and earlier 90% silver coins.  Just multiply that times the closing price in dollars/ounce (always priced in Troy ounces).

Heartwarming Story

About a couple married for 72 years, renewing their vows.  From South Carolina, here. 

Doctors believe Vernon McAlister has just days left to live. He broke his hip recently, and doctors have told his children that it is a fatal injury for someone his age.

He has been in the hospice house for about three weeks. His wife is staying at the Magnolias of Anderson, an assisted-living complex nearby.

But on Sunday, they held hands, side by side.

Sue McAlister’s had trembled as she kissed her husband, cupping his chin and then smoothing his hair. Her husband looked at her with tears in his eyes and a smile on his face.

Family friend Bill French, who performed the ceremony, said a marriage like the McAlisters’ should be held up as an example for the world.

“When you took those vows all those years ago, when you said, ‘We will share our joys and sorrows as we walk through life together’ … no one could have known how long that walk would be,” French said. “You have fulfilled your promise, and God is smiling.”

Not everyone is lucky enough to get 72 years together.  God has blessed them both and us with seeing them. 

Unelected Bureaucrats At Your Service

They're from the government and they're here to help.  Michigan EPA classifies milk as oil.  Forces large, unwarranted expenses on farmers. 

H/T to Improved Clinch

As my first ecology professor said, think of a pollutant as a resource in the wrong place.  

Meanwhile in the People's Republic of New York voters in Port Chester, NY get 6 votes each to spread among their choice of candidates.  

Although the village of about 30,000 residents is nearly half Hispanic, no Latino had ever been elected to any of the six trustee seats, which until now were chosen in a conventional at-large election. Most voters were white, and white candidates always won.

Federal Judge Stephen Robinson said that violated the Voting Rights Act, and he approved a remedy suggested by village officials: a system called cumulative voting, in which residents get six votes each to apportion as they wish among the candidates. He rejected a government proposal to break the village into six districts, including one that took in heavily Hispanic areas.

 WTF?  Srsly.  WTF??  I have a tough enough time finding one guy worth voting for one time.

1W Laser Pointer That Sets People on Fire?

Daily Tech has this article about a laser from Wicked Lasers that is supposed to be powerful enough to burn things and people.  For a mere $200 bill.  I know people that would spend that much on dinner.  Their disclaimer/warning says

It will blind permanently and instantly and set fire quickly to skin and other body parts, use with extreme caution and only when using the included eye protection.

I have to admit my first reaction is serious Want!, but I think I'll let someone else be the beta testers.  I mean, what would I use it for?  A toy?  A really, really cool kitchen knife?  

As weapon, it might have a good intimidation factor, but you will have to keep something in mind that you don't have to think of with your handgun.  With your gun, the firings are discrete; that is, when you send a bullet down range, it's a only one bullet at a time, moving through the air quickly.  Once it gets to something that stops it, the bullet stops and if you stop shooting, no one is endangered any more.  A moving target going through its path has to meet the bullet in both time and space.  The laser will be continuous.  You could have a clear path behind your intended target but while you're fighting, someone could walk into it.  I have no doubt you'd be liable for injuries to bystanders, as you are with a gun. 

So while it's interesting, I don't see giving up my XDsc. 

Why Raising Taxes Won't Fix Our Problems

In fact, raising taxes is likely to destroy any hope of recovery and hurt us badly.  It's not Laffer's law, as is being widely reported (read this; there's great stuff here).  It's a consequence of Hauser's Law. 

Hauser's Law is probably the least intuitive thing you will ever encounter in economics.  As a physical scientist, calling it a law makes me uncomfortable, so let's just say it's an observation that has not been disproved.

No matter what the tax rates have been, in postwar America tax revenues have remained at about 19.5% of GDP.

That is, when the maximum tax rate was 90%  as it was from 1950 until about 1963, the revenue as percent of GDP was close to 19.5%, and when tax rates were at their lowest, under 30% in the late 1980s, the revenue was essentially the same.  This illustration from the Peter G Peterson Foundation shows the effect:

There's an in-depth article at a blog called Political Calculations here.  Let me give you a heuristic explanation (that's fancy talk for "seat of the pants") of how I see it working.  Let's say you're in the top tax bracket: 

When tax rates are at that 90% level, you give most of your income to the government to waste.  As a result you have only 10% of your income for your self, to live on, save, invest, play with.  The economy slows to a crawl.  Revenues go down.  When taxes are 35%, you give less of your income to the government to waste, and have much more of your income to live on, save, invest, play with.  As a result, you buy things, invest in companies so they can grow, the economy heats up and expands.  Although you're paying a smaller percent of your income the GDP goes up so taxes go up.  Either way, the government wastes about 19% of GDP; only one way, we get to be happier and have more fun. 

The difference between the two worlds is vivid.  The 35% tax world is a much more vibrant, growing, moving world to live in. 

Empirically, we know this works; why is there even any question that keeping taxes low is the right thing to do?  

Are We a Nation of Laws or a Nation of Men?

Lots on this topic this weekend on teh Intrawebz.  This post will be "more linky than thinky" as Kevin says.  

How about the Obama justice department intervening to throw out a "slam dunk" voter intimidation case against those Black Panthers who were hanging out in Philadelphia with clubs and such? (H/T to WSRA)

How about an Impeach Holder movement?  Where do I sign?

Life without the rule of law (WROL) is a thread over at Restore the Constitution and on YouTube with NutnFancy who I typically think of as "gun review guy".

More?  How about the peaceful tea party guy who gets mugged by a left wing thug, and then the guy who got assaulted got charged with assault?   H/T Jennifer III

How about a guy being charged with a crime for rescuing a girl who fell out of a boat in a dangerous river?   H/T to John at Improved Clinch, although this was on Fox News all weekend. 

Clear Creek sheriff's deputies on Thursday arrested a rafting guide for swimming to a stranded young rafter who had tumbled from his boat on Clear Creek.
Ryan Daniel Snodgrass, a 28-year-old guide with Arkansas Valley Adventures rafting company, was charged with "obstructing government operations," said Clear Creek Sheriff Don Krueger.  (emphasis added)

Can't have mere subjects interfering with a government operation.  They could plan their rescue for hours, and he just went and rescued the girl.  What good is that?

My view: we are a nation of laws, most of the times.  Until it suits the men who run things, then we are under their rule. 

It's Not About You

Remember the Smart Grid commercial from GE during the Super Bowl this year?  The modern scare crow singing "If I Only Had A Brain" while dancing across the powerlines?  How a Smart Grid (whatever the heck that is) is going to make your life so much better?

"Smart Grid", to quote electronics trade journal Urgent Communications from last year, is moving toward the peak of the hype cycle.  There are commercials and news articles everywhere talking about the crying need for a Smart Grid.  There are reasons to upgrade portions of our power grid, but much of what's being said about Smart Grid is marketing hype.  Companies like GE and Cisco Systems are funding large PR efforts to get hooked up to the government teat on this one.  There's hundreds of billions to suck down. 

Let's start with a few things about power generation and grids.  Some of these are things most people know, others are kinda technical.  Electrical power generation in our country is largely in centralized big power stations.  The main reason for that approach instead of lots of smaller power sources is the economies of scale that make it cheaper to produce large amounts of power; a generator of twice the size may not cost twice as much as the smaller one.  Since AC can be almost losslessly stepped up to very high voltages, transported long distances, and stepped down again, there is little penalty for central power production.  There was a very rancorous public debate between Nicola Tesla and Thomas Edison about 100 years ago, over the merits of distributing DC (Edison) versus AC (Tesla).  Tesla, of course, won.  There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches, and when we chose AC distribution, we gave up the advantages a DC system can have.

The biggest advantage DC has is that it's easy to store DC, and in fact, no practical AC power storage system exists.  For DC systems, batteries are obvious storage systems.  I'm going to ignore a few technicalities here and move on. 

Because we can't store AC, the power grid has to deliver exactly the power needed at the instant it's needed.  In the early design of the power grid, the system really was all about you - the user.  They designed the systems to deliver the power needed on peaks and during the low use times of day (typically the evening and overnight hours) the system ran at low utilization.  Low efficiency.  When the rapid increase in power demand starts with the workday, the plants have to be running all equipment, ready for the load to reach them.  The need to have some load on their equipment overnight (called "load leveling") is an old problem in power plant design and one of the reasons for early, widespread street lights. 

While utilities try to generate enough power to address peak loads, that's complicated by the fact that building new generation plants is extremely expensive, and virtually impossible in some areas of the country due to political reasons (NIMBY homeowners, Global Warmists, etc.).  If the power plant gets a power demand it can't supply, one of two things can happen: either they buy power, or they shut down users.  If they buy power, they are buying it during the peak demand times, and since few suppliers can offer it then, power is at its most expensive.  Of course, no one wants to have their power cut, but it's better to cut some users than to have circuit breakers start opening and the power grid go down.  This is called a "rolling brownout".  You may remember this in California a few years ago.  You may also remember that this was the market space Enron was in; trading power.  

While the power grid has increased in size and coverage, this is still pretty much the way it is. 

So where does a Smart Grid fit in to this?  In the simplest applications, the grid isn't smart in the sense we usually use; lots of processing power and making decisions on its own.  In the simplest applications, monitoring circuitry communicates back to the power plant when, for example, a transformer fails.  In some local grids today, the only way the power company knows a transformer has failed is when someone calls to say their lights are out.  These are low data rate applications, and have been in use for decades.  These are called SCADA systems; Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. 

Where the new Smart Grid is going is for the power companies to produce power how they want to; it's all about them, not you.  Like a broken hearted teenager out of puppy love gone bad, they're saying, "Why did I do everything for you?  Why don't you do something for me?" to their customers.  The new grid is not about giving you the power you want when you want it, it's about making you do things their way.  To quote from the Urgent Communications article, "For instance, instead of shutting off power completely in a blackout/brownout scenario, utilities with smart-grid capabilities could manage the usage load during such circumstances - perhaps raising all of the thermostats in the affected area by a degree to ensure that essential power can be provided." 

I have to tell you that's laughable.  Here in the Florida summer, the A/C has to run full tilt during the daytime peak hours (as I type this, it's 10PM local; my outdoor thermometer says it's 88 outside - and it won't be summer for almost another 2 weeks).  If they raise thermostats one degree, nothing will happen.  They will have to turn your air conditioner off, and they want to do that, too.  The argument is that they could time sweep the air conditioners across the cities they "serve", turning whole blocks or sub-sections off for some time, and sweeping that as a rolling brownout just for air conditioners. 

Another thing to control is an outlet you might plug your electric car or hybrid into for recharging.  The power that you would get out of gasoline has to come from somewhere; in this case, you've moved your expense from the gas station to the electric company.  These chargers can consume large amounts of current in their fast-charge mode.  In turn, what the electric company wants to do is to not allow your charger to run during the early evening when TVs, dishwashers and other appliances are on.  They want to turn on your charger in the early morning hours; if everyone in your neighborhood had an electric car, say, they might time stagger the charging time for users to minimize the load on a transformer.   

Just look around your house.  Anything that consumes a relatively large amount of power; water heater, air conditioner, your oven, is something that can be controlled. 

Smart grid is a way of feeding back detailed usage data to the power companies, and allowing them to turn off whatever they deem necessary.  It really marks the shift from supplying whatever power the consumer wants, when they want it, to the best of their abilities - a complete customer focus - to trying to manage their customers.  You will sometimes hear about a more "user friendly" version where they will charge you different power rates based on how busy they are, but not turn your appliances off.  If you get home from work in the early evening and your house is way too hot, or too cold, you may find the power rate is much higher than later in the evening.  It will probably encourage a market for timers and programmable devices that only use the electricity when the rates are lowest.  There are other uses for smart grid technologies too, such as improved monitoring and control.  To me, these fall more under the heading of maintenance or modernization, and any sane company will do that. 

Something that really needs to be addressed is the security aspects of anything controlling the grid.  Experts have considered hacker attacks on the grid as likely for quite some time.  Strangely, the primitive SCADA systems and other low-tech dumb systems in use protect us.  They're too stupid to hack.  If your power company ever talks about using Windows products for this, get a big backup generator immediately!

The Urgent Communications magazine article that inspired this is here. 

Some Things Just Stick in Your Head

I read this on "Survival Blog" back in March and it has haunted me ever since.  I had planned a longer post, but have to make an unexpected trip out of town.  In the mean time, chew on this and what it might mean if we go through extended period of social unrest (as has been predicted many times).

Last fall during a lecture I asked a group of medical residents what they would do if society collapsed. I used the example of an EMP with complete failure of the electrical grid and ensuing chaos. Keep in mind, these are very well educated and intelligent people; they are physicians in training. These people are expected by the population to have the highest ethical standards and morals. Their answers astounded me. In the early aftermath as a group these people said they would go to the store and get what they needed. When I reminded them there was no way to pay with a credit card they seemed to think that it would be okay anyway. Many of the women said they would resort to begging if things became difficult, but most of the males in the group said they would leave for the rural areas due to the availability of cattle and other farm animals. When I asked what they would then do, most responded that they would take “one or two.” It wasn’t until I mentioned that stealing cattle is also called “rustling” and men used to be hung for such acts that it even began to register they were in fact stealing. The notion had not even occurred to them. One of my residents took the discussion further saying, “It wouldn’t necessarily be considered stealing because of the national emergency.” When I assured him the farmer or rancher would definitely consider it stealing and would likely defend his property with a rifle, he answered, “He wouldn’t shoot me. I’m a doctor. Besides murder would be a worse crime than my stealing.”

Whole article is here.   There's really a lot in there to chew on.

Another Warning

BMO Capital Markets says, "Go to cash in plain English". 

Mish has a translation into "Non Financial Guy" although the original link is pretty good, too.  From the BMO piece:

Conclusions

We see credit crisis II as just beginning. Few markets are untouched. Few signs of optimism can be seen. We are now at the tipping point when the crisis becomes more obvious. Markets will get more dangerous during this phase.

We advocate a zero weight toward equity, and that investors convert their equity positions to cash.

We will continue to provide updates in our daily Market Elements, Relative Strength Filter, and our topical Focal Points publications.

Gee didn't Helicopter Ben say everything is just peachy?  Can't understand why people might want to buy gold? 

Asked whether a double-dip recession is likely, Mr. Bernanke repeated a reassurance he offered Monday that he doesn’t think so. The Fed is forecasting moderate growth in the 3.5% range, with modest declines in unemployment, and it’s sticking with that forecast. An important transition could be underway for the economy — away from government support and toward private demand, he noted. That’s a formula for continuing expansion.

When Gasoline Saved the World From Pollution

I used to get a trade journal called "The Industrial Physicist", a free publication for qualified subscribers by the AIP, who publish Physics Today.  I will always remember a handful of concepts I first encountered in those journals. 

The first one is that when gasoline powered automobiles first came out everyone thought they were saving the world from pollution. 

Before the invention of the car, transportation was largely by horse. There are a few problems associated with horse transportation that we don't think of today.  Horses produce large amounts of horse manure and urine, and by the end of the 1800s, American cities were drowning in them.  Horses would die and be left in the road, obstructing traffic.  Flies and other vermin were omnipresent, spreading disease, and the stench was overwhelming.  When it rained, streets turned into almost knee-deep swamps of wet manure.  When it was dry, the manure dust would cloud the lungs of city residents.  One New Yorker in the 1890s calculated that by 1930 the horse droppings would rise to Manhattan's third-story windows.  In 1894, the Times of London estimated that by 1950 every street in the city would be buried nine feet deep in horse manure. No one knew what to do.  The horse had been the basis of human transportation forever. 

Horses need to eat. According to one estimate each urban horse probably consumed on the order of 1.4 tons of oats and 2.4 tons of hay per year. One British farmer calculated that each horse consumed the product of five acres of land, a footprint which could have produced enough to feed six to eight people. Probably fifteen million acres were needed to feed the urban horse population at its zenith, an area about the size of West Virginia. Directly or indirectly, feeding the horse meant placing new land under cultivation, clearing it of its natural animal life and vegetation, and sometimes diverting water to irrigate it, with considerable negative effects on the natural ecosystem.  Horse food had to be transported to the cities, requiring extensive infrastructure to support the effort.  Trains ran on rails under steam power, but getting things to the trains and from them to their final destination required - you guessed it - horses. 

And what goes in must come out.  Estimates were that each horse produced between fifteen and thirty pounds of manure per day. For New York and Brooklyn, which had a combined horse population of between 150,000 and 175,000 in 1880 (long before the horse population reached its peak), this meant that between three and four million pounds of manure were deposited on city streets and in city stables every day. Each horse also produced about a quart of urine daily, which added up to around 40,000 gallons per day for New York and Brooklyn.  Vacant lots became piled high with manure; in New York these piles sometimes rose to forty and even sixty feet deep.

It was into this world that the miracle of the internal combustion-powered, gasoline-fueled automobile arrived.  In the span of two decades, the car eradicated a major urban nightmare that had strained governments to the breaking point, tormented the people, and brought society to the brink of despair.  Cities became much cleaner places. 

Now I'm not saying that cars don't bring problems.  I'm not saying oil exploration and gasoline production don't bring problems.  What I am saying is that we have lost the perspective of just how much cleaners cars and gasoline have made everything, and that the idyllic past was not as beautiful and unscented as we might want to believe. 


Much of the content in this posting is credited to

Morris, Eric, "From Horse Power to Horsepower",  Access number 30, Spring 2007
http://www.uctc.net/access/30/Access%2030%20-%2002%20-%20Horse%20Power.pdf

Odds and Ends And Stuff

Feeling a little better as an unplanned day off closes.  I have an almost Brigid-like post (as if that's possible) about houses, homes and the lives they see rolling around in my mind, but some other time.   

Yesterday, John at Improved Clinch had a link to a post by Vin Suprynowicz "Do You Really Believe They're Going to Pay Off This Debt?".  If you've been around here, you might know that I believe "things that can't go on, won't go on" and we can't possibly pay the debt off.  Vin believes they will default on the dollar, declaring all the bonds worthless.  I tend to think they plan to inflate our way out of the debt.  I commented,

I don’t think they intend to pay off the debt in any real sense. Ben Bernanke once said, “people know that inflation erodes the real value of the government’s debt and, therefore, that it is in the interest of the government to create some inflation.”  I think they may intend a period of hyperinflation to devalue the currency.
Maybe this creates the atmosphere that enables a default, and maybe they just print the money owed to China/whomever on a roll of Charmin (same difference).
I came across a quote from Helicopter Ben the other day that reveals more insight into his “thought” processes. In 1999, he wrote: “A central bank can… extend loans to depositories, other financial intermediaries, or firms and households…. ” Households?? If the Fed directly depositing money into everyone’s accounts isn’t inflating and devaluing the currency, what is?
The guy has not had an original thought since his graduate school work on the depression, which means even more years since he had a correct original thought.

That first Bernanke quote is originally here and the second is here. In the article "50 Statistics About the US Economy That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe", the authors say the US next year is going to issue almost as much debt as the rest of the world combined.  A couple of months ago, in one of this blog's very first posts, I commented about that, saying

First off, think of how much money that is. With a deficit of 1.4 trillion year to date (again, ATTOTW), we have to sell around 280 billion in bonds per month. Who has the money to soak up that much in bonds? According to the 2009 CIA World Factbook, that’s more than the annual GDP of economies smaller than the 32nd largest economy of the world (South Africa). See: this list on Wikipedia which is pretty much the only kind of facts I trust to the Wikipedia. So who can continue to buy up that kind of debt? Things that can’t go on, won’t go on.

In just the time since the end of February, when I wrote that, the projected deficit has increased to 1.6 Trillion.  If we have to issue more bonds than a country's entire GDP, we can't count on selling them many bonds.  It leaves us with the world's largest economies as our only realistic customers.   That's the EU, China, Japan, Canada, India and a few others.  In case you missed it, they all have plenty of problems of their own.  

Events may keep all those nice plans of mice and men from going forward, though.  The middle east appears to be lurching toward open warfare, possibly between Turkey, Iran and Israel.  Israel is frequently quoted as being a nuclear power, although I believe they have never confirmed that.  Wikipedia says the Turkish air force has 40 (presumably) US B61 nuclear bombs.  Iran, of course, has been working on attaining nuclear weapons for some time, and I suspect they may well have some number of them; either bought or made in country.  The world's first nuclear war?  If a country did not intend to use nuclear weapons, but had nukes used against them, would they then use their nuclear weapons?  What if their entire country was on the verge of destruction or their entire people on the verge of annihilation, would they use them then? 

Turkey has been moving away from US interests for some time - remember how in 2003 they refused to cooperate with the start of the Iraq war? - joining Iran should cause us to drop relations with them, and could conceivably cause the disintegration of NATO.  Not that burying NATO is necessarily a Bad Thing. 

According to this article in the Guardian, the next big attempt to run the blockade could be soon, but probably not later than September. 

Israel's no-compromise attitude to aid convoys could be tested again after two Lebanese organisations pledged to send boats to Gaza in the next few days. Reporters Without Borders is attempting to assemble 25 European activists and 50 journalists for a boat leaving Beirut. The Free Palestine Movement is planning a similar attempt.
George Galloway, the founder of Viva Palestina, announced in London that two simultaneous convoys "one by land via Egypt and the other by sea" would set out in September to break the Gaza blockade. The sea convoy of up to 60 ships will travel around the Mediterranean gathering ships, cargo and volunteers.

Israel is close enough to Turkey that it won't take long for things to happen once the ships are sailing.

The Strategy Page posts this article that offers other viewpoints that moderate the what I've quoted here.  Important points are that Turkey and Iran have never been allies historically, and are probably just joining together for bluster.

Turkey and Iran have offered to provide warships to escort another aid convoy for Gaza. This is pure posturing, as neither Turkey nor Iran could carry that out in the face of Israeli naval and air power. Moreover, the Turkish military is much more pro-Israel than the current Islamic government (which is using all this to divert attention from economic and corruption problems.)

...

Iran, which leads the effort to destroy Israel (and makes frequent public announcements to that fact) sees the May 30th incident off Gaza as an excellent diversion from efforts to move more missiles into Lebanon (for Hezbollah to use against Israel), and gather more European and Arab support to break the blockade of Gaza. Most Arab states fear Iran (historically, a real threat) more than Israel (mainly a threat to Arab pride). But pride and reality don't get along in this part of the world, and currently pride is winning. That will quickly change as Iran makes another move against an Arab state, something that is happening with increasing frequency these days.

...

Iran is also making nice with Turkey. This, historically, is an unnatural act. The Turks and Iranians have been arch-foes for over a thousand years. They have never made peace before, just ceasefires. The current phony peace ignores Iranian calls for Iran to replace Saudi Arabia as the guardian of Mecca and Medina, and for Iran to establish a new Caliphate (Turkey had held that largely empty title for centuries, but gave it up in 1924). The only thing the Turks and Iranians have in common is the rough way they treat their Kurdish minorities. Iran has a large (25 percent) Turkic minority, but these Azeris tend to be anti-Turkey and very Shia.

What's going to happen?  It's hard to say.  I think it comes down to the individuals in all of the command seats at the critical times, as it has so many times in the past. 

It is frequently said that the President of the United States is the leader of the free world.  Right now there is no leadership; there is no leader of the free world.  Indeed, the "free" world itself may be on the brink of vanishing.

Makes Me Want to Dance in the Streets

The Mighty Brady Bunch is almost bankrupt. (formally known as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, but known to many of us as the Brady Campaign to Eliminate Gun Ownership). 

The same group that raised 1.7 million dollars for the Bush v. Gore election has raised $2500 for the 2010 elections so far.  From one donor looking for tax deduction on 12/31/09.

Gosh, I needed some good news for a change.

Saying Goodbye

Today is different.  Today, I don't want to talk about the things this blog is supposed to be about.  This weekend I lost one of my closest friends.  Closer than that.  I had to put my cat to sleep. 

Pets are in a different world than any of our human interactions and we don't really have a good word for it.  I'm not talking about working dogs, or working animals, which don't share that sort of relationship with us.  I'm talking about house pets.  They're not kids, although many people refer to their dogs or cats as their kids.  They're not just friends, they are closer and more intimate in many ways than any friend.  They see us as we are all the time we're home.  We are completely ourselves with them - and they with us.  They love, or they don't, in a more pure way than many of us can.  Gun people seem to be a bit more dog people than cat people.  While I have nothing against dogs, I've always preferred cats around the house. 

Spot was a storm orphan who we adopted in April of '05.  Our last cats had died two years and one year before and it had taken us a while to get over the emotional rides of that time.  One had gone fairly quickly.  A gregarious, maybe even outrageous personality, Fourier was a chocolate point Siamese who could best be described as a living, breathing, exclamation point.  Everything he did, every emotion, every game - everything - was at full-tilt, all out level.  An exclamation point.  One Friday evening, he got up off the sofa to go into the kitchen and fell over, his legs not working.  It had never happened before, and I scooped him up to hold him.  He buried his face tight against me as if asking for my comforting.  In a few minutes, he got up and jumped down on his own, resumed his activities. Still, by the end of the weekend, he "just didn't seem right".  He was sleeping too much, not active, not moving around.  We took him to the vet on Monday morning and nothing appeared wrong (how do you tell your vet, "my cat sleeps too much?").  Tuesday, we made an appointment for a more complete workup.  The next morning, I woke to find he had died in his sleep.  He was 18 when he passed away. 

A more gentle soul, his "brother", adopted separately as a 3 year old, a few months before Fourier adopted at 8 weeks, Spook (a black mostly-Siamese) was a gentle, loving giant, probably 18 pounds at his peak weight, compared to 10 pounds for Fourier.  His last year was a slow descent into complete kidney failure.  The patient Mrs. Graybeard would give him liters of saline solution injected under the skin of his back and he would willingly live with that, just to sit on her lap and interact with her.  He lived with us a year that way.  We believe he was 20 or 21. 

When we decided to adopt another cat, we looked online for a local shelter that was "no kill".  We found an adorable Lynx Point Siamese girl whom they called Olivia, and who was said to be a storm orphan from a housing area destroyed in the '04 hurricanes.  We met her, decided she seemed nice, and took her home. 

It became evident immediately that she didn't know the name Olivia, so we decided to rename her.  After some searching, we noticed that on one finger of each hand and one toe of each foot, she had a black spot.  The idea of calling an obviously striped cat Spot stuck, and her name was given.  Plus, Commander Data's cat (on Star Trek: TNG) was named Spot, and was also a striped cat. 

Spot was the most remarkable cat I have known.  Amazingly intelligent, she learned words in one or two repetitions.  Have you ever drummed or scratched your fingers on the bottom of paper sack to play with a cat?  Every other cat I have ever known dives into the bag to see what's going on.  Spot looked into it, and walked around behind the bag to see what was making the sound.  I was stunned.  While this may seem to be stretching the bounds of anthropomorphism, she was demure, a girly-girl personality.  She would purse her lips and act shocked if we did something that she thought just wasn't proper.  Example: after about 6 months, Mrs. Graybeard asked me if I had ever seen Spot use the litter box.  I realized I hadn't.  She said that she hadn't either.  Spot would only use the litter box if no one was looking.  Likewise Spot would accompany her into the bathroom, but not me.  It just isn't done. 

Unlike other cats I've had, she would watch TV for long periods.  Her favorite show was a episode of Sunrise Earth from Discovery HD; Sunrise on Cape Cod.  We have it on DVR and would show it for her every now and then.  She would watch those birds as if they were in the house, with a longer attention span than many adults I know.  One night I left some science channel on when a show on Jupiter came on and left the room.  A half hour later I got up and saw her sitting up, leaning on one arm watching it intently.  This got me; I couldn't figure out why a cat would be watching a show about Jupiter, so I started watching her.  She turned to look at me and gave me the most perfect "What??" look I have ever seen from a cat.  She was not your everyday cat. 

In April of '09, the Mrs. took her in for her annual checkup.  The vet said, "I can't hear her heart".  Within an hour or so, she was at an animal internist for x-rays and ultra-sounds.  A biopsy was taken.  She was diagnosed with a thymoma, a tumor in the thymus gland.  The veterinary surgeon was optimistic that she could remove the tumor, but the risk was that these tumors can grow intimately around major blood vessels and the heart itself.  I asked her what the chance of surviving the surgery was and she told me 30%.

Now I'm a pretty rational guy; at the least, it's certainly easier to talk with me than a cat, but if you told me I had to have surgery and I had a 30% chance of surviving it, I'm not sure I'd sign up for that.  Add to that, her rib cage would be split completely open, and she would be hospitalized for at least a week.  Then there's the chance of infection.  We asked how long they thought she had, and they told us "weeks to a few months".  After a lot of prayerful reflection, we both decided to just try to keep her as comfortable as possible. 

Before that day and for a long time she never showed signs of being a sick cat.  This April, we took her in for another annual checkup.  This time, the vet noticed she was slightly yellow; jaundice.  We began treating for that, but the last two months has been a fairly rapid downhill.  Still the remarkable girl that she was, she started out hating the medication (someone insists on making antibiotics for cats in children's formulas, like bubblegum and other tastes they hate) but got to where we would say "Pill" and she would walk down to the bedroom where we would give her the medication and hop up on the bed. 

When they told us she had a thymoma that would eventually crowd out her lungs and heart, I expected that one day her breathing would start getting rapid and shallow.  I took to counting her respiration rate (I was an emergency room nurses' aide in another life). 

Saturday, I woke and she wasn't in the bedroom.  She had not come up to snuggle with me in the night.  I immediately thought something was wrong.  She was sitting still, breathing in shallow breaths.  No interest in eating - her appetite was great until then.  By early afternoon she was visibly gasping for breath. I realized she was within minutes of dying right then and brought her to the emergency room.  After some examination, and a talk of history, the vet said there was nothing we could do.  The only compassionate thing to do was to say goodbye. 

I'm not afraid to say I cried like a little girl.  And I continue to. 

Will You Recognize the World By the Fall of 2010?

What if a major war breaks out between Israel and the enemies swearing to destroy them? 

Read this post from Sense of Events.  This is an excellent explanation of the poor summer theater which is the "peace martyrdom flotilla" off Israel's coast last week. 

And don't miss this one (same place). 

I'm left with the sense that the chance of war is very high.  This will affect you and every aspect of you life. 

I have said before, Iran is not content with the destruction of Israel.  They mean to re-establish a Persian empire with total control over the Mideast.  Terrorists tied to Iran have tried to destroy the Saudi oil fields a few times before.  A massive attack from Iranian missiles, even if they are not nuclear warheads, could do it.   

Think oil at $500/barrel, with all Mideast sources offline. 

Because of that, the Saudis are as concerned about Iran as Israel is, and have agreed to allow Israel jets to overfly the Kingdom in conflict with Iran.  The Saudis agreeing with Israel?  

If Tehran really had their dream, the US and Israel would both have smoking holes where major cities used to be, and the major difference would be that not every soul in the US has been killed.  The question really is how much of their dream does Tehran get?

Quite A Recovery, Idnit?

The jobs numbers came out today.  You probably heard that 431,000 jobs were added, but at least 411,000 of them were temporary census jobs.  And since there are many reports of census job numbers being faked (people being hired, let go and hired again, to count more), it's possible that's not true either.  


So there's a possibility that the real economy generated 20,000 jobs last month.  The fine folks at CalculatedRiskBlog give this analysis. 

The dotted line removes the temporary jobs.  


Have we turned the corner, yet?  What about the W shaped recovery people were talking about?  It seems we can say we've hit the bottom.  After that, it should go up.  I don't know how to predict the rate. 

That Pesky "Free Speech" Thing

In my previous post, I said that I thought McCain Feingold was unconstitutional.  Among other things, it restricted ads in the 60 days prior to the general election so that they could only be funded by a few types of groups.  In doing so, it limited the right of people to speak their mind and political speech is the most protected type of speech there is.  You can't just tell people or groups who could afford to buy a campaign ad that their opinions are not allowed in the public sphere.

Again, "unconstitutional" is what I say (and it's a pretty commonly held opinion among conservatives and libertarians).  The Supremes narrowly ruled that a small part of the law was invalid, in the Citizen's United vs. the FEC case last fall.  To the socialist left, allowing people wealthy enough to buy national air time to speak is terrifying, and they want to overturn the Supreme's decision.  Enter the DISCLOSE act.  Readers of Rawles Survivalblog  will recognize when I say it was sponsored by "He who hits the fan". 

There are always unintended consequences from new laws.  This one might be an easy to use database so that when you interview for a job they can make sure you don't contribute to any organizations they don't approve of.  Such as the NRA, - thanks to Snowflakes in Hell, a Pennsylvania Firearms blog.  Naturally, unions such as SEIU are exempt.

Reason Magazine's Jacob Sullum does a great fisking of the DISCLOSE act:

The "stand by your ad" statements required by the DISCLOSE Act also impose a substantial burden on the exercise of First Amendment rights. Under current law, a political ad has to include a statement indicating the sponsoring organization—say, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or the American Civil Liberties Union. Under the DISCLOSE Act, both the organization's head and its "significant funder" would have to appear in the ad and take responsibility for it. According to the Center for Competitive Politics, these statements would consume one-third to one-half of the time in a 30-second TV spot.

...

The anxiety and uncertainty created by the new rules would be compounded by the fact that they would take effect 30 days after the law is enacted, before the FEC would have time to issue regulations clarifying them. Opposing an amendment that would have postponed the effective date until January 1, Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) said he wants people to worry about a fine or prison sentence when they dare to speak ill of him.
"I hope it chills out all—not one side, all sides!" said Capuano. "I have no problem whatsoever keeping everybody out. If I could keep all outside entities out, I would."
Similarly, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), upon unveiling the bill, said "the deterrent effect should not be underestimated." For those who view nonpoliticians as meddlesome "outside entities" and criticism of incumbents as a crime to be deterred, the chilling effect of campaign finance laws is a feature, not a bug.

Those people outside the beltway are just so out of touch....

The Fight for Freedom Becomes An Every Day Job - Part 2

The Obama administration, under the auspices of the Federal Trade Commission has announced how it intends to "reinvent journalism".  Which is to turn it from a system with marginal use for facts into a government run media with absolutely zero use for facts.  Washington Examiner Mark Tapscott covers it in good detail.

My first thought is "what does the FTC have to do with journalism?", but more to the point, this thing is unconstitutional on its face.  What can any part of the Fed.gov have to do with journalism?  "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..."  It's one of a few things the Bill of Rights says they can't mess with, so how can it possibly be constitutional?  Well, that's what I think, but I thought McCain-Feingold was unconstitutional too.  Still don't see how the Supremes could say it's not. 

There's a story that the old USSR had two official news sources, Pravda (truth) and Izvestia (News).  The running joke was that "In Izvestia there is no Pravda.  In Pravda there is no Izvestia".  Think it will be any different when any administration owns the news media here?

Add this to their efforts to regulate/take over the internet through Net Neutrality laws that will destroy the private sector's ability to build-in infrastructure, and you have thorough controls over everything you read or see.  Let's see, if that financial bill is passed, it's total visibility over your financial actions.  Got health care, which can regulate every aspect of your life.  Smart grid to make sure you don't run too much electricity; can't run the heater over 62 this winter; so we can reduce our carbon footprint. 

Everything adds up to a totalitarian state that makes 1984 look like a picnic. 

About That Whole Global Economic Collapse Thingy

May be sooner rather than later.   

First, Clive Maund does some pants-wetting technical analysis showing the big picture trends in several things: the S&P 500, copper, light sweet crude (oil), Shanghai, gold, silver, and more.  Can't say I've seen this much in one place. 

In my post on gold and inflation, I forgot to note that technical analysis is one of the things I decided to study in the period when I was trying to make more sense of things and get better performance out of my retirement savings (roughly 2000-2004).  I define TA as drawing lines and curves on charts of financial performance and then assuming those lines and curves mean something. 

Then Mish over at "Mish's Global Trend Analysis" does an overview piece of just a few more contributors to the mess.  Oh, just little things like the Euro collapsing.  Nothing to see here.  Move along. 

OK, so maybe global collapse and financial Armageddon is a bit much.  I just don't think I'd go long on any markets right about now. 

In the famous words of Kevin Bacon in Animal House

(note in some weird way, the blog will now become part of the "six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon" and show up in some 23rd century anthropologist's paper about the great collapse of the early 21st century)

The Fight for Freedom Becomes An Every Day Job

I guess I just never expected we would have to battle our government every day of our lives. 

How about how the ATF suddenly, by stroke of the acting director's pen, changed 40 years of law to make it a Transfer to move a gun around a store.  Really?  Why?  Why now?  To quote Codrea's excellent piece:

I know the perceived intent here involves shipping guns to contractors, evaluators and the like, but if I just read these words on their own as written, I can see it being interpreted that such transfers could even include renting guns at shooting ranges.  I find the timing curious, because the antis have recently begun referring to this as a "federal loophole" and using anecdotes to stir up the hysteria to close it.

It's a "federal loophole" for a gun maker to send a copy to a laboratory to measure its performance?  Really?  Even if the ruling was to make it harder for the gun companies to send an evaluation sample to a magazine or TV show for review, why?  There are no records of any crime being caused this way.  Note that this is a regulatory nudge, Cass Sunstein's favorite term, that never went in front of Congress.  No way to write your representative or senator to try and head it off. (Hat Tip to Dave Codrea)

How did Clinton aide Paul Begala put it?  "Stroke of the pen, law of the land. Kinda cool!"

If you're not a "gun person" you may not know there is no such thing as "gun show loophole".  The same laws exist for sales at a gun show as anywhere else.  In fact, they can be more restrictive.  Mrs. Graybeard and I spent the afternoon at a gun show in West Palm Beach yesterday, and while I can buy any gun from anyone in my home county in a private sale by just plunking down an agreed upon price, at yesterday's gun show attendees needed to find an FFL, do a full transfer and wait 5 days.  There is an exception for state concealed carry licensees, as there should be, but they've made it harder to buy a gun at a show than when there isn't a show.  Stupid.  Criminals get guns by stealing them, not from gun shows.  How would they like a 5 day cooling off period and a Federal licensee to siphon $50 off every political contribution? 

How about a takeover of the financial industry?  Put together with health care, the big 3 automakers, and all the rest, I've heard from various sources that we're looking at 60% of the economy being in the government's control.  All your financial data are belong to us.  There will no longer such a thing as a private life.  May I add that every market follower I can find who has read the law says it will have no effect on the piracy that caused our financial mess, and will probably help the bad guys?  You knew that already? 

How about our abandonment of the fight against Islamofascism?  Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan is a man who refers to Jerusalem by its Arabic name, Al-Quds, and who peppered a speech recently with a minute of Arabic. I don't have a problem with him speaking Arabic, I have a problem with how he runs his office.  With three attacks in a few months, we appear to be dropping the ball.

We've seen the enemy and it's not just the jihadists. It's also our own government, which refuses to see this very real enemy. How can we fight and defeat what we refuse to see?

Allowing the construction and dedication of an in-your-face mosque at ground zero on September 11?   As Gates of Vienna puts it, this is a new battle in a very old war.

We have essentially pre-surrendered in Afghanistan, by giving an "out-by" date.  If the enemy had any sense, they would lay low, and the peace would encourage us to leave earlier.  Once we're gone, it would take a completely different America to go back.  The way I see it, our current administration wouldn't go back into Afghanistan if a 9/11 level attack happened again, and it could be proven it came from there. 

How about securing the border?  Citizens shut down the capitol phone system a couple of years ago under GW Bush, when a repugnant amnesty bill almost floated.  Looking at the status of the southern border, it's hard not to conclude the Fed.gov has given up on enforcement.  The people, on the other hand, support stricter immigration controls by large measures.  The support in Arizona is so strong, it's hard to imagine a scenario that backs the "racism" card.

Need I go on?

The administration is attacking the people on every front.  It is requiring not just resistance, contacting our representatives and all of the usual things, it's getting to where citizens are going to need to split up the work: "I'll go fight my representative about gun things if you fight the financial takeovers".  The problem is that there are no lobbyists for us. 

Wasn't this supposed to be a government "of the people, by the people and for the people"?