Goodbye to the Equalizer

Edward Woodward passed away at 79.  I was a fan of his 1980’s show, The Equalizer, which was an entertaining series about a retired intelligence agent who uses his skills to help people in trouble.  Brains over brawn was the modus operandi and I enjoyed it a great deal.  Woodward made McCall a classy and formidable hero. Upon reading of his death, it made me wish I could see the series again.  Sadly, I can’t afford Netflix anymore so I can’t rent the first season.  Catch it if you can.

So How’s That Economic Recovery Going?

A lot of media spin has been about how we are recovering economically despite the lack of jobs. After all, the stock market keeps going up and it is the barometer of the economy.  At least that is what people assume, but there are many other indicators of economic health.

It isn’t often you see the words “world gold supply runs out.” In fact, I don’t recall ever seeing them until this article at The Telegraph. With less retrievable gold ore in the ground, it is going to be harder for nations to convert their financial reserves to hard metal.  Output is plunging at the mines, so the rush to invest in gold has a problem – there isn’t enough of the precious metal to go around.

That’s always been an argument I’ve had with goldbugs, that there isn’t enough of the metal to cover the currencies of the world. There is a possibility that silver will go back up to make up the slack, but money is an illusion whether it be made of metal or paper or electrons floating in computers. Faith is what sustains it and gives currency value. So what happens when you can’t convert the currently held currencies and they dwindle into nothing?  We may find out.

Speaking of running out of things, the FHA is running out of cash and may require – you guessed it, a bailout from the government. Oh yes, the housing market is still in trouble and there is fear they can’t cover loans due to growing unemployment. The critical quote of the piece:

The FHA’s cash reserves have plummeted to $3.6 billion, compared with $685 billion in outstanding insured loans - a ratio of 0.53 percent that is far below the 2 percent required by Congress and a fraction of the 6.4 percent reserve ratio in fiscal 2007.

Banks are usually closed down if they have that kind of ratio, so this is not good. With no signs of unemployment going down, we’ll be seeing more of these loans defaulting. So there will be a bailout using tax payers’ money.  Except we don’t have enough because revenues are down. But China will loan us the money, right?

Well, China is not very happy with the US right now.  They rightly have figured out that the weak dollar and low interest rates have dangerously ballooned stocks and property investments.  What we don’t need is more bubbles that will burst and that is precisely what we are getting. 

Not that China is really helping things themselves.  Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has an interesting and somewhat alarming commentary on the problems surrounding China’s exporting overcapacity.  We have too much supply and not enough demand from them so they are not taking up the slack from the West. Read it.

Fears of a double dip recession abound, but I still think we never came out of it in the first place.  It was just a plateau in the fall and we are going to see darker days before anything truly gets better.

One kind of darkness has already fallen on Australia. They went with a cap and tax scheme to lower carbon emissions and electricity prices skyrocketed. People can’t afford their bills and are being cut off with retirees being hit hardest. That will strangle their economy in no time flat. Right now they are experiencing what we will if similar legislation is enacted.

I wish I had good news to report.

Getting an Edge in Copyrights

I’m not happy with the way Intellectual Property (IP) rights are handled because I feel that the current laws are stunting creativity in a stagnant society.

An article at boingboing.net got my attention last week and highlights how trademark law can be abused. Edge Games hasn’t put out a real product in many years, but has terrorized anyone that dares to use the word “edge” in any videogame, movie, or comic book. They’ve been successful at this, gaining settlements with other companies for over a decade.

This is a truly bizarre story, especially if you read the full details over at ChaosEdge.  Mind you, it can be eye glazing but if you dig, you can find documented IP theft by Edge Games themselves! The strange sales (or lack of sales) by this company from their web store is an epic story by itself.

At least with EA’s involvement there is a chance these people will be shut down, but it shows how the current system can be gamed – no pun intended.  I’m wondering how this guy Langdell has made money from this.  He has to have to keep filing lawsuits, right?

Government Gone Wild

With various things going on including a very demanding abandoned kitten to care for, I let things slide as far as blogging goes.  The links to interesting bits of news will stretch back into last week as a result.

Serves New London Right

At Hot Air, Ed has a post filled with immense irony.  After the idiocy that was the Kelo ruling , the original case has turned into a classic bad joke. Pfizer got New London, CT to use eminent domain to take homes away from residents and now won’t be developing the property.  To make it even more painful, the jobs lured there by the deal are being moved to another town!

The Supreme Court badly damaged private property rights in America with this ruling and the end results show why government having absolute control over who gets to own what is foolish. Makes me wish the founding fathers had put something in the Constitution or Bill of Rights about private property.

Big Guy Picks on Little Guy, Government Doesn’t Care

Back when SEIU member continued the proud union tradition of beating people during a tea party protest, most of the media yawned about it.  Kenneth Gladney was the recipient of the attack because he dared pass out “Don’t Tread On Me” items outside a Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-CT) forum.  The left spun the story by claiming Gladney started the fight, but the police report says otherwise. Interesting to read the behavior of the SEIU members present, including another assault, resisting arrest, and one who tripped and tried to claim the police beat him!  The district attorney in St. Lois has yet to do anything about it and no charges have been filed despite the video and police report on the incident. This smacks of corruption and favoritism. Thank you Big Government for posting the report.

This Message Will Be Controlled

One thing that sets dictatorships and totalitarian states apart is they insist on absolute control of the news media. Censorship abound and everything has to be in line with what they want.  It may surprise people that totalitarians will suppress even those of the same ideological or political persuasion, not just their obvious opponents. No criticism is to small to be allowed. More and more the Obama Administration is showing these tendencies. Besides attacking Fox News there is the curious case of Indymedia, a left wing website. The demand by the Justice Department for information on people who browsed the site is a privacy rights nightmare list with the following info demanded: Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and home addresses.  Read Ed’s post at Hot Air for the details of a truly bizarre story.

Secret Copyright Treaty Leaks

ACTA will affect Intellectual Property rights in the US and other countries beyond just dealing with counterfeit goods.  While this lecture at BoingBoing is a bit dry, it covers the concerns raised over this far reaching treaty. The idea of iPods being searched at the border is insane, but shows the reach of media companies into the government. Also, the ability to confiscate or destroy goods without compensating the owners is incredibly draconian. At around the 15 minute mark, the Internet provisions are discussed and I’ve touched on that before.

Orwell Predicted the Present

In Great Britain, phone companies and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will be forced to keep every telephone call, web visit, email, and any other thing done on Internet on record for one year. Originally the ministers had wanted this stored on one central government database, but backed off from that. Even so, this quote is chilling to anyone who believes in privacy:

653 public bodies will be given access to the confidential information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the Ambulance Service, fire authorities and even prison governors.

It is rapidly getting to the point where the only private communications in the UK will be face to face, for Big Brother is watching. The British are lost and only people fighting for their freedom will keep it here in the United States.

Updated Movie Reviews

I’ve been experimenting with adding pictures to my movie reviews and took the opportunity to revise or expand them in the process. Here are the links to the revised reviews:

The Watcher in the Woods

Forbidden Planet

The Black Hole

Stargate: Continuum

Over time I’ll be adding more reviews, in fact I have several written in the pipeline.  Expect reviews of Gojira, Godzilla, and Howl’s Moving Castle soon.

Why reviews?  I get very tired of all the gloomy news out there and need to write about more positive things.  Most of the reviews will be out of my personal DVD collection, so don’t expect a lot of negativity!

Veterans Day

In the aftermath of the Fort Hood shootings, Veterans Day seems a little more immediate than usual.  That shouldn’t be the case for we always have men and women in the armed forces serving around the world protecting our country and way of life.  Less visible are those who have served honorably and returned to civilian life, but my gratitude is just as great for their service.

After Vietnam, a lot of people turned against our soldiers and I remember the slow turnaround of that attitude in the 1980’s under President Reagan. Lately it has been a mixed bag as the country has polarized over Iraq and Afghanistan.  But I hope I’m correct in feeling that the majority of the country at least respects our fine service personnel.  Reading about the strange mugging of an Army reservist gives me hope.

Misc. - the Useful Abbreviation

One has to love the ability to type “misc.” instead of miscellaneous(which is only correctly spelled here due to Windows Live Writer’s spellchecker).  It is such a useful term too – it covers everything!

Yes, I’m making an excuse to post random unconnected links to stories interesting me today:

Read about stocks jumping to new highs on Yahoo and once reading the reasons for it felt vindicated in thinking the “recovery” is all about banks and the political class – not the peons.  They love the dollar collapsing; such wonderful patriots they are.  They also love blowing bubbles and we are going to see more pop with this irresponsible behavior.  People invested in stocks don’t care about anything but reaping a quick profit and that cannot bring about any long term improvement.

Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall fell and the end of Communism in Europe had begun. Lech Walesa played a critical role in this and the former leader of Solidarity says some interesting things in an interview with Spiegal Online. His warning to the politicians is one that should be heeded.

At PajamasTV, Bob Owens has a nice rant only a gun nut will appreciate – so of course I enjoyed it a great deal.  It has to do with the “cop killer” label put on the FN Five-seveN (oy, the marketing gimmick) 5.7mm pistol in the reports on the Fort Hood shootings.  This is a pistol I would love to own as I’m a fan of velocity over mass, but Owens’ arguments are sound and I have a heavier caliber pistol for the same reasons.  I’m grateful Hasan fell for the hype, things could have been far worse.

People scoff at computer virus threats while disregarding the legitimate threat.  Frankly, the chance that your PC could be given a virus that downloads child pornography is frightening.  So if anyone reading this doesn’t have a firewall and antivirus program on their PC, please install one pronto!  Being framed for something as depraved as this should be motive enough to add some security.

Terrorism and Fort Hood

UPDATED

The media reaction to Nidal Malik Hasan’s attack on his fellow troops in Fort Hood has been disturbing to me.  Political correctness is acting like a lens distorting reality the way a funhouse mirror warps a reflection. As more facts emerge about Hasan, it is clear he was a jihadi. Someone just snapping from stress by proxy (what a ludicrous excuse) doesn’t try to contact al Qaeda months before shooting a bunch of American soldiers.  He doesn’t give away his belongings first and he doesn’t frequent strip joints like the 9/11 hijackers did.  Hasan did exactly that.


Many Islamic fundamentalists believe all your sins are forgiven on martyrdom, so they tend to party in forbidden ways.  That looks hypocritical to Western eyes, but it simply points out one of our cultural differences with the Islamic world.  Over at Forbes, Tunku Varadarajan has a must read piece on our problems facing what he dubs “going Muslim.”

UPDATED:
CNN proves the distorted lens by rearranging a wounded soldier's quote to make it look like he was unsure if Hasan yelled "Allhu akbar." Mudville Gazette has the details.

It isn’t like Hasan was the first to go on a killing spree in the name of Islam after 9/11. Next week on Tuesday the “D.C. Sniper” will be executed.  Seven years ago, John Allen Muhammad and his accomplice Lee Malvo  killed 10 people. Do people even remember this?  I wonder.

A big part of the problem is how the political left and their lapdogs in the media have depicted the war on terror.  J.R. Dunn at The American Thinker puts it better than I can.  I agree with him that relativism has done a great deal of damage:  allowing corruption to flourish and weakening our will to defend ourselves. Everything depends on the American people waking up.

I question whether another 9/11 would be enough.

Weekend Links: Around the World

The Nuclear Threat

The UN is wondering why they’ve found evidence that the Iranians have experimented with a radically more advanced nuclear warhead design than previously thought.  It is pretty clear they are playing for time to get weapons in production and the weak Obama administration is making it easier than ever. Not that President Bush was much better in dealing with them.  It will be up to Israel to defend themselves. There will be fallout one day, probably of the radioactive kind.

Over in Poland, nuclear fears are rising as well.  Russia practiced an invasion and nuclear missile strike on Poland back in September.  They even gamed out a pretext based on ethnic Poles rising up in Belarus.  Nothing is subtle with the Russians and this is clearly a threat being made to Poland. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a repeat of the false flag operation used by the Nazis to justify invading Poland.  A weak US president make previously unthinkable objectives possible, unfortunately.

Rising Up Against Oppression

Over at Gateway Pundit, a collection of reports on continuing protests in Iran against their rulers.  This should have been bigger news, but the media isn’t interested in the story. Iran is not a stable country and that should be of concern to everyone. We need to be on the right side of this if things are to be kept from blowing up in the Middle East.  Sucking up to dictators in hopes they will become accommodating doesn’t work.

Call of Duty Set to Overwhelm the Gaming World

I have to say Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was a brilliant and disturbing video game.  Brilliant in execution and disturbing in plausibility, it put the player in the midst of an international crisis involving a nightmarish scenario of nukes, Russian civil war, and Middle East fundamentalism.  So it is no surprise the sequel is eagerly awaited, but the sales expectations of half a billion dollars worldwide in the first week is a shock.

I don’t play multiplayer so I can’t comment on the latter half of the article.  Still, if the single player experience is as good as the first one, I’ll get Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 -- when it gets very cheap.  It means a wait of several years, but I can afford to be patient. I literally can’t afford impatience in these cash strapped times.

Political Shenanigans

With Cap & Trade and ObamaCare unpopular with the voters, a lot of games are being played to ram them through before the recess.  Pelosi & Reid can’t afford to have Democrats go home and face their constituents before voting on the bills as they might get swayed to vote “No.”

One thing they don’t want out is the penalty for not buying mandatory health care under the House version of the health care bill.  It is freaking totalitarian, that’s all.

The campaign to neuter Fox News is still underway at the White House.  This has been denied, but with the previous actions by the Obama administration I think it is legit. They are determined to control the news at all costs, but I think they are making a huge mistake.  This kind of thing wouldn’t be leaked if it weren’t seriously resented.  The Chicago way is as blunt and heavy handed as the Russians actions in Eastern Europe. Totalitarians never tolerate criticism or the truth well.

Governing the Internet

Intellectual property rights are all the rage in governance right now.  Having been pushed by media conglomerates for some time now as their faltering products fail to earn enough moola, governments are moving to halt piracy of music on the Net.  The latest attempt is a stealth move under the guise of an anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA).  Basically, the idea is to force the internet service providers (ISP’s) to be held responsible when someone downloads an illegal copy of a tune or movie.  Before this the individual was held responsible and the ISP’s were immune to prosecution. 

Why is this a bad thing?  Well, the US government hid the details of what is in the treaty and the countries that actually counterfeit music and movies aren’t involved in the treaty.  So it does nothing about counterfeiting and is all about snooping into the contents of people’s computers.  The ISP’s will have to do that to keep from being sued. That’s a big civil rights issue and once the ability to do that is granted, it won’t go away and will be abused.

IP rights are okay for a limited time, I personally believe 15 years is good enough with an exception made on religious materials.  If people aren’t allowed to rest on their laurels, it will encourage them to come up with new material.  I’m a big fan of intellectual ferment and the marketplace of ideas, so limiting IP to a shorter span would be a true stimulus of creativity.  Right now it feels like the whole world is going through the motions and repeating itself.  Be nice to break free of that stagnation, wouldn’t it?

The secrecy involved is the real deal breaker.  They wouldn’t be secretive unless they were up to something illegal.  Though what is legal is becoming more of a “we say so” kind of thing rather than true application of jurisprudence.  I think we are seeing the money out of Hollywood and the music industry behind all this as they are losing money due to inferior products.  They won’t admit this and have to blame something for their failure. However, the consequences of this push may much bigger than they understand.

Weekend Links: The Economy

It was quite a week for developments on the economic front.  I wish I could report it was good news.
First off, official unemployment hit 10.2% after October’s figures came in.  This indicates things are getting worse for the American worker – not better. Ed Morrisey at Hot Air has an excellent post on it including an updated Romer graph of what the stimulus promised to do versus what actually happened.  We are off the chart now.  Also from Ed is a post with links of what jobs were really saved by the stimulus, starting with California.  Hint: the state & federal governments aren’t honest.
Doesn’t get much more pointed than what India’s finance minister said when their central bank bought 200 tons of gold in order to reduce dollar holdings.  What did he say about the economies of Europe and the US?  That they had “collapsed.”  Asian countries are running from the US dollar now.
Makes the wrangling over how much to increase health care look silly if there won’t be any money at all.  Still, the Republican health care plan was rolled out Wednesday after having the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) go over the figures.  It would actually reduce the deficit by $68 million over a ten year span.  Sounds good compared to the trillion dollar increase in debt from ObamaCare.  Still, how will any of it be paid for? There is no answer on that, because there is no way to!

UPDATE:  I was wrong, the Democrats plan isn't a trillion dollar outlay, but $3,000,000,000,000 plus over 10 years according to the CBO! The Heritage foundation estimate comes in at $2.4 to 2.6 trillion.  This is insane.

The Fort Hood Shootings

UPDATED: 

Hasan may be linked to the 9/11 hijackers.  The Telegraph has more on his connections including worshiping at the same mosque in Virginia at the time they attended. Simply incredible that he was kept in the military. Once again, why do I find these things in foreign papers first?


Now that it is days later, we have a more complete picture of what happened.  The shooter is a devout Muslim psychiatrist that was under suspicion of posting pro-jihadi statements online six months ago.  Major Nidal Malik Hasan was about to be deployed to Iraq Afghanistan and had gotten bad reviews in his evaluations.  Hasan is American born of Palestinian parents and believed the war on terror was a war against Muslims.  He refused to have his picture taken with women. He was devout, attended a mosque – yet claimed no religion or preference in his military records. He shouted “Allahu Akbar!” before firing two handguns into a crowded room. We also know he gave away many of his belongings, something that a jihadist does before preparing for martyrdom.

So the media is spinning it as some kind of combat stress by proxy, since he has never served overseas. The media concern is over how Muslims will be treated over this, more so than the plight of the real victims.  Funny how we are always being accused of persecuting Muslims when something like this happens.  This suggest we behave otherwise, hat tip to Instapundit. *sigh* Reality has become optional in today’s age.
I’m wondering if this is a watershed moment, where it becomes very clear there are two America’s: one bent on political correctness unto insanity and the other that see’s what is really going on but feels completely muzzled by the former.

It isn’t like this is an isolated incident, we had a Muslim shooter in Utah last year, there was the black Muslim convert who fragged his squad mates in Iraq years ago, a conspiracy to attack Fort Dix, and we are beginning to see honor killings in the United States.  What we are seeing is a clash of cultures that aren’t very compatible, if at all. Ignoring that or spinning it as something else isn’t going to make the problem go away.  Individual jihadists are still jihadists.

Meanwhile, we take casualties here at home.  The soldiers were unarmed and felt far from combat when Hasan attacked them.  Because he was supposedly one of them and it happened here, they feel betrayed and violated.  We all should as this man should not have been in the military.  With his record he should have been booted out as a security risk, but PC rules all in governing now.

The soldiers who died and were wounded came from all over the country, so this truly is a national tragedy.  What makes tragedies tragic is that they are preventable and are based on the flaws of people. In this case, the many flaws of Hasan were apparent for some time. If he ever gets wakes up and comes off the ventilator keeping him alive, I predict a media circus as more facts come out – fact that won’t fit their narrative. Though I wonder if they even have a clue about what is real anymore.

President Obama’s performance still rankles me, made worse by that idiotic “shout out” attributed a Medal of Honor to a man who doesn’t have one.  There is no excuse in not knowing the difference between it and the Medal of Freedom, just as there is none for the levity shown beginning the speech. The superficiality is simply amazing with this man.  There is no question in my mind that we are less secure with him at the helm.

Mass Shooting at Fort Hood

Horrible day in Texas,  12 dead and 31 wounded by at least one other soldier.  The shooter was killed, but there are eye witness reports of a second shooter who is in custody with a third as possible accomplices. The FBI has been brought in to assist in finding out the motivations.  Fort Hood is under lock down. Please pray for all involved.

As jarring as that was, President Obama coming out to address an Interior Department conference waited minutes before speaking about it, doing pump up motivational material for the attendees -- even going as far as giving a “shout out” to one the people in the audience!  Reprehensible and disrespectful, the shootings should have been brought up immediately.  From there he rambled as he does without a teleprompter.  The man is an embarrassment to the country and to his office.

Sex Ed for 5 Year Olds

For some time there has been a United Nations resolution pushing very early sex education to children, all under the guise of protecting “child rights.”  I never thought it would gain any real traction as it was too out there, now I’m not so sure.

Over in England, compulsory sex and drug education will now start with five year olds. This is crazy, especially given the paranoia about pedophilia that is currently gripping the English. Exposing kids to too much information early is not going to reduce teen (and earlier) pregnancies.  Instead, it will encourage them to be more sexual and we have enough problems with the pop culture doing that!

Sometimes I wonder if any sanity is left in our Western governments.  The fact that parents won’t be able to pull their kids from these classes is way too Big Brother for my tastes. Scratch that, way too Brave New World.

An Amazing F-14 Tomcat Model

Check out this 1/144 scale F-14A Tomcat of VF-1 landing diorama.  Mind blowing, especially since it is a tiny scale and has extensive scratch building.  The afterburners are the highlight, no pun intended.

For Your Entertainment…

Were They Watching Animal Planet?

This is why I prefer reality to fiction.  It is nearly impossible to make something up as strange as this story about a deer running amok during Halloween. I would have loved to have seen the deputies’ faces.

Making Fun of the Air Force

For a good cause.  Though other branches of the armed forces would say it is always a good cause making fun of the men & women in blue.  My favorite demotivator is “Fundamentals.”

You can find out more about Project Valour-IT at Soldiers’ Angels along with other projects to help the troops.

But It Looks Like an Old PC!

Ever take one of those silly online tests to see what color you are?  Did you wonder what color the universe is?  Wonder no more! Here I thought it would be more of a taupe.

Mormon Swashbucklers

I haven’t been a fan of PSA’s (Public Service Announcements) since the classic Tennessee Trash anti-littering one of the 1970’s. But this one is rather sweet and I’m pleased to see it garnering an award.

Fathers are treated like dolts on television these days, so it is refreshing to see old fashioned parenting extolled in a PSA.  The father and son using homemade props and their imaginations to play with instead of a video game warms my heart.  That is what a childhood memory should be like.

Kudos to the Missionary Department at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for putting this out.

Virginia and New Jersey Go Red

No, not communist, but Republican as McDonnell and Christie win their special elections.  Virginia was a hat trick as governor, lt. governor and attorney general were all won by the GOP candidates.  Not all was rosy for it looks like the Democrat Owens will defeat the Conservative Party Hoffman in NY-23.

The irony of NY-23 is that the more conservative of the big party candidates will have won if the percentages hold up tomorrow morning.  How the local GOP could select a candidate further to the left than the Democrat running is beyond me.  They were the ones who blew it, in my opinion.

This was a big win for the Republican Party tonight, especially since New Jersey is a very blue state. Voter discontent appears to be high and that has to worry the party in power.

Insecurity

Just a trio of links for the weekend, hopefully I’ll get a movie review up later.  Been a difficult week, with a sinus infection making things fun.

This weekend’s topic is insecurity on three fronts, something to put Halloween fright into all you kiddies!

First up, more bank closings happened Friday.  This time it was FBOP Corp., better known as Park National Bank that collapsed.  With nine banks failed it only cost the FDIC 2.5 billion dollars.  What made it very interesting is the connection to the Obama administration, via Timothy Geithner.  Earlier in the day the community development part of Park National received $50 million from the federal government to stimulate investment in low income areas. Makes you feel secure in how the Feds are handling things, doesn’t it?

Over across the pond, a police force in Surrey, England think they have the solution to increased crime around Halloween.  I bet the locals feel safer already…

If you are reading this on the Internet, be afraid.  That means you are depending on what may end up being a digital house of cards.  Not many are aware of the kind of warfare that is going on in cyberspace, but it is picking up of late.  The latest player in the game is North Korea who have been probing our defenses.  Quote of the article:

The report concludes by noting that the US, with its heavy reliance on a digital infrastructure and information-based economy, has the most to lose if sophisticated cyber weaponry makes its way into the hands of less advanced nations or non-governmental organizations.

It would be devastating if we lost Twitter and Facebook, I wonder if our society would survive it!

But seriously, we have become very dependant on our electronic networking in every facet of society, from government to military to social to workplace environments.  If things go south internationally, we will see attacks on all of those.

Have I scared you enough, kiddies?

Storm Clouds on the Horizon

Many attribute the current recession to the housing bubble bursting.  Home financing and equity loans were the most glaring examples of the larger credit bubble problems that had built up.  This problem is not unique to the United States and has afflicted Europe as well.  Remember Iceland failing as the first indication of impending financial disaster?

Supposedly, things have improved in Europe, but this commentary in the Telegraph makes me wonder.  The M3 money supply contracted despite the dumping of stimulus money by U.S. and European governments in an effort to free up credit liquidity.  Instead, loans to the private sector decreased for the first time since 1983.  Reading the analysis and quotes presented is not an exercise for the faint of heart, as it presents a very gloomy picture for 2010.  Any time the word “deflation” is used, be afraid.  So much for converting dollars to Euros to hedge your bets, at least in the long term.
So stocks are now looking unstable if things don’t improve in the credit picture.  Where do you invest if you are one of the fortunate who has extra money or want to get out of the stock market?  Well, the gold bugs have pushed gold to $1,000 an ounce and there have been run ups in oil, copper, and eve lead!  A lot of people have moved their money into commodities but there is peril there as well. The key quote from this:

"It seems to us that if output declines, then input of materials ought to be down by a similar order," said High Frequency Economics economist Carl Weinberg.

I’m afraid logic has nothing to do with economic behavior these days.  Where to put your money is becoming like shooting a moving target in an increasingly faster carnival game.  I’d thought maybe the Euro for very short term and silver (as a bargain compared to gold) for longer term, but nothing looks safe.

Do you trust the Federal Reserve?  I’m beginning to think we have nothing but incompetency at the top of our financial and political institutions.  Finding out the shell game involving AIG being forced to bail out big banks such as Goldman Sachs doesn’t add to confidence in the system.  The cover up following that action destroys it.

So we have major problems yet to fully come into play and an utterly incompetent response to what has already gone wrong – all on an international scale, not just domestic.  No sector is seeing concrete growth, except for bigger government of course. Now is not the time to relax thinking we are in safer waters, rather it is a time to batten down the hatches and ride the coming storms out.

Is the Economy Really Growing Again?

The Feds announced the end to the recession today,  but dig deeper into what’s being reported and it seems premature at best.  Personally, I’ve never bought into the concept of a “jobless recovery” and much prefer the drier term “recalculation” to describe the employment situation.  To be blunt, if the jobs don’t come back and new ones are not being created, it isn’t a recovery.

Ed Morrissey (formerly of Captain’s Quarters) blogs at Hot Air about some of the hidden problems of the 3.5% growth rate, pay particular attention to the commercial property market quotation.  This is the other shoe waiting to drop in real estate, as I’ve posted before that banks are failing because of loans in this sector.  Most of the growth noted is based on Cash for Clunkers and tax credit breaks for homes that will go away in the next quarter, so I suspect we’ll see worse figures next quarter.  Negative growth wouldn’t surprise me, but there will be Christmas shopping to temporarily buoy things.

Meanwhile, the jobs are still vanishing and people are running out of unemployment. The stimulus is not doing much to help and to further exacerbate the problem the Obama administration has come up with a bogus figure of 30,083 jobs saved.  Even the AP had a hard time buying that and figured out that 5,000 of those don’t exist.  With work scarce and salaries being reduced, consumer confidence index is still poor at 47.7.  That bodes poorly for consumer fueled growth.

Oh and if you thought Cash for Clunkers was a brilliant stroke of genius, please read this and you may change your mind.  With the major downturn in auto sales following the end of the program, it is obvious this was a poorly thought out stunt for PR purposes by the administration.

Right now, I don’t trust anything this government is saying or doing about the economy.  Things are looking bleaker as more instability is appearing on the horizon. I’ll cover that in my next post.

Weekend Links: The Decline of American Politics?

One of the great myths fostered by the mass media is that Republicans march in lockstep, all with the same set of beliefs, as opposed to the diversity of the Democratic Party. That myth is being expanded to extend to all critics of President Obama and his policies.  That's a foolish move, for it may unite the scattered and bickering factions made up of those who call themselves 'conservatives.'  The last two elections were won on the weaknesses of the political right, rather than the strengths of the political left.  Keep the right divided and the administration will get their way.

But Chicago politics is a brutal and oppressive atmosphere, hence the desire to shut down all criticism of the administration.  This is why Fox News is under attack, as it is one of the last hold outs in a compliant media doing Obama's bidding.

Because We Say So

An attempt was made to block Fox News from a pool interview with the pay czar of the administration.  The other networks quietly stood up against this and the White House backed down.  At first, only Fox News themselves reported on this attempt at black listing.  The only other broadcast television outlet to eventually report on it was CBS, though there was some spin to it.

Meanwhile, at NPR analyst Ken Rudin dared to describe the Obama administration as being "Nixonian."  The desire to control every aspect of reporting has always been there with presidents, but the constant demonizing of Fox News alarmed him.  Until he was sat on and made to issue an apology, that is.  The creeping power to suppress free speech this White House has is something everyone should be frightened of, but if the public never hears about it in the first place it become the proverbial tree in the forest falling. It all reminds me of the monolithic Wesayso corporation that controlled everything in the old TV series Dinosaurs.

So That's What He Was Doing in College

I don't think President Obama respects the Constitution and Bill of Rights one whit.  There is evidence of this as his college years are slowly being uncovered.  His hatred of the free market is also made clear in the paper, which would explain why he is more than happy to destroy the economy. How? By absorbing as much of it as he can into the government.  Yes folks, he is a communist like his parents before him.  No wonder there was a total embargo on his college years in the media during the election.

UPDATE:  Turns out the website linked is a satire site.  Sadly, the satire was all too believable given Obama's extreme left wing approach to the economy and free speech.  He's still a communist in my opinion.

It is interesting how we still don't know much about our current President's college years, that kind of secrecy doesn't happen unless there are things to hide.

Conservative Rebellion in the Air

Meanwhile, the fiscal conservative uprising that is the Tea Party movement has begun to challenge the GOP leadership.   The Tea Parties are about smaller government and people from a wide spectrum of beliefs form the movement.   Being truly grassroots, there isn't a united leadership, but a whole lot of discontent. What they are united on are less government, less taxes, and a hostility toward political parties in general. Attempts to paint the movement as RNC controlled or as astroturfing by the insurance industries are foolish, especially by the left. They may profit from the movement if the Republicans don't listen to the protests.

Calls to vote out all sitting politicians is not uncommon at the rallies.  The GOP leadership are not comfortable or happy with the Tea Parties for this reason and because they are too blue collar.  So there will be challenges like in NY-23 fueled by anger at big government Republicans. That could spell major trouble if the Republican party keeps trying to ignore the movement.  The worst case scenario is a third party challenge, which would hand everything to the Democrats as the right splits its vote.  Hopefully, those in the movement will understand they are more powerful criticizing politicians than they would becoming ones.

Snippets:

An interesting post about how white the most progressive cities in the USA are.  A fascinating article worth reading.

At Reason magazine there is an interesting article/book review about the end of the Cold War.  It is very lengthy but worth the read.

Links for the Weekend: Economic Problems

There have been some interesting things brewing in the domestic and other economies this week.  Interesting as in the ancient Chinese curse of "May you live in interesting times."  There has been a push in the media and especially in the economist circles that things have improved and we are in a recovery.  Even ignoring the 9.8% official unemployment (hey you can't count those 800,000 or so who've given up on full time employment), I'm beginning to suspect there is willful blindness going on.  Like the condo tenants in the Monty Python sketch who hold up the apartment building by faith in its existence, it looks like people are trying to will the economy into being better by words alone.

That said, here's what I've run into around the Web the last few days:

Over in the U.K. things have been predicted as getting rosier, but indications are they've been wearing red tinted sunglasses in the gloom. A report that was supposed to show an anemic growth of 0.2% growth showed a contraction of 0.4% instead.  Most interesting quote from the Telegraph article for me was this:

The Office for National Statistics figures showed that every sector contracted except the public sector, which was flat.

Yep, everything but government shrinking sounds familiar.

The Times reported on this differently, with economists reacting with disbelief and doubt over the accuracy of the government report.  Now I distrust governments as much as most people do, but they tend to fudge numbers to the positive as much as they can get away with.  It is always "the economy, stupid" with the voters whoand I'd be surprised if the numbers do improve.  Quote of the article:

Ben Broadbent, an economist at Goldman Sachs, said: "At a time when all other indicators are consistent with much stronger growth, we expect today's data to be revised significantly higher in time."

Oh, yeah -- I really trust something coming out of Goldman Sachs these days.

On to the U.S. economy, where a word has come to my attention.  That word is "Recalculation." A Recalculation is where jobs are lost permanently as opposed to temporarily in a Recession. More here, with the thought that this is what we are seeing now.  Not reassuring, that's for sure.

Megan McArdle has an interesting post about declining tax revenues in The Atlantic.  Check out the CBO produced graph. Looking at that, I don't understand how anyone thinks more spending is the solution.

I've been following bank failures as a barometer of economic health, with a particular eye toward local banks.  Don't have any new ones locally to report, thankfully, but we just passed 100 failures nationally. The latest ones Friday take us to 106 for 2009 with worries many more are coming.  I'm still waiting for the retail property loans to blow up for the bigger banks, once that happens things will get ugly in a hurry. This quote should worry people:

Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other banks remain open even though they are as weak as many that have been shuttered. Regulators are seizing banks slowly and selectively -- partly to avoid inciting panic and partly because buyers for bad banks are hard to find.

With the FDIC underfunded, they have to stall for time or a lot of money will simply evaporate.

So what are we to do?  Well, our legislators at all levels need to get their acts together to control government spending.  We can't keep spending money that doesn't exist.  This video of the State Treasurer of California lays out the brutal realities that must be faced.  Of course, California has never been very good at dealing with reality in the past, but they are up against the wall now.  It is said where California goes, the nation follows.  I hope that is wrong.

Stargate Universe: Air - Part 3

Well, I decided I'd give SGU one more shot, in case I was somehow missing something good about the show. With two strikes against it, it needed to be at least a foul ball or a bunt to keep me watching. So did Air Part 3 come through at the bottom of the inning?

It is now confirmed, I despise all the characters. They aren't just an unlikeable lot, they match the quote from Col. Young, being "The wrong people in the wrong place."  It isn't good when you are rooting for the team to fail in repairing the air scrubbers. This is despite finally having a somewhat traditional Stargate mission on a strange planet.  Once again, the parts that were supposed to evoke emotion fell very flat and the deaths had no impact.

The shaky cam was still there, with the over dramatic cuts during overly serious conversations seemed very 1990's to me. Going back to Col. Young scene on Earth, via Ancient communication stones, I suffered an NYPD Blue flashback and half expected David Caruso to walk in the office to ask Young, "Are you okay?" Yes, they managed to even make a scene with O'Neil boring.  Likewise, the scene with Chloe visiting her mother lacked any kind of drama. That wasn't the worst of the episode though.

In dubbing the show BattleStarGatica, I turned out to be more on the mark than expected.  Yes, we had a 'head cylon' moment presented in the form of a hallucination that might not have been a hallucination. Thankfully, it wasn't a 'head cylon' sex scene, though Lt. Scott has been confirmed as a hopeless horndog with Roman Catholic guilt. Other viewers will find out it this becomes a reoccurring part of the show, I won't.

This was strike three without the batter even swinging at the pitch. Sadly, it is getting good ratings, so I don't see the show runners having to change it.  As an owner of all but the Stargate animated show, this feels like a funeral as I bury a franchise I really enjoyed.

Stargate: Universe can be found at Hulu for online viewing.

The Dollar IS Dying

 A month ago, I posted about the U.S. dollar being in trouble.  Things have progressed in the short time since then, with a slew of new headlines culled from around the Net.

Let's start with the New York Post article Dollar Loses Reserve Status to Yen & Euro. In it, we learn that 63% of money being put into reserves by banks went to the Japanese Yen and the E.U. Euro in the last three months.  Traditionally, around 66% would be put in the dollar, but only 37% was. Over at Bloomberg, they report the same while pointing out that world leaders are following through on their threats to diversify.  Apparently, they don't approve of how U.S. economic woes are being handled by the new administration.

In another article at Bloomberg, they report that the dollar is down 10% against other currencies in the eight plus months Treasury Secretary Geithner has been in charge. In fact, they go so far as to call it the Obama Dollar. At this point, the current mess is now owned by the Obama Administration so I think the honeymoon is over. Meanwhile, the Pound Sterling is having problems as well, based on the fear that inflation is decreasing in the United Kingdom.

It looks like the shift from the Anglo currencies has finally begun, as the economies of the United States and Great Britain have lost the confidence of foreign investors.  Interestingly enough, these are the two countries that enacted the biggest stimulus packages during the current economic downturn.  I don't think this is a coincidence.

Runaway hyper inflation is around the corner, what with oil going up and consumers unable to spend more due to being tapped out on credit,with many losing jobs and giving up on full employment. I don't blame other countries bailing out on the dollar, as it is a race to get any kind of value back from what they sank into our treasury bonds before they become worthless. Talk of another stimulus will just continue the flight from the dollar and I think our political elites in both parties have failed the country and the world completely in how they've handled things.

It took a world war to bring the country out of the Great Depression.  I hope that won't be required this time.

The World Is Insane: Obama Wins the Nobel Peace Prize

Yes, President Obama, he of nine months in office and no foreign achievements other than appeasement or waffling, has been awarded the Nobel Peace prize.  No joking, check any online news source or the TV.  I won't bother to link to any commentary, because everyone has said all there can be said about this lunacy.  Both the political Left and Right are reacting with stunned disbelief.

When I read the headline, I thought it was a joke but wasn't surprised when it turned out to be true.  Things have spun so far out of control worldwide that very little is surprising these days.  Too many people have run from reality and truth for too long, this kind of madness has to be expected.

I'm not sure what can be done to combat it. Perhaps we need to make sure the following books are in every high school curriculum:  Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and finally The Prince and Discourses by Nico Machiavelli.  Two movies could be added to the mix, Being There and The Music Man. That way we can combat some of the style over substance in politics, starting with the most vulnerable voters -- the first time voters.

Don't know what to do about the older folks so easily conned by empty suits, it may be too late for them.  A depression bigger than the Great Depression might work as an educational exercise.  Funny how that appears to be on the way...

Stargate: Universe

Watched the first two episodes of Stargate: Universe (SGU) on Hulu.com yesterday to see what the hubbub was about. In the Stargate fandom, there has been a lot of resistance to the show, mainly as it was seen as an excuse to cancel Stargate: Atlantis in its prime, due to rising salary costs after five season contracts expire.  Rumor had SGU would be more edgy and darker, not exactly what the Stargate legacy has been about.  So I decided to check on the show myself, despite a lack of interest, and streamed it from Hulu.

First impression:

Well, that was... bad.  Catastrophically bad.

I'll try not to spoil the details in this review, so on to detailed impressions.

In an attempt to make an "adult" Stargate television series, what was aired is not a Stargate series like fans of the franchise have grown to love.  Stargate has always been about adventure, with heroics leavened by good natured humor and a feeling that there was unlimited potential out there on other planets.  With SGU, there was no sense of humor other than the cameo by Lt. General Jack O'Neil and little in the way of heroics.  Instead it is clear that SyFy Network wanted a clone of Battlestar Galactica (the new one) and that overwrought, gloomy atmosphere is what was delivered.  Galactica had a strong start, if oversexed, but decayed into a depressing amoral mess by the second season.

I will try to say one positive thing about the SGU.  The CGI effects were very good, especially the assault on the base in the beginning.  There, done with that.

The negatives... Everything else about the show.  Bad acting, hackneyed writing, and terrible pacing were topped by the unlikeable characters.  With nobody to root for, it was hard to get emotionally involved amidst all the chaos and canyon sized personality flaws.  Though I will say some of the characters had no personality at all, so they can be excused from the latter.

The bane of all good camera work, the 'shaky cam', was ever present, sometimes distractingly wrong for the content of a scene. My guess is that it was used to make things feel more 'real' and to heighten tension for dramatic effect.  It failed miserably on both counts.

Emotionally charged is what the makers were most likely going for, but the execution was hamfisted at best.  Without spoiling too much, in the second episode one of the characters makes a major sacrifice that was clearly supposed to be the lynch pin of the hour.  What were supposed to be a series of highly emotional scenes were curiously flat and mechanical, failing to evoke any emotion.  Slow motion was used to interminably drag out the big scene and I could see this being MST3K'd very easily.  Given that the following scenes depended on the big impact that didn't even dent and it has to be considered an epic fail in the annals of drama.

Bleh.  I went in with low expectations and still managed to be disappointed.

Unfortunately, there has been a trend toward nihilistic and dreary television for some time.  Stargate was a welcome refuge from that and sadly, that refuge is now lost.  Comparing this two part premiere with Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis makes Stargate: Universe look even worse.  There were engaging characters and villains introduced in each, with a real sense of wonder present.

Much has been made online about the sex scene early in the first episode and yes folks, Stargate is no longer family friendly. It was another thing that made one of the main characters unlikeable.  All I can think is that there had to be network pressure involved in this, because of the past history of the pilot for SG1.

Back in 1997, it debuted on Showtime and the producers were made to have a full frontal nudity shot of an actress that went on at some length.  The producers were upset as they had a goal of Stargate being a family friendly series that would be syndicated on broadcast TV.  After the pilot, they got their way and earlier this year released to DVD a re-edited version sans the nudity (plus some other questionable things) as Stargate: Children of the Gods.  It is hard to reconcile this attitude with the new show.

Bleh. This dismal entry into the Stargate mythos is another example of how the word 'adult' has lost its meaning, or more accurately, has had it twisted.  Instead of a word describing maturity and responsibility, it is used in place of other, more appropriate words: adolescent, sophomoric, and juvenile.  Sex, explicit violence, nihilism, and characters with selfish motivations are all attractive to the young and rebellious. Our culture is doing its best to extend childhood with the result being a perpetually adolescent populace.  Sadly, 'adult' was co-opted by the pornography business years ago and now the slide is complete in the rest of the entertainment biz.

So the new 'adult' Stargate is a huge disappointment and I think a name change is needed for accuracy.  I now dub it BattleStarGatica.

 

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A Community Effort: The Yucatan Sign

In the coming harsh economic times (we haven't seen anything yet), people will have to start pulling together to make it.  Divided we fall is a true principle and this urge to scatter apart will not serve us well in trying times.  Because of growing difficulties in our little part of Houston County, there has been a conscious effort by those of us on this end of our road to start doing things to help each other.  So we've been exchanging home grown foods and the like, something that used to be common place in rural culture.  It is a good thing that has been lost in our profligate era of debt and materialism over the past few decades.

So what started this local change of behavior?  It started with a sign.

In the early 1990's, the local Yucatan Supper Club shut down and took their sign down.  That sign had been used as a way point by UPS, FedEx, and other delivery services for ages.  Some of us got together, led by my late mother to put up a sign on the corner of the crossroads as a replacement.  It was a simple design, with the added bonus of a flower box at the bottom. 

Over the years, it served us well, but age and weather caught up to it.  In recent years, all the stain had worn from it, with the wooden letters blending into the boards and beginning to fall apart.  We often talked about repainting it, but never got around to it.

A deck project changed that, with leftover stain inspiring two of our neighbors to get moving on the long talked about restoration.  The sign was dismantled, new letters purchased, flowers planted, and leftover paint used to do most of the painting.  Donations and labor were contributed by Mern Flatten, Randy Roland, the Rykhus family, my dad and me.  On August 24th, we bolted the sign back up:

Bank Failures Coming Closer to Home

Houston County, we have a problem.

Yesterday, this article jumped out of the headlines, as Spring Grove is a town I spent a good chunk of my school years in or around.  Jennings State Bank was the 95th bank to fail in the United States in 2009 and the first local one. It may not be the last.  The FDIC has warned Security State Bank of Lewiston to correct their lending practices and their Hokah branch is in Houston County.  Until recently, Houston County had been unaffected, not a surprise for a small county.  It is a temptation to say we are too small to fail, but realistically that is not the case.

It is clear we are not done with bank failures, whether they be local or national. Today brought another round of gloomy news, with a report from the special inspector general appointed to look into the banking stress tests conducted a year ago.  The biggest banks were said to be financially sound when Treasury Secretary Paulson knew otherwise.  To wit, he lied about it. Citigroup and Bank of America are singled out in the article, but there have been rumblings that Wells Fargo is not in good shape as well. Apparently, the "too big to fail" argument won out over honesty with Bernanke and Paulson.

None of this inspires confidence at any level.  When cover ups begin, they are usually due to one of two things: the desire to protect oneself from trouble or blame and the other being paralyzed fear of large consequences too horrific to contemplate.  My suspicion is that the latter is the case. In the end, no amount of running from reality will make bad things go away.

Time to prepare for reality on an individual basis, as the current crop of politicians and bureaucrats have no desire to face it.

UPDATED:

Looks like the national level isn't as big as it gets, the question now being posed is whether the World Bank is going to fail.

Around the Web in 180 Minutes

Okay, it depends on how fast a reader you are, but the following links should keep a person busy for awhile.  My room finally has a ceiling again which needs "mudding" and a few gaps filled yet.  One day I'll get to sleep in my bed again...

Unbalanced Balance

Lately I've been seeing PC's infected by trojans posing as anti-virus software that traces back to the Russian mob.  That caused my antennae to go up and so I found the latest trojan very interesting as it does more than stealing passwords or extorting money to regain control of the computer.  They've finally made one that can intercept and steal money from online banking sessions.  At this rate nothing will be secure on the Net.

Ruining the Hacker's Picnic

Then again, maybe ants are the solution. At least for corporate networks there is a new technology being explored that may counter trojans and other malware faster. Unless this is used by ISP's I don't think it will be of much benefit for home users.  Still it is a fascinating idea and I look forward to hearing more about it.

Need More Sun Cosmic Rayscreen

With the sun being shy of late, refusing to warm the Earth as much and generally not putting out solar flares, another problem has arisen.  Now we are being exposed to increased amounts of cosmic rays.  I wonder which of the Fantastic Four's powers I'll get.  If it is a new ice age coming, I'll hope for the Human Torch's abilities.

So How's That AK-47 vs. M-16 Rivalry going?

Political interference kill business success from what I've seen and no nation is more politically corrupt than Russia.  The AK-47 is one of the most popular weapons of the modern age due to its simplistic ruggedness and reliability.  However, not even that toughness can withstand the corrosive politics in Russia. I'd still prefer to have an AR-15 variant than the Kalashnikov, but it is amazing how far things have fallen over there.  At least the knockoffs of the M-16/AR-15 are superior to the original and it is still being made.

We Aren't Out of the Recession

It is getting to be a weary task to type about all the things going wrong with the economy and Obama's Administration.  There is simply too much material and it is too easy to do, which makes for a depressing exercise. As a result, I'll be posting more about other things.  But one point has to be made and that is the dishonesty about there being an economic recovery right now.  It simply is not happening and there are no concrete signs of it happening soon. Unemployment is still rising, now at 9.8% but closer to double that if you count those who've given up on finding work or taking part time jobs.  Manufacturing is down, durable goods orders are down, credit card and loan defaults are up, and the 95th bank failed for the year.

But the biggest indicator to me that things are going to get worse is the problems charities are facing.  When they are having to assist their own workers, things are dire.  We'll be seeing soup kitchens and tent cities in the future.  I pity the young, for they most likely will never know the standard of living we've had since the 1950's.

Searching for Where the News Can Be Found

Or a Personal Quest for Journalistic Quality

I've always been fascinated by history and current events (which is simply "live" history), seeking out knowledge wherever I could.  This dates to the stone age before the Web, back when we had to read newspapers, magazines, books, and watch Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News. Eventually, as cable finally made its way into our family life, there was the news addict's dream made real by CNN and then the quick fix provided by CNN Headline News.  Heady (or headliney) times, it couldn't get better than this! 

Of course, it wasn't easy to get some of the quality newspapers as The New York Times and The Washington Post were only available at the library. But I did have a subscription to Newsweek for a couple of years that I treasured.  That fell by the wayside due to a lack of money brought on by disability, but in the early 1990's I purchased my first computer, a Packard Bell 486SX-25 with a 2400 baud modem in it.  After perusing bulletin boards on dial-up, I received one of those unavoidable America Online floppies in the mail.  I joined the service and began to find news in virtual print once again.

Watching Less, Reading More

In the meantime, various cable news networks had popped up and while available on satellite TV, I felt there had been a decay in quality slowly becoming evident.  By the mid-90s, format changes were making it all feel more tabloid like, more entertainment and personality driven.  Cable news hit its zenith during 1991 when covering Operation Desert Storm and never quite hit that level again.  I watched it less and less.

So I turned toward content I could find online, though it wasn't easy or convenient to find.  The Web came into being and I dipped my toe in the water via AOL's built in browser.  As internet service became available locally, I signed up to the very primitive connectivity in my rural area.  After giving up on it and returning to AOL, the service finally became reliable and I signed up again using OS/2 Warp's Web Explorer to crawl around the new web.  I remember that new place called Yahoo just starting up, then Netscape taking the web browser to a whole new level.  By that time the OS wars were over and I was stuck with Windows95. At last came a new piece of software that looked like it would fulfill all my dreams of news gathering in one place.

A News Junkie's Dream

That program was called Pointcast and it was wonderful!  I could set it up to download the news from all sorts of sources, including The New York Times and The Washington Post.  It all flowed into the program in the background when I was dialed into the Net and I could read it once disconnected.  That was needed, because even a 56k modem in 1996 took awhile to get any content off the copper wires.  It was bliss, news nirvana, and I couldn't stop extolling it to others I knew.

Of course, it didn't last.  The infrastructure wasn't there yet for so much data being downloaded at once, it was overloading servers in business environments which were the main users of Pointcast.  Missed opportunities and the rise of Yahoo killed the endeavor within a few years.  I mourned that software's passing almost as much as OS/2 Warp's.

Signs of the Times

Thankfully, the newspapers and news cable stations had discovered the value of the Internet by then.  It meant I had to read while online, but the content was still there.  However, I started to see the same symptoms of rot that I'd seen with news TV.  The New York Times in particular was becoming less a journalistic bastion of integrity than a source of polemics.   By 2003, the Jayson Blair scandal broke and I wasn't surprised, as my trips to their website had gone from multiple times a day to once daily. The rot had become visible. At that point, it was a slow road to infrequently visiting the once venerable institution.  These days, articles are written the same way as editorials and there really is no difference.

At least The Washington Post kept it's integrity, I told others. For the most part, it did until the 2004 election drove it over the edge.  While not going into the absolute free fall that has turned the Grey Lady into a very bad joke, it did become more openly partisan.  Of course it was always a left wing newspaper, but a very respectable one.  After John Kerry's loss in the Presidential race, the paper began to go down the same road as it's New York rival.

This was unpleasant to recognize, because I didn't feel like I had much in the way of alternatives.  Oh there was the rising blogosphere, but that wasn't developed enough at the time.  Talk radio never appealed, because it is primarily personality driven with a penchant for theatrics.  NPR is possibly the best antidote for insomnia, between its nonstop leftist slant and gray drones speaking in the academic cadences of those who've never really lived life. 

Signal Degradation

What of cable news?  Infotainment at best, rarely any journalism present these days.  Sensationalism is the main content, with talk radio style theatrics thrown in. Not a surprise as many shows are hosted by talk radio hosts. Most cable news networks are far left, with MSNBC on the lunatic fringe side of the spectrum and CNN catering to the left base.  Fox News is still tabloid in style, which I despise.  At least they report the stories the other networks refuse to, since that is where the ratings and eyeballs are. I feel as if I am praising Fox with faint damning's. The other networks are more concerned with being an active component of the Democratic Party than in being journalists. That includes the tattered remnants of the once proud broadcast network news shows.


A New Media:  Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss?

These days, the blogs are where to find information that the left wing media suppresses. Still, there is a huge amount of emotionalism to this new media and one has to sift them to get good information.  It reminds me very much of the yellow journalism days of the 1800's.  The idea of journalistic integrity is a late 20th Century idea and I often wonder if there ever has been such a thing.  But trying to obtain that illusion at least keeps things more grounded in reality and honesty.

Currently, society in the United States is fragmenting rather than uniting.  The rise of blogs is a good indication of that, with the constant wars fought between even those claiming to be on the same side.  Just search for LGF or LittleGreenFootballs along with the word 'banning' to see the kind of wars that get fought, as that blog goes further left.  Of course, that is an exaggerated example as that blog has turned into an intolerant, totalitarian cult-like place.  Once upon a time it was in my links on this blog, but hasn't been for some time now.


Looking Across the Pond

So where to find the news?  I suggest reading the full links from various blogs, getting the original articles in case things have been misinterpreted or spun. You have to work to find out the truth, don't expect anyone to deliver it to you on a platter. For traditional news that hasn't totally degraded, check out newspapers from the United Kingdom, such as The Telegraph and The Times. It was a link on Drudge that inspired me to write this post, as I discovered I was part of a trend.  Imagine that, me being trendy!

It appears that there are more than a few of us American news junkies reading the newspapers of Great Britain to get news about our own country we don't get in print here.  What a sad and alarming thing statement that is!  I don't think our newspapers are dying due to a lack of an audience, but due to becoming completely out of touch with the majority of Americans. 

The Death of an Independent Media?

Now there is talk of the government bailing out the liberal newspapers, consolidating the leftist message by turning them into possessions of the government.  Because the majority of the federal government is made up by bureaucrats, it doesn't matter which party is in possession of the Oval Office.  Those faceless feds tend to be very liberal, which means the papers will be semi-official organs of big government no matter what.

Pravda anyone?

Sadly, that question won't mean a thing to many too young to remember the Soviet Union.  When a government controls the news, there can be no freedom.  It is up to us, the American people, to prevent this from happening.  Do we have enough people willing to fight for their freedom in this fragmented society?  It isn't enough to defend the Constitution, we must make sure that a vibrant and independent media exists, otherwise the First Amendment is just words.

Me, I'm wondering if I'll have to keep searching for honest journalism in the future.  The fact I'm looking to British newspapers for news isn't good.

The Decline of Polite Culture and Other Items of Interest

I started this blog for the purpose of being something of a journal so that I could look back and see what was going on in my life.  Unfortunately, between being a private person and not having much of a life, I see most of my posting being about things outside of my control.  That is, politics and world events. 

Ah well, it beats being a narcissist, I suppose.

In case anyone else is reading, a few things that caught my interest while being quite ill the past two weeks:

Victor Davis Hanson has a wonderful piece on the decline of polite behavior that is well worth reading through.

If you want good insights into the problems of the Middle East, few countries embody all the difficulties faced more than Lebanon.  That's where Michael Totten's work has been invaluable and his account of meeting Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader is absolutely fascinating. Read the whole thing.

Drew Emmer at Wright County Republican has posted Gov. Mitch Daniels' (R-Indiana) op-ed on the coming reduction of tax revenues governors across the United States will be facing.  It is time for government to tighten their belts just like everyone else. There are a lot of people struggling financially right now, including me.

Facebook is not a secure or safe place to be, unfortunately not a lot of people know how to make it safer.  Several weeks ago, a young friend of mine had his laptop infected by a hostile ad on Facebook that took quite a bit of doing to kill.  Watch out for anything claiming to be an antivirus that spawns popups like crazy!

I Know Seminary Is Hard, But...

Also found this on Drudge today: a report on a Satan worshipping teen setting fire to a church in California.  It turns out the fire was set in the chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Orangevale.  Being a Latter-day Saint myself, of course it caught my attention.  Since the fire was set shortly after 7 AM and the girl is fifteen, I knew she'd done it during Seminary.

One of the best things about my church is the religious education program that encompasses more than just 'Sunday school.' Since I converted late in life, I missed out on two of the better ones, Institute and Seminary.  Where Institute is for college & college aged members, Seminary focuses on that most precarious of times in one's life -- the teenage years.  In a modern world filled with all kinds of self destructive behaviors pushed by our culture, it is a refuge for kids trying to make the shaky transition from child to proto-adult.

Every school day morning, teens go to seminary early in the morning, before public school classes begin.  That requires a real commitment by the teen and by their parents, who have to get up just as early to run them to Seminary classes.  Besides teaching the Gospel, this requirement of hewing to a daily routine teaches perseverance and the ability to make and keep commitments. Yes it is hard to make that daily commitment and see it through.  That's no reason to set a pew on fire, however tempting that may be in the throes of teenage angst. 

A quote by President Gordon B. Hinckley illustrate the simple blessings that can come from attending:

“We urge all for whom it is available to take advantage of it. We do not hesitate to promise that your knowledge of the gospel will be increased, your faith will be strengthened, and you will develop wonderful associations and friendships”

Sadly, it appears this young woman hasn't taken full advantage of what has been offered her, instead she has allowed herself to be led down a dark path.  When kids start worshipping Satan, there are major problems below the surface.  That's why I'm gratified to see how the local Church and authorities are handling this in a truly Christian way -- by requesting that she not be punished and that she be given the counseling she so obviously needs.

In dealing with such cases, we need to follow the example of the Savior on the cross who said of those who crucified him, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Luke 23:34

70 Years Ago in Poland and Obama's Appeasement Fetish

I was reading The Drudge Report today and ran across the following fact.

September 17, 1939, Joseph Stalin attacked Poland as part of a deal with Hitler to split the country.  How do you commemerate this day if you are President Barack Obama?  You sell out the Poles to the Russians again! Representatives from the administration are in Poland and the Czech Republic to tell them the missile defense shield is off, something Putin has been demanding for some time. For a newly elected president who was supposed to be so intelligent, so smooth, so diplomatic and knowledgeable, Obama and company have shown themselves to be utterly tone deaf in foreign dealings.

There is a chance this callous behavior isn't born of ignorance and stupidity, though.  News has come down that Russia will be assisting Venezuela in obtaining nuclear technology.  The same Chavez run socialist state that has given assistance to Iran, a state rushing headlong toward the atomic bomb. Meanwhile, recent diplomatic caving ins to Iranian and North Korean negotiating demands puts us in a very weak position regarding nuclear proliferation. The pattern of wooing enemies and alienating allies from Honduras to Poland suggests a desire to oppose everything America has stood for in the last century.  It appears to be a rejection of everything done to protect the United States in the last sixty years.

At one point, people thought Jimmy Carter was the worst comparison to Obama that could be made.  Right now, he's making Carter look good by comparison. We live in very dangerous times and weakness is the last thing we need to be showing right now.

Eight Years from 9/11

I remember when the numbers 911 came in for emergency calls and it took awhile to adjust to that, but in the end they became a standard part of the language.  Those numbers took on a whole new meaning eight years ago today. Instead of "nine-one-one" the first thing I think when I see the numbers in "Nine-Eleven."  It is a simple but profound change that affected many others, I suspect.

So I will remember the lives lost that fateful day and most likely will watch United 93 on DVD again.  It is difficult to because of the anger it provokes, but I vowed to never forget that day. Sadly, too many people have fallen prey to insane conspiracy theories or moral relativism regarding the events that cost over 3,000 people their lives.  The evils of Islamic fundamentalism still exist and we are slowly becoming complacent again. The consequences of that will not be good.

ACORN Has a Problem with Prostitution

Yes, ACORN, those community organizers who once had President Obama as a trainer, have a problem with prostitution.  What is bad about that, you think?  All of us should have a problem with prostitution, after all it is degrading and dehumanizing.  Well, ACORN's problem isn't that they oppose prostitution, it is that they more than condone it no matter what they publicly say.

Two young journalists in training decided to concoct the wildest scenario they could and approach an ACORN office in Maryland with it.  The premise was simple: a young would be politician and his girlfriend/prostitute are looking for federal help in finding housing for her to use as a brothel for underage El Salvadoran girls brought into the country illegally.

That should have been crazy sounding enough to get them tossed out, right?  Or get the police involved at the very least. Instead, the ACORN workers went out of their way to show them how to use this all for a tax shelter while giving practical advice on how to avoid the fictional pimp harassing the "prostitute." They didn't bat an eye at child prostitution and exploitation either, advising them to only declare three of the girls as dependants for tax deductions.

So what, you say?  Just a couple of bad eggs in one office don't show a problem in the organization.

Well... the two young investigators went to an office in Washington, D.C. next and check out what happened there.  Big Government has done a great thing exposing this story.

ACORN is a profoundly evil organization and needs to be shut down ASAP.  The fact they are getting billions of dollars from the stimulus is horrendous given their behavior and voter fraud cases going forth in the courts. Good grief, they are encouraging child prostitution!  I can't think of a more evil thing.

The two workers in the first video have been fired, but the big media is refusing to report on this outside of Fox News, talk radio, and conservative blogs.  There is something very, very wrong with our country right now, when such evil is being protected by the media.  I doubt we'll see much in the way of punishment for ACORN, they are joined at the hip with the Democratic Party and especially Obama.

Just disgusting.

Sick Yet Again

It started with a sore throat on Monday, that lasted a couple of days before moving into the sinuses and now chest.  Oh for an immune system that worked right!

The brain no worky, so the only thing I have to post is what may be the prototype for the ultimate cat toy: levitating mice!

Is the US Dollar Dying?

One of my regular reads is the online edition of the Daily Telegraph published in the United Kingdom.  It was interesting to see what the most read stories were today and I think you will see a unifying theme in them:

1. Barack Obama accused of making 'Depression' mistakes
2. China alarmed by US money printing
3. UN wants new global currency to replace dollar

Then on the other side of the page was Gold hits $1,000

With the Obama administration printing more green to buy government bonds because the Chinese won't, you know something is wrong.  Then you hear that the Chinese are moving slowly over to gold in order to keep their investments from deprieciating radically and off in the distance alarm bells begin to ring.  Finally, there has been talk between Russia, China, and India about starting a new currency because the dollar isn't looking sound, but hey, that's just a bunch of wannabe's talking, right?  Except now the UN is talking the same proposal a few week later.  Yeah, there is something seriously wrong with the US dollar when the biggest holder of US debt is publicly complaining and planning to move to something else.

Is the dollar actually dying?  Time will tell, but one thing is certain -- it is very, very ill.