Showing posts from April, 2011

Nobel Peace Prize winner kills Gaddafi's grandchildren

War is Peace when it's executed by The One.


Seif al-Arab Gadhafi was the sixth son of Gadhafi and brother of the better known Seif al-Islam Gadhafi. The younger Gadhafi had spent much of his time in Germany in recent years.


“The attack resulted in the martyrdom of brother Seif al-Arab Gadhafi, 29, and three of the leader’s grandchildren,” Ibrahim said.

UPDATE:Nobel Peace Prize winner bombs school for children with Down's Syndrome.

Cover your eyes, not your ears

HT: IPFreely

Greenspan's Body Count: Manuel Lopez, Christina Garcia, Christian Garcia

Greenspan's Body Count is usually the story of someone driven to murder and/or suicide by despair resulting from the effects of Greenspan's easy money policies.

Today's story is a little different. This family of three died by fire, living in squalor in an abandoned foreclosure in the wreckage of Greenspan's bubble.
Among [subprime lender Accredited Home Lenders' loans] was a balloon mortgage for $384,000 in November 2005 to one Domingo Cedano, who used the money to buy a three-family building at 2321 Prospect Avenue in the Bronx. The mortgage carried an interest rate of 7 3/8 and monthly payments of $2,491. Mr. Cedano put none of his own money into the purchase.

By this week, Mr. Cedano had long since stopped making payments. The property was in foreclosure. Accredited Home Lenders itself had gone bankrupt.

On Monday morning, when a fire in the building killed three people who lived on the top floor, it was a warren of rooms nested inside rooms. As the stairway roare…

With The First Pick in the Draft.....Ben Bernanke

On the eve of the NFL football draft I thought it might be an interesting exercise to consider what kind of football quarterback Ben Shalom Bernanke would be, at what draft position he would be picked at and what would his professional career look like so far. So let’s first consider his collegiate experience.

Major: Modern and Classic Football TheoryBen studied all the great quarterbacks from Sid Luckman to Otto Graham to Bart Starr up through the modern era QBs such as Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, John Elway, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.

His major included such topics as Reading Coverages, Utilizing Audibles and Other Topics. His thesis was titled - The Failure of the Jump Pass, A Comprehensive Study. By all accounts Ben was the most accomplished theoretical quarterback in Princeton history. Some even say in Ivy League history.

Minor: Physics of FootballBen also minored in the physics behind throwing the perfect football. Ben successfully modeled and demonstrated, using machines of co…

Greenspan's Body Count: Tuan Dao and children

It's all the same
Only the names have changed
Everyday, it seems Greenspan's killin' away
Another place where the bodies are so cold
Another family that will never grow old

Loyal readers of Greenspan's Body Count already know the story. Only the details differ. A man gets in over his head in debt lured by Greenspan's easy money. The ensuing financial ruin leads to despair and murder. Today's tale comes from the Portland suburb of Vancouver, Washington.
Investigators said Wednesday they believe a Washington father who was sliding into financial ruin deliberately set a fire that blew up his home, killing himself and five of his children. "The fire was intentionally set," said police spokeswoman Kim Kapp.Tuan Dao is the only suspect identified.The Columbian newspaper reported that Tuan Dao's mother answered the door briefly on Wednesday and broke down in tears."That was my son, you know?" she told the newspaper before closing the door.T…

Bernanke plans, Gold laughs


Little Timmy Geithner says he can single-handedly turn back the tide of trillion-dollar deficits and endless Fed monetization

Come on now. Even Timmy's mommy has to be embarrassed by statements like this:
The Treasury is steadfastly committed to a strong dollar, Mr. Geithner said. The U.S. will never debase its currency under his watch, he said.
I've got news for you, Timmy. Debasing the currency is exactly what Congress, the Administration, and the Federal Reserve have been doing the past 2+ years while you've been playing Mr. Super Important Treasury Secretary. And they didn't ask your permission.

UPDATE: It looks like the Wall Street Journal has memory-holed the whole story by Bradley Davis and replaced it with a story by Damian Palletta and Janet Hook that omits the Super Timmy statement. Free Republic and others linked the original story too. Here it is as captured by blogger lillierm:

Geithner: Debt-Ceiling Debate Is 'Irresponsible'

April 26th, 18:36

NEW YORK—New headwinds—most notably oil prices—confront the U.S. march to recovery, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Gei…

22 Questions for Bernanke by Zerohedge

Zerohedge has posted 22 excellent questions for Ben Shalom Bernanke. If only we lived in a democracy where the representatives of the people held the government responsible for it's actions. Hah! What am I talking about, we'd have to move to Brazil for that.

NL Bonus Question:Ben, how many dead people will it take to produce your economic utopia? Hunger, my dear Shalom, isn't transitory when ivory tower kleptocrats print, print and print.

UPDATE: Denninger has four great questions. I hope someone among the press idiots is bright enough to ask them.

Well, she is quite the thespian

Jodie Foster is bullish on The Beaver
- headline, Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2011

Democrats do the darndest things

Protecting yourself in a dollar crash


Foreign stocks:
VWO, VEA -- Vanguard emerging markets and EAFE index ETFs
SWISX -- Schwab international index fund
EWA -- Australia stock ETF
EWC -- Canada stock ETF

Foreign currencies:
FXA -- Australia currency ETF
FXC -- Canada currency ETF -- savings accounts and CDs denominated in many different currencies

Foreign bonds:
PFUIX -- Pimco Foreign Bond (unhedged)

GLD, SLV -- gold and silver ETFs
GDX -- gold miner index ETF
gold coins -- pick them …

New York Times: Economists agree Bernanke is a failure


Gee, who could have seen that coming?

UPDATE:Sarah Palin saw it coming. Ben Bernanke, like other Ivory Tower academics before him, gets schooled by Sarah Palin.

The bright side of TSA pedophiles

They are really, really stupid.
A passenger screener at Philadelphia International Airport is facing charges that he distributed more than 100 images of child pornography via Facebook, records show.Passenger screener. Yes, that's the same guy who gropes your children as you stand there like a coward and allow it.


I get pretty excited about liberty too

Zonies in the news again:
A Phoenix man who allegedly exposed himself to a woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty on Tax Day has been arrested for indecent exposure, police said on Thursday.

Kevin Robert Theriault, 42, was booked on suspicion of three counts each of indecent exposure and public sexual indecency.

The woman, who was standing on a street corner, dressed as the iconic statue to promote a tax preparer, called police after a man had masturbated in front of her four times. [ed. note: I guess she liked it the first three times?]


In his post-arrest interview, Theriault told detectives that he "just wanted to go home to do his taxes," Carbajal said.
In related news, New York subway wanker Dan Hoyt is still serving up "raw" food at his restaurant, Quintessence. Don't order the tapioca.

Say, that sounds like fun

From Craigslist:YAMAHA GB1 Grand Piano (las vegas,Nevada)

Date: 2011-04-21, 10:03AM PDT


Idiot reporters and the panic media strike again

It hasn't been two weeks since I griped about the unreliability of the mainstream media...In my own areas of modest expertise--poker and aviation--I often gag at what passes for reportage in the mainstream press. They frequently get things flat wrong, and even when the facts are correct, it's clear that the reporter still doesn't "get it."And now, in case you wanted to know what I was referring to, the panic-mongers at ABC, WaPo, et al, provide Exhibit A: the recent case of Michelle Obama's Near-Disastrous Brush With Death. This is from an aviation writer who actually knows what he's talking about:
Basically, in terminal airspace, where Michelle Obama's C-40/737 was, the required IFR lateral separation is 3 miles, which wasn't compromised. But in following a heavy jet like the C-17, 5 miles of in-trail spacing is required for wake turbulence and that's where the bust was. As the C-17 rolled out on the runway, this evolved into a runway separat…

Who farted? Obama smelt it.


He who smelt it dealt it.

Grant Williams on physical gold

One of my favorite daily reads is Grant Williams' Things That Make You Go Hmmmm.

Here's yesterday's issue, with a good section on the joy of physical gold -- and lots of fascinating data on world gold ownership.

Williams had a very short run publishing TTMYGH for investment bank Jefferies, but he was fired for linking to a Hitler parody video that made fun of Jamie Dimon. You DON'T insult Jamie Dimon if you want to work on Wall Street.

Trump loves crony capitalism


Created via

Taxpayers to lose billions on Government Motors

Timmy the Tax Cheat to cut his losses:


What, people don't like the bonus features of Government Motors cars like extra lighting for your garage?

The state fire marshal's office is investigatin…

Graham Summers can't make up his friggin' mind

Graham Summers last month:
There will be no QE 3. [...] the whole QE game is over. I know that most folks believe Bernanke will issue QE all the way to infinite [sic], but the actual likelihood of this is low given the public’s outrage over the continued bailouts and the like. Obama and the rest of Washington can sell out to the Wall Street banks all they want. But when the US starts experiencing the sort of turmoil that is rocking the Middle East (and it will, mark my words) the QE game will end.
Graham Summers today:
Indeed, the Fed HAS to engage in more QE 3 if it doesn’t want the entire market to collapse. Given the breakdown in Europe, the IMPLOSION in the Middle East, and the ongoing nuclear disaster in Japan, the removal of Fed liquidity would kick off a MASSIVE systemic Crisis.

Remember, we had a full-scale market breakdown when QE 1 ended and that was because of Greece: a country with a GDP of $329 billion. Removing liquidity from the markets when Japan, the fourth largest econo…

The one thing every unemployed person needs...

... is a super-hero cape!




And they don't trust the ETFs or COMEX futures.


The Fed Selling Put Options on "Own" Debt

Warning, the following provides the Feds own words to illustrate it's point:

And that point? We are soooooo screwed. Man that Fed is dirty.

Atlas Shrugged, The Movie. Now At a Theater Near You

Independently financed, with a distribution deal done outside of the realm of Hollywood's normal process, Atlas Shrugged, the movie, has hit the theaters. The movie was finally released in 300 theaters (find your local showing here), the numbers so far this weekend are positive, and suggest it could possibly get picked up for wider distribution into perhaps 1000 theaters. For decades, the development of an Atlas Shrugged movie was mired in episodes of fits and starts, as rights changed hands multiple times, and major studios showed tepid interest, despite the book's historically monstrous sales numbers and the large cultural imprint it left in this country, in helping spread kind of strong message of freedom Atlas Shrugged presents.

You might recall W.C. Varones mentioning Atlas Shrugged in the past, here and here.
The book sold approximately 160,000 copies per year, until Obama took office. Then it sold over 720,000 copies in 2008 and 2009, as Obama's rose to the oval off…

Land of the Free

If it's fun and the government doesn't get a cut, you can bet you won't be free to do it for very long.

Sayonara, online poker. For some reason the rest of the world sees no problem with it, but the God Blessed United States of America can't abide.
The FBI has apparently seized four large online poker websites — PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker — claiming bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling offenses.Dear Republicans: blow me. Dear Democrats: you too.

Orwell Continues North American Tour

SACRAMENTO – California’s unemployment rate decreased to 12.0 percent
in March, and nonfarm payroll jobs decreased by 11,600 during the month,
according to data released today by the California Employment Development
Department (EDD) from two separate surveys."

Did a bunch of people leave the state? According to their own data I don't see anywhere in the 4 pages of crack analysis by Loree Levy and Kevin Callori that indicates that. Here's the table:
So the labor force shrunk by 39K? Really? That seems pretty drastic for a 1 month period don't you think? Yet on the unadjusted table the unemployment rate increased. Why? Oh:
The March jobless rate was down from February's revised figure of 12.1 percent. However, observers cautioned that the methodology used to calculate the number changed over that period, so comparisons were difficult.No comment on what changed or why. They'll just change it and the sheep, I mean idiot masses, I mean citizenry will accept it. …

Let Them Eat iPad2s

"Dumb logic is at the core of modern economic theory."

America, this is what you've become

Neal Fox called it.

He should have gotten tossing off safety tips from Obama

Man engulfed in flames at San Francisco porn shop:
Police officers across the street from the porn shop saw a man run out the front door of the store “engulfed in flames,” an SFPD spokesman said.



Unemployment Nation

What a recovery!


Senator Durbin (D-IL) Proposes Internet Tax

The proposal--expected to be made public soon after Tax Day--would rewrite the ground rules for Internet and mail order sales by eliminating the ability of Americans to shop at Web sites like and without paying state sales taxes. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second most senior Senate Democrat, will introduce the bill after the Easter recess, a Democratic aide told CNET. "Why should out-of-state companies that sell their products online have an unfair advantage over Main Street bricks-and-mortar businesses?" Durbin said in a speech in Collinsville, Ill., in February. "Out-of-state companies …

Wall Street Journal: Obama is tossing off

Today's WSJ:

And even moderates are giving scathingreviews of Obama's "plan."

Congress - Fail

Our country is like the Titanic with one major difference; the iceberg (our debt) is in plain view. Its distance to us it debatable but we can definitely, without question, see it and we are heading right for it.

Our Congress is the management staff or the Titanic, and their solution??? To move a few deck chairs around! From WAPO:
The Congressional Budget Office estimate shows that the spending bill due for a House vote Thursday would pare just $352 million from the deficit through Sept. 30. About $8 billion in cuts to domestic programs and foreign aid are offset by nearly equal increases in defense spending.$352 MILLION from a deficit of 1,600,000 MILLION? A 0.022% decrease in borrowing?



Liars and Counterfeiters

PEOPLE! I cannot stress enough that the fabric of America is being burned by the liars and counterfeiters of this great nation. We must as a population thank our astute and johnny-on-the-spot law enforcement for cracking down on the evils that so tarnish our population. To wit: BARRY BONDS! Evil, evil, evil! How dare he lie about his use of performance enchancing drugs. The fact that he almost got away with it risked, well, elderly; risked selling people loans they could not; risked selling securities that he later shorted and made a profit Oh yes, he lied to a Grand Jury and that is against the law. But aren't there more sinister examples of Wall Street fat cats lying to everyone that did cause those things? And they don't even get indicted?


As to the Counterfeiters! HOW DARE YOU Chucky Cheese! SHAAAMMMEEEE! What you are doing is destroying the savings of the; causing commodities prices to sky; destabili…

Matt Taibbi takes on the corrupt and unaccountable Federal Reserve

He exposed Goldman Sachs and then the Wall Street - Washington kleptocracy.

Now he's come for the Dirty Fed. Sit down and read how the Federal Reserve gives multi-million-dollar can't lose trades to the well-connected elite.

Tea Party Protest Signs Are Banned in MI Town


Zimbabwe Ben comes for commuters


Listen to a reporter's opinion? Not a chance.

Tiger Woods did not win the Masters this year. However, he gave it an amazing run and pulled even with leader Rory McIlroy in Sunday's early going, before ultimately being overtaken and finishing fourth.

I mention it because, had you listened to AP reporter Tim Dahlberg and the countless mainstream outlets that carried him (including Forbes here), you'd have believed that Tiger was out of contention after Saturday's round.
He's as done as some of the patrons who baked for hours in the Georgia sun to catch a glimpse of him. There will be no fifth green jacket on Sunday, even if Woods is the last one to figure that out.
Mocking a fan who had told Woods, "You're in this, Tiger!", Dahlberg concluded his Saturday article:Not a chance.This is Exhibit A of why the mainstream press is dying a well-deserved death.

To borrow a line: Those who can do; those who can't become reporters.

I've long been convinced that a reporter is essentially a well-rounded idio…

Krugman in Wonderland

Paul Krugman apparently once had something interesting to say about economics, as he got a Nobel Prize for something he wrote years ago (though Al Gore, Yasser Arafat, and Barack Obama all won Nobel Peace Prizes, so maybe I'm reading too much into that).

Nonetheless, as we've documented here again and again, Krugman hasn't had an original economic thought in years. His New York Times columns always boil down to two themes: 1) we're not borrowing, printing, and spending enough money; and 2) Republicans are stupid and/or evil.

Alas, the frequency of Krugman's inanities is far to great for us to respond to every instance. Fortunately, we've found Krugman in Wonderland, an excellent blog devoted to mocking the ridiculous things that Krugman writes. Blogger William L. Anderson is an economics professor of the Austrian persuasion, and it's a thing of beauty to see a relatively unknown professor from a small college regularly destroy the pronouncements of the Ea…

Bernanke's victims speak out

In response to an article on the Fed ruining elderly savers with zero interest rates, three such victims wrote letters to the editor in today's Wall Street Journal:
When my wife and I planned for our retirement we only expected a return of 4% to 6% on our savings to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. As luck would have it, we retired right into Alan Greenspan's low interest-rates folly. Thankfully, we were "laddered" and survived his relatively short dip with principal intact. But Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's never-ending "zero" interest-rate policy has caused us to bite, not dip, into our principal ("Fed's Low Interest Rates Crack Retirees' Nest Eggs," page one, April 4).

We expect to do our fair share to help the nation recover. To destroy, however, a whole class of senior citizens who have very few tools with which to fight back, while the banks get richer and richer, isn't the American dream.

Here's a message to Ben Bern…

Explanation of Terms. And Why Isn't This Treason?

1) This radical is calling for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. Why has he not been arrested for Treason yet?a) He has an organized political party behind him, b) he's planned demonstrations at various sites around the nation for this May (historically the Communists' big celebration month), and c) he advocates violence as a means of overthrowing the U.S. government. Is that not enough to warrant Federal Treason charges?
"So, our party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, we are building a Revolutionary Party with one idea in mind; that the same phenomenon that happened in Egypt, will actually happen in the United States."

"Now, we're going to be out on the streets in 2 weeks, in front of White House and around the coutnry demonstrating. Some people will be demonstrating with us because they're against any war. They're against violence. They're against bloodshed. They would consider themselves non-violent people and pacifists. And …

Bernanke FAIL

It's now pretty clear that Bernanke's dollar debasement has rewarded the rich and banks with asset inflation, while screwing the poor, working, and middle classes with food and energy inflation.

Hey Zimbabwe Ben, if you're going to destroy the currency, how about giving it to the people instead of the banks like we suggested last year, you jackass?

Shutdown farce remains talk of the town

We are running $1.5 trillion serial deficits, and the clowns in Washington are arguing over $30 billion in cuts. That is less than 1% of federal spending. They are watching a tsunami coming, and they are arguing over what bathing suit to wear.

The shutdown is a farce. They will close the national parks just to show the public that they can screw up people's vacation plans if they don't get a blank check to sell our children into debt slavery.

They may shut it down for a few days until the couch potatoes start complaining because CNN told them to. Then they'll come to a compromise which does absolutely nothing to address the fiscal crisis.

And when QE2 is done, if the Chinese don't want to buy our debt any more to fund the reckless spending, we'll have QE3.

Shut it down for a year! Our parents and grandparents lived without an omni-intrusive federal government and 10% GDP deficits. Let's give it a try.

"Lindsey You Jackass!"

Be John Galt has linked a hilarious rant pertaining to Lindsey Graham's commentary which we commented on here.

Ms. Barnhardt nails it:

In her second part, which you can get to by clicking the Be John Galt link above, she burns pages of the Koran. I personally can't stand the burning of any books because it's only destruction of content. Whether you think the content is BS or not, it's still destruction and it's wasteful to me. I don't believe any books should ever be burned, BUT I certainly support her right to do so without exception.

I generally think religion is just a huge distraction supported by the ruling class to control their subjects. Whether it be Christian, Muslim, whatever; religion is a tool used to control, and in the case of radicals, incite violence.

The only thing close to religion I have is the Constitution of the United States of America. What I see happening today is people like Lindsey Graham trying to destroy it. And with each action …

Fedbashing goes mainstream



Nuclear Meltdown

If a meltdown occurs but nobody reports on it, did it really happen? Today Zerohedge posted this, quoting Reuters, regarding confirmation that one of the Fukushima reactors had melted down:


"That's not clear to us, nor is it clear to us that the reactor has penetrated the vessel," said Martin Virgilio, deputy executive director for reactor and preparedness programs at the NRC.Now when you click on the link provided you will discover that the article has been taken down by Reuters. It was there before, we confirmed that. Now:

Update: after seeing FlyingCuttleFish's comment I checked on Google's r…

Going to war with France is like going deer hunting with an accordion

Libya rebels say "no thanks" to slow, bureaucratic NATO support.

Maybe incompetent warfare is actually a good thing, considering that the people we're helping are actually al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremists.

Jerry Brown is a fluffer

Dan Walters, the Sacramento Bee's top state government columnist and certainly no conservative, says Jerry Brown's pension plan is nothing but fluff:
The superficial aspects – anecdotal accounts of outrageous pension manipulation – have received the most media attention. Meanwhile, the more meaningful issue of whether taxpayers and employees face a ticking time bomb of unfunded liabilities is complex and unsexy, receiving relatively little attention.

For the most part, Brown's plan deals with the former rather than the latter. It gives the illusion of being tough on pension issues without making truly tough choices.

Much of it deals, for instance, with "pension spiking" through various manipulative techniques – outrageous, certainly, but of little effect on the larger and more serious issue. Other points are of equally light weight, such as prohibiting retroactive pension benefits or pensions for convicted felons.

Meanwhile, the plan either omits anything that would …


Lindsey clarifies:



Did the Fed Have Advance Knowledge of 9/11?

Stranger things have happened.

Read all about the third largest increase in the money supply since 1947 and the curious case of the Chicago Fed analyst fired for asking too many questions.

CNN Bimbos Schooled on Libya

ZH posted this and it deserves posting here as well. CNN's soccer moms were thrown into a shark tank by their producers. Behold:

I'd like to thank the producers at CNN for their obvious understanding of improvisational humor. That was a perfect setup and the execution did not disappoint.

DISCLAIMER - I LOVE SOCCER MOMS, I married one, well, she wasn't a soccer mom when we..anyway, some soccer moms don't exactly know all there is to know about foreign politics, budget deficits and the Constitution, in general. But, to their credit, I'm sure percentage-wise soccer moms blow Congress away on that count. I'm just saying that these 2 CNN bimbos project the stereotype of soccer moms in that unflattering way. You know, the type that thinks Regis and Kelly is a major news outlet. Or CNN for that matter..... And most soccer moms are smart enough not to get into debates on subjects about which they know nothing with experts in said subjects.



Now Lindsey says,

Obama finally has something in common with John F. Kennedy


Some Anti Obama Art

It's no "Joker". But here's a painting, called "The Forgotten Man", by John McNaughton. It's the artist's vision of how all of our previous Presidents would react to our current President. When artists start to openly express their discontent with any Liberal politician, you know the wider public must be way ahead of them. Especially considering that artists and professional creative types gushed tears of joy as they ushered our first "post racial" President (guffaw!!) into office, it's usually a big, yet very personal, moment of "reckoning" for them as they each individually come to the realization that Obama is just another thieving, lying politician hell-bent on enriching his cronies at the expense of the average citizen. Here's my own anecdotal support for that statement: In Hollywood, CA, back in the fall of 2009, I personally was told first hand by maybe 30 self-described "Liberals" and "Democrats&quo…

Boehner not going limp yet

Despite wishful thinking from Democrats that Boehner will go soft, Boehner is not yet bending to Democrat demands for essentially zero budget cuts.

ReasonTV on Dr. James Enstrom, Hien Tran, Mary Nichols, and CARB fraud

We've covered the CARB fraud story before, wherein crazy lady Mary Nichols hired a fake researcher with a fake degree from a fake internet university to write a fake report saying diesel trucks were killing little babies. After the fraud was exposed, guess who was fired. Not the fraudsters, but the whistleblower, UCLA researcher Dr. James Enstrom.

Now ReasonTV covers the story. See it here.

Breakdown of How To Pay for 1 Year of US Budget. Is Everybody Cool With This Plan?

"America is not broke. Not by a longshot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just… that it's not… in your hands!"
-Socialist Michael Moore in Wisconsin on March 5th, 2011.
Using facts and numbers, let's now see how Michael Moore's implied "solution", which is simply taking the money from those who have it and giving it to those who don't, would help solve our Federal budget problems.

CalSTRS $56 billion hole, to demand another $688 million next year from bankrupt state budget

Read all about it at Pension Pulse.

They make ridiculous return assumptions and bad investments. We have to pay for the difference.