Sign of Our Times

Blacking Out Transparency

The U.S. Department of Agricultural has stopped making public the names of farm subsidy recipients and how much they receive.

As noted by the liberal Environmental Working Group, the new policy "effectively shields from disclosure subsidy benefits going to multiple, and often absentee, owners of large agribusiness farming operations."

Transparency?

We're the Government, we don't gotta show you no stinkin' transparency! 

. . . and we don't gotta tell you how we spend your tax dollars or to whom we give 'em!

Applying the Wrong Economic Lesson

With it's blind, unshakable, and unswerving commitment to a failed economic theory, the Obama administration and its liberal ideological allies are sabotaging any possible economic recovery. As this report makes clear, they are repeating a 1937 Roosevelt administration policy that deepened and extended America's great depression. 

A Humorist Captures the Essence of Today's Journalism

If you spend 72 hours in a place you've never been, talking to people whose language you don't speak about social, political, and economic complexities you don't understand, and you come back as the world's biggest know-it-all, you're a reporter.

. . . P. J. O'Rourke 

In The Weekly Standard 

August 28 - September 6 Issue

Another Worse Than Futile Governmental Charade

Another governmental agency responsible for protecting us engaged during the past week in a probably costly and certainly counterproductive bit of legerdemain that has become all too typical.

The Securities and Exchange Commission brought, and almost simultaneously settled securities fraud charges against the State of New Jersey for hiding the financial problems of the state and its public employee pension funds from investors to whom it was peddling bonds. 

What was being done by New Jersey was not unusual for states that have spent themselves into a financial abyss. As was noted in this Wall Street Journal report, "the National Association of State Budget Officers [has] admitted that states were employing 'creative innovative . . . adjustments' to budgets. They include financing current operations with debt, moving money from trust funds dedicated to specific tasks (like highway maintenance) into general funds, and pushing payments to vendors into future fiscal years." Take a look at the report for an outline of the chicanery's sordid details.

Ignore for the moment the interesting and noteworthy -- though unmentioned -- fact that no action comparable to that taken by by the SEC (purportedly to protect investors from such chicanery) ever has been taken or even contemplated against public officials who engage in fraudulent conduct to hoodwink the taxpaying and voting citizenry. The important point is that the SEC proceeding actually encourages and ensures the continuation of financial fraud by governmental units notwithstanding the agency's claim that it acted against New Jersey to deter financial fraud by states by making it clear that such dishonesty would not be tolerated, 

First, consider that neither the state nor any governmental unit can be jailed. Nor would imposing a fine against a governmental body as a fine would punish only the taxpayers. The action resulted only in an order for the state not to transgress in the future. What if it does? Imprisonment still would be impossible and a fine still would be senseless. So where is the deterrent?

More importantly, a state can act only through and by the conduct of supposedly accountable individuals in supposedly responsible positions. But the SEC took no action against any of the individual New Jersey office holders responsible for the reprehensible conduct for which they were responsible even though the agency typically seeks and obtains the imposition of heavy fines and prison terms against executive and financial officers of private corporations who have engaged in similar conduct.

The lesson of the whole episode is that financial fraud by public office holders is just fine and dandy and will go unpunished. Meanwhile those in the private sector can just go on paying the bills, continue carefully minding their Ps and Qs, and diligently dotting all the Is and crossing all the Ts, while wondering about the resources that the SEC expended on the New Jersey charade.

The whole episode brings to mind a wonderful story about the Micky Mouse vs. Minnie Mouse divorce case in which Micky's lawyer is telling the judge that his client no longer can live with Minnie because she has become insane. Micky stops the argument by telling his lawyer that Minnie isn't crazy only to have lawyer respond that he is just arguing the case the Micky brought to him. Micky answers:

I never told you that Minnie is crazy. 
What I said is that she is f _ _  king Goofy.

Clear Ground Zero Mosque Statement by Newt Gingrich

There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.

The proposed "Cordoba House" - overlooking the World Trade Center site “ where a group of jihadists killed over 3,000 Americans and destroyed one of our most famous landmarks - is a test of the timidity, passivity and historic ignorance of American elites.  For example, most of them don't understand that Cordoba House is a deliberately insulting term.  It refers to Cordoba, Spain, the capital of Muslim conquerors who symbolized their victory over the Christian Spaniards by transforming a church there into the world's third-largest mosque complex.

Today, some of the Mosque's backers insist this term is being used to "symbolize interfaith cooperation" when, in fact, every Islamist in the world recognizes Cordoba as a symbol of Islamic conquest.  It is a sign of their contempt for Americans and their confidence in our historic ignorance that they would deliberately insult us this way.

Those Islamists and their apologists who argue for "religious toleration" are arrogantly dishonest. They ignore the fact that more than 100 mosques already exist in New York City. Meanwhile, there are no churches or synagogues in all of Saudi Arabia. In fact no Christian or Jew can even enter Mecca.  And they lecture us about tolerance.

If the people behind the Cordoba House were serious about religious toleration, they would be imploring the Saudis, as fellow Muslims, to immediately open up Mecca to all and immediately announce their intention to allow non-Muslim houses of worship in the Kingdom.   They should be asked by the news media if they would be willing to lead such a campaign.

We have not been able to rebuild the World Trade Center in nine years.  Now we are being told a 13 story, $100 million megamosque will be built within a year overlooking the site of the most devastating surprise attack in American history. 

Finally where is the money coming from? 

The people behind the Cordoba House refuse to reveal all their funding sources.

America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization. Sadly, too many of our elites are the willing apologists for those who would destroy them if they could.

No mosque.
No self deception.
No surrender.

Seizing a Business Opportunity: Finding and Filling a Need

A friend just started a new business of his own. He is making landmines that look like prayer mats.

He seems to be doing well and reports that prophets are going through the roof.

A Question About Liberty

During the last two years, Democrats have amassed unprecedented growth of federal government power in the forms of bailouts, corporate takeovers, favors to their political allies and nationalization of our health care system. My question is how likely is it for Republicans to behave differently if they gain control? Their past behavior doesn't make one confident that they will behave much differently, but I could be wrong. If Republicans win the House of Representatives, there are measures they should take in their first month of office, and that is to undo most of what the Democratically controlled Congress has done. If they don't win a veto-proof Senate, they can't undo Obamacare but the House alone can refuse to fund any part of it. There are numerous blocking tactics that a Republican-controlled House can take against those hell-bent on trampling on our Constitution. The question is whether they will have guts and principle to do it. After all, many Americans, including those who are Republicans, have a stake in big government control, special privileges and handouts. Ultimately, we Americans must act to ensure that our liberty does not depend on personalities in Washington. Our founders tried to do that with our Constitution.

. . .Economics Professor Dr. Walter E. Williams

Let's Promote Tolerance

If a mosque is built near Ground Zero to promote tolerance a gay nightclub should be opened next door to it. It could operate as either "The Turban Cowboy" or "You Mecca Me Hot." A butcher shop specializing in pork should be established next door on the other side of the mosque. And across the street a store that sells and displays in its windows bikinis or ladies lingerie on manikins or live models would be appropriate.

Psalm 2010

Obama is the shepherd I did not want.
He leadeth me beside the still factories.
He restoreth my faith in the Republican party.
He guideth me in the path of unemployment for his party's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the bread line,
I shall fear no hunger, for his bailouts are with me.
He has anointed my income with taxes,
My expenses runneth over.
Surely, poverty and hard living will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will live in a mortgaged home forever.
I am glad I am American,
I am glad that I am free.
But I wish I was a dog .....
And Obama was a tree.

Wisdom and Perspective Come With Age ? ? ?

Understanding Islam

After reading the post immediately beneath this one, view the following video to understand why Islam is as described in that post, its obligatory goals and objectives, and the claims to be a "religion of peace" as part and parcel of its prescribed deceptive tactics and strategies for achieving worldwide domination.

See and Treat Islam for What It Actually Is

Notwithstanding its myths, veils, and pretensions, Islam is not primarily a religion, and it should not be accepted and treated as one.

It is an all encompassing cultural, political, and social ideology that exercises strict control over every aspect of the lives of its adherents. It requires total unquestioning submission to all its precepts.

Only its religious trappings distinguish Islam from such other totalitarian systems as communism, fascism, and national socialism. It deserves to be treated and opposed just as those discredited ideological systems were before our elites lost confidence in the values of western civilization and became fearful of being thought judgmental and intolerant. The faux religion's imams and mullahs recognize, play on, and take full advantage of the fact that the west's current leaders hold no beliefs for which they will stand up and fight and therefore treat all ideas and values as being of equal worth and validity. 

Our cowardly leaders, bereft of morals, seek refuge by accepting, and calling on everyone else to accept Islam's bogus religious claims. They routinely spew spuriously nonsensical claims that most Muslims are "moderate."

Were that true there never would have been any terrorist attacks. We would have be deluged by moderates turning in, and revealing the murderous plans and intents of their "radical" coreligionists.

Even more significant is the absence of tolerance in any Islamic nation. Islam prevails in every Arab country but "moderates" hold sway in none of them. Not a single one of those nations permits any Christian church or Jewish synagogue. We have decent relations only with Arab nations under the thumbs of brutally repressive authoritarian rulers who keep at bay demands for popular rule. Everyone recognizes that genuine elections would bring to power "radical" Muslims committed to joining ongoing efforts of Islamic 'republics' to impose Islam's prescribed structures and control onto the entire world.

So where in all this are the tolerant "moderate" Muslims?

Here is one of them:

Dump the Dim Moonbeam: He's Dangerously Despotic As Well As a Dingbat

Recent developments and revelations have led me to reverse my initial inclination to support and vote for Jerry Brown in the race for California's governorship. I at the time was motivated by the fact that, unlike his anti gun RINO opponent in the upcoming election, the Democrat candidate years ago took a principled position on citizens' Second Amendment rights. In addition, I believed and hoped that Brown might have matured and learned some important lessons since his previous disastrous tenure as California's moonbeam governor, and that he had done as good a job as Oakland's mayor as anyone who has served in that problem city's impossible top political job in recent decades.

Since then however, Mr. Brown has been derelict in the performance of his duties as California's attorney general by indulging his ego and personal policy preferences and allowing them to outweigh his obligations to the state's voters. He is refusing, as is California's film action hero governor, to participate in an appeal from a federal trial court judge's decision striking down a voter approved amendment to the state constitution upholding the traditional concept of marriage as being the union of one man with one woman.  

The gambit in this course of action is to have the appellate court refuse to consider the appeal on its merits because no one with official standing is participating in its prosecution. If, as is possible, the appellate court is willing to countenance this charade, the voters who adopted the constitutional amendment would go unrepresented and the dubious decision of a single federal trial court judge would stand as the law, and homosexual marriages would be lawful in California.

The issue here is not whether gay marriages should or should not be permitted. The issue is by whom the decision should be made -- whether the decision should be made by denying any voice in the decision to the voters. By abandoning the defense of the amendment Brown would deny the voters any role in deciding the question either at the ballot box or in a judicial review to determine whether their judgment or that of a single black robed occupant of a federal trial court bench should prevail.

Such tyranny by an attorney general is not without precedent. Some years ago when opponents of  a California voter approved ballot initiative brought a legal proceeding to challenge the measure's legality, an earlier attorney general and governor, both of whom agreed with the challengers, sold out the voters by settling the case on terms favorable to the measure's opponents. In addition, Nebraska's attorney general currently is refusing to defend a law enacted by that state's legislature against a challenge brought by opponents of  the enactment by the people's elected representatives. This probably will result in those who were unsuccessful in defeating the statute in the legislature prevailing in court with the connivance of the attorney general, who supposedly is responsible for defending and upholding his state's laws. Because he deems himself better qualified than the legislature to determine what laws the state ought to have, opponents of the measure probably will win by default before a judge, who in all likelihood will prevent the disputed statute from becoming effective.

If such derelictions are allowed to stand -- and they will become more common and widespread if voters elect to higher offices the attorneys general who engage in them -- we will be governed by single unlikely despots: whoever occupies the office of the attorney general in any given state.

Incidentally, insofar as Jerry Brown is concerned, it turns out that he also is allied with Code Pink -- the outfit, if you recall, that notoriously engaged in physically blocking access to the Marine Corps recruiting office in Berkeley, California.

It's time to retire Jerry Brown from public life.

Under Attack but Dangerously Oblivious, Ignorant, and Supine

As uncomfortable as it may be to recognize the fact, neither western civilization nor our country is indestructible. In fact both may be destroyed in a war that a relentless enemy has long been waging and is continuing to wage in an effort to do just that.

Sadly, the poseurs who currently pass for leaders refuse to recognize the nature of the conflict, preferring to deal with the pretend world in which they would prefer to live rather than the one all of us actually inhabit.  These 'leaders' -- actually virtually all of the members of our elite ruling class --  do not believe in any of the values that used to underlie western civilization or, at least, they do not believe in those values strongly enough to defend or fight for them . . . and they want all of us to share their torpor and behave as they do.

Those with the fortitude to understand the ongoing attacks against our country and way of life as well as the identity and nature of our adversaries would do well to read a book entitled The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel Huntington. Alternatively, those without the time or inclination to read the full work might glean some useful insights from this very brief synopsis of the comprehensive work together with another writer's views.

Engine Grinding Down

With the issuance of a new unemployment report showing a startling high increase in new jobless benefit applications -- to a level far higher than any in the preceding six months -- our president is trying to rescue his failing economy with the one and only thing he knows how to do: TALK, EMPTY TALK . . . JUST JABBER WITH NO MEANING OR WORSE.

Ideologically committed to a discredited economic theory, Mr. Obama is failing and flailing, doubling his taxpayer funded bets on schemes that have been proven to be futile. His attempts to disguise the direction of huge amounts of taxpayer money to his union supporters as stimuli also have failed. 

Instead of getting the government out of the way of the nation's productive endeavors, he and his cohorts are adding regulatory controls and tax burdens on businesses.

Our great speechifying illusionist steadfastly refuses to recognize that these things are sand in the gears of the greatest economic engine the world has ever seen. That sand -- the product of the perpetually pandering members of both of our major political parties -- has become so voluminous and weighty that it is grinding down our formerly great economic machine and may even be bringing it to a crashing halt.

Leaking Secrets

It is more than slightly ironic that those who recently have had and currently have their knickers in a bunch over a blogger's dissemination of classified tactical military secrets applauded, took satisfaction over, or at least were silent when, during the Bush administration's tenure, The New York Times published far more significant strategic secrets. 

The Times made public details of how the U.S. was tracking the flow of funds by and for terrorists. As a result of that publication, the means by which terrorism was and is being financed changed and presumably became more difficult, if not impossible for those responsible for the nation's security to follow on a timely basis.

Had we the gumption of the proper nation we once were, we would not have had the more recent leaks. We would have brought and prosecuted charges of treason against everyone involved in the earlier leaks and imposed appropriate penalties against those convicted of that heinous crime. Does anyone believe there still would be leaks had the Times' publisher and editor been hanged for publishing the earlier ones despite pleas from the government to refrain from doing so?

La Belle Michelle - A Queen Antoinette of Our Very Own

The People Have No Jobs?
Let Them Swallow Our Optics;
. . . and If They Don't Like It, 
Let Them Eat S _ _ t.

Madam of the House of Reprehensibles

Ancient Chinese Had It Right and a Modern Thesis Also Does

Individuals who seek power never should be entrusted with it, according to an ancient Chinese admonition. Perhaps that wise bit of advice and this current analysis explain the government we've got and why our ruling class oligarchs demand subservience and have their boots on our throats.

One Of The Best Quotes of Our Time

As an American I am not so shocked that Obama was given  

the Nobel Peace Prize without any accomplishments to his  
name. America  gave him the White House based on 
the same credentials. 

 . . . Newt Gingrich

P.S. on California Gay Marriage Issue

A significant positive contribution to the debate on gay marriage in California has been made, believe it or not, by a University of California at Berkeley law professor who favors such unions. His analysis can be read here.

A Ploy To Shield Judicial Enshrinement of Gay Marriage in California From Appellate Review?

Proponents of homosexual marriages are pursuing a plan to prevent any judicial review of the substance of a single judge's ruling striking down a voter approved California constitutional provision limiting marriage to the traditional union of one man and one woman. If the gay marriage proponents are successful, the transformation of marriage that they favor will become a permanent fixture of California law in accordance with the fiat of a single black robed honorable.

The others complicit in this effort are two other honorable and horrible oligarchs -- Hollywood's gift to California's governorship and the state's moonbeam attorney general -- neither of whom feel any obligation to defend the decision of California's voters to enshrine the traditional concept of marriage in the state's constitution. Because they personally agree with the decision of the federal district court judge, these two worthies are not going to participate in any appeal.

The argument -- first suggested by the judge who made the initial decision -- is that without the governor or the attorney general participating -- there is no one with standing to represent the state and hence no appeal will be possible. The millions of voters be damned. If this is allowed to stand, the questionable -- actually almost laughable -- and legally baseless multi-paged rantings of the trial judge would become a permanent fixture of the governing law of the State of California.

It cannot be predicted whether the appellate panel that has been chosen to consider the matter will accept this fast shuffle or, instead, allow the private proponents of traditional marriage who participated in the trial court charade to represent California's voters in an appeal to reverse the decision of the trial court judge. Irrespective of the outcome at the initial appellate level, the whole thing will be played out again before the entire Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and then before the U.S. Supreme Court. 

In the meantime, Californians should keep in mind the roles being played in this by those to whom they have entrusted the offices of the governor and the attorney general, especially as the holder of the latter position is running to become governor. And everybody unwilling to be ruled by black robed tyrants would be well advised to keep their pitchforks and torches (as well as their firearms) close, ready, and quickly accessible.

Note: The contributor of the above feels strongly about, and is focused on how and by whom the issue is resolved, but has no strong predilection one way or the other on gay marriage itself.

Unfortunate and Dangerous Unintended Consequences of Rash Racism Charges

Those who routinely and recklessly make obviously spurious charges of racism to silence those who disagree with them at any and all political opportunities obviously never have read the story of the little boy who cried wolf so often that he was ignored when the wolf really appeared.

As in the story, the cries have become common and proven to be false so often that they now are ignored as having no credibility. If they have any direct effects at all, the accusations have come to be counterproductive from the intent and standpoint of those who make them.

Unfortunately, however, this also has had and is having a very unfortunate and potentially dangerous unintended indirect effect. It has revived and is giving new vitality, to some presently unascertainable extent, the acceptability and legitimacy of real racism. I know quite a few people -- mostly very financially  successful and well along in years -- who have long harbored but muted and kept private definitely racist views. In the atmosphere resulting from the misuse of accusations of racism, these individuals now feel comfortable proclaiming their racist views openly and far and wide publicly.

Other younger individuals, seeing that criticizing, or disagreeing with anything said or done, or any position taken by a member of minority group results in their being accused of racism, react by saying "the hell with it." They insist on being free to express their substantive views . . . and the charges engender in them hostility toward members of the minority group they never previously disparaged and toward whom they never previously were at all antagonistic.

The divisive effects of the bogus accusations are shattering and reversing a half century of progress toward racial healing and harmony. Such progress probably was largely illusory but it was becoming or at least on the threshold of becoming real.

Unemployment Picture Bleak . . . . . and Change Is Making It Ever Darker

Every new report shows that employment in the U.S. is in a long dark descending tunnel. The number of jobs being created is being outpaced by those being shed. This unpleasant but inescapable fact is not inexplicable. It is due to the uncertain business environment created by the changes being imposed by the nation's current administration. Adding employees already is very costly . . . and, while it is clear that hiring new workers will be even more expensive in the future, the magnitude of future increasing costs cannot be determined. To understand today's real employment costs and the rational considerations that recently led a small company to conclude that hiring additional workers is overly risky even though the company really could use some new employees, see this lucid explanation by the owner of the business. The described decision making process is not an isolated one. It is replicated on a regular ongoing basis in businesses of every size throughout the country. The result is that the nation's payrolls are shrinking and everybody who is not unconscious or in (and committed to growing) the government know it. The downward tunnel is likely to get darker, longer, and steeper.

A Reform Worth Trying

Though not a particular fan or admirer of Dick Morris, he has put his finger on a worthwhile reform. Down toward the middle of this column, he proposes a contract that would transform Congress, greatly improve the way Congress does business, and cure many of its ills.

Dmocrat Campaign Strategy

Taking their best shot in a desperate attempt to hold on to power, congressional Democrats running for reelection are going to try to hide, and get voters to ignore their shabby performances as lockstep members of the majority party. They're not going to run on their records and they are going to try to avoid mentioning their 'accomplishments,' hoping that voters will forget or overlook them. Instead, members of the contemptible wrecking crew are going to vilify and try to run against George Bush even though he's not running for anything. They're going to accuse their critics and opponents of racism and demonize them in every way possible short, in most instances, of satanism -- unless, that is, being charged with being a George Bush clone falls short of an accusation of being in league with the cloven hoofed one. Although a bastion of the mainstream media, the Los Angeles Times has put the deflect and destroy plan out there for all to see in this piece.

The Obama Presidency From Another Perspective

While the Chosen One may still inspire awe in those portions of the world comprised of what can best be described as make believe countries, some in the civilized portions of the globe apparently are underwhelmed by our president's performance if this report from Britain is any indication.

Guess Who's Producing a Lemon for Our Roadways

 You and I are, through Government Motors, which is on track to turn out a 40 mile car -- not one that does 40 mph, but one with a range of 40 miles (hopefully).  And it's going to be expensive.  And it's fueled by an enormous number of our tax dollars.

Even The New York Times has had to note, as it does in this report, that the Volt is a lemon.

Government Employees Doing Just Dandy

This mainstream media outlet has awakened to the reality of just how well government employees are doing, siphoning tax dollars from the public treasury to pull down twice as much as their private sector counterparts who are sucked dry to fund the public boondoggles.

Election Schedule Explained

ICE Agents vs. Their Political Leaders

The working level people who are supposed to enforce our immigration laws want to do their job and, as this report shows, they blame the Obama administration's political appointees who run the agency for preventing them from doing so.

Definition of Old

Understanding Michelle Antoinette's Grand Trip

With her husband calling on everyone (else) to sacrifice for the common good, the first lady took several dozen of her closest and dearest friends on a luxurious vacation trip to Spain, where they stayed at one of world's most expensive hotels. While la belle Michelle and her husband have agreed to reimburse the government to the extent of the cost of two first class round trip tickets, the taxpayers, via the public treasury, are being stuck with something in excess of $300,000 for the sojourn. 

Make no mistake about it, it's a big "F _ _ _ K YOU" to the country from Mrs. Obama!

Competing Whistles Past the Economic Graveyard

Saturday's edition of The Wall Street Journal carried an essay by Thomas F. Siems, a Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas economist and policy advisor, calling for policy certainty to foster the confidence necessary to restore a healthy economy. Here is an open letter response to that essay from one successful entrepreneur and investor who regularly follows and occasionally contributes to this blog:

Dear Mr. Siems:

     There was a time that your essay would have been a contender for what was described in Barbarians at the Gate as "a blinding glimpse of the obvious."     That would have been about 15 years ago when Republicans took control of our congress and went on a spending binge wilder than anything their Democrat predecessors had done. That made it clear that our elections were morphing into contests between constituency purchasing panderers, and led me to begin buying gold.
 

     The major development since then has been the additional and hugely more significant uncertainty created by the nation's abandonment of the rule of law. This dramatic change was signaled by the government, in the General Motors and Chrysler bankruptcy proceedings, running roughshod over the rights of bond holders to reward the administration's union supporters and being permitted to do so by a supine judiciary. That motivated me to move off shore (i) business activities that I formerly conducted (providing employment for others) domestically, and (ii) virtually all of my assets that were or could be made liquid.
 

     Meanwhile we have a government staffed by individuals who demonstrate the absolute accuracy of the comment that "only the little people pay taxes" for which Leona Helmsley, the reputed Queen of Mean, was sent to prison.

     In any event, insofar as I am concerned, the U.S. is becoming -- if it has not yet already become -- a third world entity with its institutions corrupt and corrupting from the top everything they touch, and your observations now are no more relevant than a call to lock the barn door years after the barn has burned down, having been looted of the horses and everything else it once contained.

     Incidentally, the average cost basis of my modest stash of gold is under $400 an ounce, my insignificant offshore accounts have done almost as well by investing in securities that cannot be purchased in the U.S., and my small enterprises are thriving without any American employees -- all of this beyond the reach of our country's predatory and insatiably rapacious unions and government.

     Finally, I am unlikely to give much weight to advice from anyone associated with the Federal Reserve. At the inception of that organization a $20 bill and a $20 gold piece were interchangeable, being of roughly equal value. Either would purchase a good quality man's suit. As we approach a century of Fed control of our currency a man still can use the $20 gold piece to purchase a top quality suit. But the $20 bill barely will pay to have that suit cleaned. What is certain is that the Fed is endeavoring to inflate a new and supposedly improved bubble that it hopes will float the economy up and out from the swamp into which the fed and its fellow financial regulators have permitted it and us to be driven. This is being attempted by using excess liquidity and credit -- the same tools that made possible the last bubble -- to recreate an illusion of prosperity. Having bailed out and lavishly rewarded those whose excesses caused the debacle with resources extracted from the meltdown's innocent victims, the economic barons now are trying to convince those victims, whom they have left to fend for themselves, that their betters, the authorities, can this time be trusted to keep things under control and humming.

     Good luck. Perhaps in time what is being passed off as an educational system will produce a new generation of gullible suckers. In the meantime though, with many of the productive having taken and retaining their chips off the board and out of  reach, the confidence necessary for an economy to thrive is a thing of the past, and there is a real, albeit still slight, risk that pitchfork and torch bearing peasants will surround the governmental and financial castles to wreak well deserved vengeance on those occupying those premises.

Ground Zero Mosque: Views From On High and Down to Earth

Last week's speech by New York's reigning oligarch in support of having a mosque built at Ground Zero revealed far less about that project than it did about the mayor himself and how he and his fellow members of the ruling class view the rest of us. Read all about it here.

Alternatively, there is this more down to earth and realistic view.

 

How Dinosaurs Became Extinct (The very first "senior moment" ever recorded)

A Good Rule of Thumb By Which To Live

Any individual who holds an office that entitles its holder to be addressed as Honorable almost certainly is not.

Mystery Solved: At Last, a Rational Explanation of Why the Chicken Crossed the Road

Click on Image to Enlarge for Better Viewing

Ethics Must Be Scrapped

Ethics have to be abandoned because retaining even their vestigial scraps clearly has a disparate racial impact. 

Only racism can explain the charges of ethical lapses that have been lodged against Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters, two black members of congress. Ergo, we need to forget about questioning the conduct of, and give a pass to these obviously exemplary black representatives. In addition, the concepts underlying affirmative action require that we stop trying to hold public office holders who  are members of a minority group to any decent behavioral standards.

Political Campaign Funding

Can you believe a political candidate dropping out of a race because of a lack of campaign funds?

Anyone who stops spending just because he's out of money obviously doesn't belong in Washington anyway!