Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Graphs of foreclosures in the pipeline
Figures being reported are the tip of the iceberg. Also, "of the 2.2 million homes in foreclosure you have 675,000 homes (31 percent of the pool) that have not made a payment in over two years."
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Pro-Obama media always shocked by bad economic news
Unexpectedly: It's obviously going to be hard to achieve the unacknowledged goal of many mainstream journalists -- the president's re-election -- if the economic slump continues. So they characterize economic setbacks as unexpected, with the implication that there's still every reason to believe that, in Herbert Hoover's phrase, prosperity is just around the corner.
Sisterhood and the SEALs
City Journal: Not only has the rise of women to positions of power and control in American society not dented feminist irrationality, it seems to have exacerbated that irrationality.
Revenge of the geeks
What made them outsiders in high school makes them stars in the world.
Adults tend to be mature enough to recognize that there would be no progress — cures for diseases, ways to harness new energy sources — without people who are different. Successful scientists think distinctively.
So what happens to high school's popular students? Research shows that they are more likely than outsiders to conform, which can also mean they're less likely to innovate.
Adults tend to be mature enough to recognize that there would be no progress — cures for diseases, ways to harness new energy sources — without people who are different. Successful scientists think distinctively.
So what happens to high school's popular students? Research shows that they are more likely than outsiders to conform, which can also mean they're less likely to innovate.
Greece Denies Missing Fiscal Targets as Default Looms
CNBC: Greece's hopes of averting default dimmed on Saturday as fears grew the country may have missed fiscal targets set by its lenders while euro zone policymakers bickered on how to respond to the deepening crisis.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
My links from yesterday
While Blogger was broken. Crossposted at The Corner.
Gallery: moment of impact.
Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about male lactation.
Hand sanitizer marketing genius of the day.
A rare inflated-buttock accident.
The Miniature Life of Food and Drinks.
U.S. Postal Service Nears Collase
A long but worthwhile read at BusinessWeek:
With the rise of e-mail and the decline of letters, mail volume is falling at a staggering rate, and the postal service's survival plan isn't reassuring. Elsewhere in the world, postal services are grappling with the same dilemma—only most of them, in humbling contrast, are thriving.
With the rise of e-mail and the decline of letters, mail volume is falling at a staggering rate, and the postal service's survival plan isn't reassuring. Elsewhere in the world, postal services are grappling with the same dilemma—only most of them, in humbling contrast, are thriving.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Sowell: Dependency and Votes
To listen to some of the defenders of entitlement programs, which are at the heart of the present financial crisis, you might think that anything the government fails to provide is something that people will be deprived of.
In other words, if you cut spending on school lunches, children will go hungry. If you fail to subsidize housing, people will be homeless. If you fail to subsidize prescription drugs, old people will have to eat dog food in order to be able to afford their meds.
This is the vision promoted by many politicians and much of the media. But, in the world of reality, it is not even true for most people who are living below the official poverty line.
via Newsalert.
Wednesday links
Don’t panic – today is Towel Day.
The economic forces behind the rising cost of beer.
Victorian tech support.
Severed head of patron saint for genital diseases is up for sale.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Run, Paul, run!
Jonah Goldberg: Daniels' decision not to run for president is bad for Republicans. Time for Rep. Paul Ryan to ride to the rescue.
What happens when Greece defaults
Telegraph: It is when, not if. Financial markets merely aren’t sure whether it’ll be tomorrow, a month’s time, a year’s time, or two years’ time (it won’t be longer than that).
Obamacare bombshell: Final ruling after 2012 election?
Washington Examiner: Read the whole thing.
This afternoon, the (4th Circuit) panel ordered the parties to file supplemental briefs by May 31 explaining the consequences if the court holds that the Anti-Injunction Act applies. That’s a bomb for one simple reason: The Anti-Injunction Act applies to federal taxes.
This afternoon, the (4th Circuit) panel ordered the parties to file supplemental briefs by May 31 explaining the consequences if the court holds that the Anti-Injunction Act applies. That’s a bomb for one simple reason: The Anti-Injunction Act applies to federal taxes.
This means that the appellate judges on this case may hold that the Obamacare individual mandate is okay because it is a tax. While the political repercussions of such a decision seem obvious, the legal implications are serious, too.
Under the Anti-Injunction Act, no one can sue to challenge the legality of a tax until after the tax has been paid. The statute specifies that no federal court has jurisdiction to hear a challenge until someone who has already paid the tax files suit, demanding a refund and the tax’s termination.
The individual mandate doesn’t go into effect until 2014. Therefore, if it is ruled to be a tax, then no one will have standing to sue until 2014. The Fourth Circuit cases would be dismissed.
Judgment Day rescheduled for October
Yahoo! News: Instead of the world physically coming to an end on May 21 with a great, cataclysmic earthquake, as he had predicted, Harold Camping, 89, said he now believes his forecast is playing out "spiritually," with the actual apocalypse set to occur five months later, on October 21.
Monday, May 23, 2011
A few links to start the week
Evil drunk birds are falling from the sky.
How to build your own Taser. And while you’re feeling crafty, here are instructions for making a urinal out of video game cartridges.
Hilarious signs. More time to waste? Here’s the rest of the series.
The World’s Biggest Treehouse.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Global warming story du jour
Mark Steyn: Leading climatologist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brings us up to speed on the latest settled science:
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accused Western countries of plotting to “cause drought” in Iran by using high tech equipment to drain the clouds of raindrops…
“Western countries have designed plans to cause drought in certain areas of the world, including Iran,” Mr Ahmadinejad said in the city of Arak in Markazi province.
“According to reports on climate, whose accuracy has been verified, European countries are using special equipment to force clouds to dump” their water on their continent, he said.
By doing so, “they prevent rain clouds from reaching regional countries, including Iran,” Mr Ahmadinejad charged.
Iran has experienced several droughts in recent years.
After vajazzling comes pejazzling
As popularity of the body adornment trend has grown, it has become clear that it is not only women interested in the service.
According to salon owners, 40 per cent of customers requesting the body bling are men.
Dr. Milton Wolf (Obama's cousin) on Obamacare waiver corruption
If Obamacare is such a great law, why does the White House keep exempting its best friends from it?
Washington Times.
Washington Times.
Parents keep child's gender secret
While there’s nothing ambiguous about Storm’s genitalia, they aren’t telling anyone whether their third child is a boy or a girl.
Friday, May 20, 2011
The Rapture starts tonight at 11PM Pacific time
The Rapture is at 6 p.m. on May 21, 2011, where ever it's 6 p.m. first, with the "fantastically big" world-ending event taking place on a time zone by time zone basis.
That means we can expect the Rapture to start when it hits 6 p.m. at the International Dateline at 180 Longitude -- roughly the (area) between Pago Pago, American Samoa, and Nuku'alofa, Tonga. We'll know it's Judgment Day because there will be an earthquake of previously unprecedented magnitude, Camping predicts.
So, according to these calculations, the Rapture will actually begin like a rolling brown out across the globe at 11 p.m. PST on Friday, May 20th. "Everyone will be weeping and wailing because they'll know in a few hours it'll come to their city," said Camping.
Ted Rall: MSM won't take my leftwing anti-Obama cartoons
Liberals' favorite political cartoonist:
...
What's weird is that these cultish attitudes come from editors and publishers whose politics line up neatly with mine.
It feels a little weird to write this, like I'm telling tales out of school and ratting out the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. But it's true: there's less room for a leftie during the Age of Obama than there was under Bush.
I didn't realize how besotted progressives were by Mr. Hopey Changey.
...
A sample of recent rejections, each from editors at different left-of-center media outlets:
· "I am familiar with and enjoy your cartoons. However the readers of our site would not be comfortable with your (admittedly on point) criticism of Obama."
· "Don't be such a hater on O and we could use your stuff. Can't you focus more on the GOP?"
· "Our first African-American president deserves a chance to clean up Bush's mess without being attacked by us."
I have many more like that.
Links for Friday
Crossposted at The Corner.
Man has hand amputated so he can be fitted with a bionic one.
1959 booklet on building yourself a fallout shelter.
’Armageddon House’ Built To Stand Through Doomsday.
Good news: Red wine and chocolate are good for the mind and even better when consumed together.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
DSK and silly stereotypes about American and European morals.
Christopher Hitchens: Why is it that we cannot read any discussion of a political sex scandal, or a sex scandal involving a politician, without pseudo-sophisticated comments about the supposedly different morals of Americans and Europeans?
Thursday links
Feral Camels Plague Australian Outback.
Winner of the World’s Best Beard contest. Related, the best facial hair in the Civil War.
MacRecipes describes what MacGyver used to get out of trouble over the course of seven TV seasons.
Adult stars wonder if they made Bin Laden’s stash.
Crossposted at The Corner.
Atmosphere Above Japan Heated Rapidly Before M9 Earthquake
Before the M9 earthquake, the total electron content of the ionosphere increased dramatically over the epicentre, reaching a maximum three days before the quake struck.
At the same time, satellite observations showed a big increase in infrared emissions from above the epicentre, which peaked in the hours before the quake. In other words, the atmosphere was heating up.
Technology ReviewAIPAC: Don't boo Obama
Attendees at AIPAC, the largest annual Jewish American conference, were told not to boo Barack Obama when he speaks there this month.
POLITICO.com
POLITICO.com
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Egypt 'running out of food'
UPI.com: "food prices and related economic grievances played a big part in these upheavals, unprecedented in modern Middle Eastern history."
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Why Affirmative Action Should Stop
VDH on "the eternal truth that it is wrong to judge humans on their outward appearance or racial heritage — always."
"We have had about a half-century of racial preferences and often unspoken but real quotas for hiring and admission based on racial identity. If the original intent was to level the playing field for African-Americans and Latinos, who had been subject to systematic and often gratuitously mean discrimination throughout much of the American South and Southwest, nonetheless the current rationale for sustaining affirmative action has become a veritable nightmare of contradictions, biases, and incoherence that is now well beyond reform. Conservatives mostly believe this; an increasing number of liberals quietly think it."
via Jeff at Protein Wisdom, who has additional comments.
"We have had about a half-century of racial preferences and often unspoken but real quotas for hiring and admission based on racial identity. If the original intent was to level the playing field for African-Americans and Latinos, who had been subject to systematic and often gratuitously mean discrimination throughout much of the American South and Southwest, nonetheless the current rationale for sustaining affirmative action has become a veritable nightmare of contradictions, biases, and incoherence that is now well beyond reform. Conservatives mostly believe this; an increasing number of liberals quietly think it."
via Jeff at Protein Wisdom, who has additional comments.
Mark Levin’s Summary of the Obamacare Litigation
The brief’s “Introduction and Summary of Argument” is one of the most succinct, elegant, and direct summations of the basic issues that are at stake:
This case is about individual liberty, state sovereignty and federalism. Indeed, whether there remain any limits on the power and reach of the federal government is the fundamental question before this Court. Appellant’s defense of the individual mandate, if accepted, requires the Court to disregard more than 220 years of Commerce Clause application and Supreme Court precedence, fundamentally misapply the Necessary and Proper Clause and disregard the Constitution’s requirements for the laying and collection of taxes.
The heavy-handed demands of temporary politicians who seek to change fundamentally and permanently the relationship between the citizen and government in a manner that no past Congress or Executive have undertaken and which the Constitution clearly does not allow must not be given the Court’s imprimatur. The District Court correctly rejected the individual mandate and its penalty provision as unconstitutional. …
The Commerce Clause is written in uncomplicated, plain English. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution provides that “The Congress shall have Power … To regulate Commerce with Foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” Congress can tax interstate commerce, regulate interstate commerce, and can even prohibit certain types of interstate commerce. There is nothing in the history of this Nation, let alone the history of the Constitution and the Commerce Clause, however, permitting the federal government to compel an individual to enter into a legally binding private contract against the individual’s will and interests simply because the individual is living and breathing. Such a radical departure from precedent, law, and logic has never been contemplated, let alone imposed upon, the American people.
via The Corner
Obama's ACORN Thugs Are Alive And Preparing for 2012
The American Spectator: the day of ACORN's resurrection is at hand.
Can adult stem cells cure AIDS?
Brown received stem cells from a donor who was immune to HIV. In fact, about one percent of Caucasians are immune to HIV. Some researchers think the immunity gene goes back to the Great Plague: people who survived the plague passed their immunity down and their heirs have it today.
Obamacare waivers - picking winners
Daily Caller: Of the 204 new Obamacare waivers President Barack Obama’s administration approved in April, 38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district.
Also, Mona Charen has an article on the subject today on NRO.
Also, Mona Charen has an article on the subject today on NRO.
Are you emaciated and live in Atlanta? You could be a zombie extra on The Walking Dead.
The Walking Dead is looking for extras to fill out their shambling horde. The only stipulations? You have to A.) be in Atlanta; and B.) already look like you're mildly deceased.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Former “alarmist” scientist says AGW based in false science
"The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic."
Links and discussion at Hot Air.
Links and discussion at Hot Air.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
TX to TSA: Hands Off My “Anus, Sexual Organ, Buttocks, or Breast”
You can’t get any more explicit than the language in a bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives late Thursday that spells out how far the Transportation and Security Administration can—and can’t—go in its airport security pat-downs.
The measure makes it a criminal offense for any public servant to conduct a search in which “the anus, sexual organ, buttocks, or breast of another person” are touched, including through clothing. The bill also wades into Fourth Amendment territory by prohibiting searches “that would be offensive to a reasonable person.” The Fourth Amendment protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures.
HotAir's The Greenroom.The Coming Postal Bailout
Congress wants taxpayers to save mail worker pensions.
WSJ.com: If this were a private business, the obvious response to these losses would be urgent cost-cutting to avoid insolvency. Instead, Postal Service management recently concluded negotiations offering the 205,000-member American Postal Workers Union a new four-and-a-half-year contract that will provide a 3.5% pay raise over three years, dole out automatic cost of living wage hikes after 2012, and expand no-layoff protections.
WSJ.com: If this were a private business, the obvious response to these losses would be urgent cost-cutting to avoid insolvency. Instead, Postal Service management recently concluded negotiations offering the 205,000-member American Postal Workers Union a new four-and-a-half-year contract that will provide a 3.5% pay raise over three years, dole out automatic cost of living wage hikes after 2012, and expand no-layoff protections.
Postal officials say this is the best deal they could get and that, had they not agreed to it, an arbitrator would have been even more generous to the union. But given that 80% of postal costs are for wages and benefits, this contract is unhinged from all fiscal reality.
What If the U.S. Treasury Defaults?
WSJ.com: "When do you generally get action from governments? When their bond market blows up." But that isn't happening now, he says, because the Fed is "aiding and abetting" the politicians' "reckless behavior."
Social Security deficits now 'permanent'
Washington Times: Social Security will run a permanent yearly deficit when looking at the program’s tax revenues compared to what it must pay out in benefits.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Friday Links
Crossposted at The Corner.
250 square feet Lego-style apartment.
Scottish Homes Powered by Whisky.
Father’s Day gift idea — the pocket urinal.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Why Bill Gross sold all his Treasury bonds
The Atlantic:
Our national conversation about deficits is about politics—about ideology—not math. It’s a proxy war in our eternal battle over how much to tax and spend. Republicans care about deficits when spending is on the table, but as soon as they get a chance to pass some tax cuts, they forget they ever cared. Meanwhile, Democrats, who were outraged—outraged!—when the deficit averaged less than 3 percent of GDP under George W. Bush, are now silent about deficits that are running three times as high, and that are projected to stay above Bush’s even after Obama has left office. Very few true deficit hawks are left in America—only deficit vultures.
Our national conversation about deficits is about politics—about ideology—not math. It’s a proxy war in our eternal battle over how much to tax and spend. Republicans care about deficits when spending is on the table, but as soon as they get a chance to pass some tax cuts, they forget they ever cared. Meanwhile, Democrats, who were outraged—outraged!—when the deficit averaged less than 3 percent of GDP under George W. Bush, are now silent about deficits that are running three times as high, and that are projected to stay above Bush’s even after Obama has left office. Very few true deficit hawks are left in America—only deficit vultures.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Housing tax credit cost more than it benefited — for homeowners
Hot Air: Thanks to the artificially higher home prices that the tax credits provided, buyers have lost almost twice as much in value as the credit itself, and in some cases 150% more
Poker is much more skill than luck
Geekpress:
Poker is much more skill than luck.
As this related Freakonomics blog post notes:
Poker is much more skill than luck.
As this related Freakonomics blog post notes:
Using data from the 2010 World Series of Poker, Levitt and Miles found that high-skilled players earned an average return on investment of over 30 percent, whereas all other players averaged a 15 percent loss. This finding has serious implications on the legality of online poker, as that debate is heavily dependent on whether the game is based on skill or luck.Also noteworthy:
The differences are "far larger in magnitude than those observed in financial markets, where fees charged by the money managers viewed as being most talented can run as high as 3 percent of assets under management and 30 percent of annual returns."
Armed Walgreens worker foils robbery
But there was one thing two robbers didn't anticipate when they barged into a Benton Township Walgreens drug store early Sunday and tried to march the workers into the back room: A worker already in back carried a handgun and knew how to use it.
via Newsalert.
via Newsalert.
Canadian kid cures cystic fibrosis?
The Register: Using supercomputing to model the effects of different compounds on the mutant proteins responsible for cystic fibrosis.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Debt Problem In One Word: Spending
IBD:
"And the Bush tax cuts aren't to blame for the massive fiscal hole that opened up over the past three years. That was partly due to the unavoidable recession-caused drop in revenues. But the big driver was the massive increase in federal spending, which reached an astonishing 25% of GDP between 2009 and 2011."
"And the Bush tax cuts aren't to blame for the massive fiscal hole that opened up over the past three years. That was partly due to the unavoidable recession-caused drop in revenues. But the big driver was the massive increase in federal spending, which reached an astonishing 25% of GDP between 2009 and 2011."
Chinese Stealth Fighter Could Rival US's Best
ABC: "(Analysis) based on the little publicly available information concluded that the fighter "will be a high performance stealth aircraft, arguably capable of competing in most cardinal performance parameters... with the United States F-22A Raptor, and superior in most if not all cardinal performance parameters against the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.""
via HotAir.
via HotAir.
Tuesday links
What’s living in your bellybutton?
The mind-controlling brain fungus that makes ants always bite at noon.
Two-headed baby born in China.
Condensing all 3 Star Wars prequels into 2 minutes, in Lego.
Crossposted at The Corner.Christopher Hitchens on his cancer-induced inability to speak
Vanity Fair: What do I hope for? If not a cure, then a remission. And what do I want back? In the most beautiful apposition of two of the simplest words in our language: the freedom of speech.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Spengler: The hunger to come in Egypt
Devalued dollar, Asian demand for grain, chaotic politics = starvation.
The currency will collapse; the government will print IOUs to tide things over; and the Egyptian street will reject the IOUs as the country reverts to barter.
It will look like the Latin American banana republics, but without the bananas. That is not meant in jest: few people actually starved to death in the Latin inflations. Egypt, which imports half its wheat and a great deal of the rest of its food, will actually starve.
Half of Egyptians live on $2 a day, and that $2 is about to collapse along with the national currency.
The currency will collapse; the government will print IOUs to tide things over; and the Egyptian street will reject the IOUs as the country reverts to barter.
It will look like the Latin American banana republics, but without the bananas. That is not meant in jest: few people actually starved to death in the Latin inflations. Egypt, which imports half its wheat and a great deal of the rest of its food, will actually starve.
Half of Egyptians live on $2 a day, and that $2 is about to collapse along with the national currency.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
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