Federal Judge slams EPA scientists

    A Federal Judge in California has called out the EPA in its efforts to prevent farmers from getting water into the Central Valley. The EPA and the Interior Department have been depriving farmers in the Central Valley of water for years now in an efforts to preserve the breeding ground for the delta smelt. Judge Wanger was deeply unhappy with the testimony of the two scientists that testified on behalf of the EPA and Interior Department indicating that said testimony was contradictory and false. This is a big hit to the Greenie movement that values a few tiny fish over food for humans.


    A most refreshing change to see a member of the Federal Government looking out for citizens (for once).

The more it changes, the more it remains the same......

   I read yesterday that the inflation adjusted wages for the average American man have returned to the level of 1968.  As I am an old fart I was around in 1968. Being ten years old at the time the world was pretty good for me at a personal level. In retrospect there were a good many bad things going on at the time but my dad, an average working Joe, could easily provide for our family on his salary alone (and still take us on a cross-country vaction for a couple of weeks every summer, while saving to send five kids to college and putting aside money for retirement). If I was deprived of anything I wasn't aware of it. Life was good.

The Greeks and Fate

     I was watching the film Gallipoli the other day and it struck me that the Greeks are currently in the position occupied by the ill-fated ANZACs in the film; each day they find themselves facing an impossible situation, at the end of each day they are shocked to find that they are still on their feet, each night they go to bed knowing that tomorrow may be "The End". Yet somehow they move from day to day without going mad. Sure there has been the odd riot, but London had worse over the suggestion of austerity.

Really Cool new stuff

     The ability of the human mind to solve problems is matched only by its ability to create new ones; but in this case it looks like we are on the "solving problems" end of the equation. A company has developed what they call a "nuclear battery". This is a small self-contained energy producing unit that can produce enough juice to run a small town (25,000 people) for five years at a go. It uses a sort of controlled reaction to generate heat which is then used to drive a steam turbine.

     Getting this sort of thing past the Government regulators will be the fun part, I am sure.

WSJ gets it wrong-way-round

     In this article the WSJ highlights the rising price of gold and then goes on to describe a pawnbroker that has been doing a bang-up business since the economy tanked. It provides an explanation of how people are pawning gold jewelry to pay bills and hints at the reserve of wealth that gold represents. To me they are suggesting that these folks are cashing in carefully purchased reserve holdings to tide themselves over during hard times (which would be a good use of PMs as they are the only effective store of wealth open to most people). 

     For most (if not all) people going through the door of a "We Buy Gold" joint they are dumping gold purchased at a very high premium (jewelry often runs many times higher than the bullion price) at less than half of the spot price. These people would have been far better served to have purchased the gold (or silver) when time were good, and prices low, as bullion rather than jewelry. Shedding jewelry at a fraction of it's bullion value is a sign of very hard times and extraordinarily poor decision-making, not a "boom" or "bright spot".

OK, now I believe that the world really IS ending

The New York Times steps up on behalf of Sarah Palin defending her against Joe McGinnis' new book.

What's next? Cats and Dogs living together

Even Jon Stewart has discovered the Solyndra debacle

Just watch this; Jon Stewart rips the Resident a new one .

Ooohhh, that's going to leave a mark!

Here is a little salt for that wound.

And some more.

Chicago-style cronyism is now a nation-wide operation.

UPDATE: more on the LightSquared thing from Ace of Spades

Does it ever end?

Buy Opportunity, or Time to Wait?

      The recurrent near-death of the Euro has driven the zombie-dollar upward (in relative terms only, it is still nearly worthless) and thus psuhed down the price of PMs in dollar terms. See below;



    The question buring in my mind is this; do I buy more now on credit, and pay of when the cash becomes available in October, or wait until October in the hope that the collapse of the Euro is slow enough to keep prices down until then?  Is it wrong for me to feel happy at getting a better fiat price when it means misery for millions of Europeans? I may be profiting, but it isn't as if I have anything to do with the fiscal insanity on the Old Continent, so why do I feel rotten every time I think "I can score big on this".

    For those with cash in hand you may want to grab some now. I feel that when the Euro finally dies (and it most certainly will) there will be a short-lived King-Dollar. Short-lived because the contagion is in our banks too, and Uncle Sugar won't get away with another trillion-plus bailout this time.

    Interesting times indeed.

And the noose grows tighter

     That freedom-loving band of jackanapes in D.C. (that pose as the guardians of our Constitution) are currently deciding if minor mis-uses of your company computer should be a Federal felony. The current law holds the penalty to be a misdemeanor. Apparently that isn't enough for Eric Holder, Minister of Injustice and Attorney of Not Prosecuting Real Criminals.

     For God's Sake don't update your Fantasy Football team on the work 'puter, the Stazis will come kicking down your door!

And we wonder why we are going broke.....

     I stumbled across this the other day. I find it mind-boggling that we are going under as a nation and we are still funding idiocy such as this (upon reflection that thought extends to the entire E.P.A.). Not that I wish that anybody live in unhealthy circumstances but this just stinks of governmental pork being thrown to politically aligned groups. Here is the money-shot (pun intended);

"EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson has made environmental justice a priority at the agency, issuing millions of dollars to local and tribal organizations and making plans to reach their aforementioned end"

What was going through his head when he was reading that Teleprompter?

Through a startling new technology (patent pending) we have been able to isolate the thoughts that were going through The Resident's head while he was reading the "Job Speech" to the Joint Session of Congress. It is enlightening, but no surprising. See below:

Full Text Of Obama's Speech

(with parenthetical thoughts as he reads the Teleprompter)

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, and fellow Americans:

Tonight we meet at an urgent time for our country.  We continue to face an economic crisis that has left millions of our neighbors jobless (despite 2.4 trillion dollars in “stimulus” spending in the last twenty-five months), and a political crisis that has made things worse.

This past week, reporters have been asking “What will this speech mean for the President (aside from a desperate attempt to raise the poll numbers)?  What will it mean for Congress (neat diversionary trick eh? make it look like I am not worried about MY poll numbers)?  How will it affect their polls, and the next election?”

But the millions of Americans who are watching right now:  they don’t care about politics (which is good, because if they did we would all have been strung-up years ago).  They have real life concerns (like American Idol and Facebook) .  Many have spent months looking for work .  Others are doing their best just to scrape by – giving up nights out with the family to save on gas or make the mortgage; postponing retirement to send a kid to college (that is the sort of thing real people do when they are short of cash, unlike the government they can’t just print money).

Nothing to see here, this isn't the radiation you were worried about......

     An interesting screen confronted me when I opened my computer this morning, see below;

     So, now that the radiation leaking from the melting Fukishima Plant is spreading across the world the government mouthpeice media is going to tell us that it was there all along and everything is OK. I will take my own precautions, I don't trust them anymore on this matter than I do on the economy.

     Do what you think is best.

Burning the Bridges in front of him...

     It is widely known that a desperate, retreating army will often burn bridges after they have crossed them to slow the pursuing victors. In the Obama Admistration we have just been treated to the spectacle of someone burning the bridges in front of him. They have become so frantic at the drop in poll numbers that they are willing to do anything to appear attractive to the general public.