Will it never be the same?

Well, whether you want to blame the Community Reinvestment Act and the Democrats for the sub-prime mortgage crisis that is perhaps the catalyst for the Global Financial Crisis, or whether you want to blame it all on Bush’s failed economic policies, or whether you want to everyone from the Democrats to the Republicans to the CRA to Wall Street to Joe the Plumber is up to you.

But anyway, that’s not the point of this post. Many already, whether it be at dinner tables or boardroom tables, think the era of US global financial dominance is over. The latest guy to state this is former Reagan economic adviser, Dr Jerry Jordan (BTW, that link’s an mp3).

And from a similar interview to the one in the above link…

Dr Jordan says that when the US economy does recover, it will never be the same.

“What people need to understand about the United States in this environment and probably the British as well, that this is not your garden-variety economic contraction caused by restrictive monetary or fiscal policies to slow things down and cool off inflationary pressures,” he told Radio Australia.

“Rather this is much more the case that we went over the waterfall, we didn’t drown but we’re not able to swim back up to the top, and there’s no amount of monetary or fiscal policy that is going to get us back up to where we were a couple of years ago.“

However, at least he’s optimistic that it won’t get too bad, that is, like the Great Depression we saw 85-odd years ago.

“I don’t think depression is the right word,” he said.

“I think of it as a discontinuity from the growth path that we were on before, but the important part is that you cannot use pump-priming of the fiscal type or the monetary type, to get back to the level of car sales furnishings, home appliances [that we saw previously].

“There are literally thousands of stores in the United States that have been boarded up; companies bankrupted out of business by the end of last year, and they’re not coming back into business.

“It’s going to involve a new direction for the economy, but not a restoring of the old level of economic activity.”

Warren Buffet disagrees, however… at least on the recovery bit.

“Five years from now I can guarantee you that the machine will be running fine. But I’d like to get there a lot faster than five years. And we can.”

And will Obama’s stimulus package, the good ol’ Recovery and Reinvestment Act (warning: large PDF) prove Buffet right? At the moment, that’s anyone’s guess. Still, in the meantime, we might as well see who’s getting what.

How to boycott Israel… properly

Ever wanted to give Israel the shaft but just can’t work out the most effective way to do it? Well, easy solutions are at hand.

H/T Geoff of the West over at Bolt’s palace.

Meanwhile, speaking of bashing Israel, Bolt’s asks, “Why are we going to this hate-fest?”

What hate-fest? The United Nations Durban Review Conference to be held in Geneva, but of course. The last one in Durban turned out to be little more than an attack on Israel and her allies.

So, yeah, why go? Oh. For that non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council and we need the anti-Zionist vote to nail it. Rudd has sunk to a new low.

Click the above link for a more detailed analysis.

More related shennanigans is here in case you missed it.

The United Nations will be introducing a totalitarian piece of authoritarianism as a binding resolution in March 2009 in an attempt to force if possible and influence where force is not possible member nations to do away with freedom of speech regarding religion.

They have already passed a non-binding resolution, introduced by the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference which has a permanent place in the United Nations, titled “Combating the Defamation of Religion” which seeks to influence all member nations to pass laws to criminalize freedom of speech regarding religion.

The upcoming proposed binding resolution will be an attempt by the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference and their sympathesizers to force all member nations, including all free western democracies, to criminalize freedom of speech regarding religion, with prejudice toward Islam, effectively shredding the Constitution and first amendment in this country and ending freedom of speech regarding religion in democracies around the world effectively seeking to usher in a new dark ages with a single U.N. binding resolution. – Lou Dobbs

Nyeh, you’re First Ammendment was getting boring anyway, Yanks.

Rant while you can, folks (although it’d be astounding if any of the garbage mentioned in this post were actually adopted).

UPDATE

Andrew Bolt calls for an all-out boycott of the United Nations Durban Review Conference.

UPDATE II

No worries, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon thinks the Yanks are deadbeats anyway. Gotta love that appreciation. Something about dogs, hands, and biting in there somewhere.

The Coral Fights Back

Coral bleaching – a fait accompli to rising temperatures, you hear. Well, here are some good arguments should you want to tackle that little bon mot at the next dinner party.

Fart Drives City Council to Fits of Laughter.

OK, this is funny as hell.

H/T those filthy little sand people.

Is foreign aid killing Africa?

Well, anecdotally, I heard this argument years ago. That being, say you have a bloke in Africa making T-shirts. He employs a bunch of folks who in turn support a whole bunch of other folks. But then the West, in the guise of aid, sends over a whole bunch of T-shirts thus putting the local guy out of business. A little while down the track, more T-shirts are needed but the local business is no more and thus Africa has to beg for more aid – a vicious cycle thus ensues.

Well now a top African economist, Dambisa Moyo, has come out basically blasting the West for its 50 years or so of ‘help’. It’s all in her new book, Dead Aid.

…Moyo illuminates the way in which overreliance on aid has trapped developing nations in a vicious circle of aid dependency, corruption, market distortion, and further poverty, leaving them with nothing but the “need” for more aid.

And it had Bono flying off the handle recently. Not at Moyo, but at a Ugandan journalist called Andrew Mwenda who was also arguing a similar case.

The good thing is that Moyo does offer solutions to Africa’s troubled plight. Having not read the book, Bing hopes part of that solution includes industrialising the African continent; something, as highlighted in The Great Global Warming Swindle, many Western environmentalists have been critical of.

H/T Fark

IMPORTANT warning regarding small children & dogs

Received this via email from our own Wizard of Woz, and thought it important enough to share immediately.

IMPORTANT

If you are an owner of a dog that belongs to a ‘dangerous breed’ category and you also have a small child please take this as a warning. Don’t leave your dog with the child unattended under any circumstances!!!

Only a little moment was enough for the following to happen. See the photo attached   ….

(I have put the photo below the fold so as to not upset our more sensitive readers)

…

…

And the same goes for Aussie conservatives and libertarians, too

Writes Stephen Green in his pajamas…

A few years back, television writer/producer/director/visionary Joss Whedon made a little libertarian-themed science fiction movie called Serenity. In it, our ragtag band of heroes make their way around the ‘verse by trading freely when they can and by stealing from the corrupt, oppressive central government when they must. Before launching a minor raid on a government stash of ill-gotten gold, Jayne, the hired muscle (played with an endearingly ignorant malice by Adam Baldwin), cocks his shotgun menacingly — is there any other way? — and suggests, “Let’s be bad guys.”

Yes. Exactly. Let’s.

And he’s got some bloody good reasons as to why.

New Alcohol Guidelines

The Australian NHRMC (National Health Research Medical Council) recently released its updated guidelines for safe alcohol consumption, surprising many of us with its highly conservative recommendations which can very briefly be summarised as:

1. No more than two standard drinks for men and women each day (half the previous recommendation for men and one less for women)

2. No more than four standard drinks on any single occasion

3. No alcohol for pregnant or breastfeeding women or for those under 18 years of age.

I’ll briefly explain their reasoning in reverse order. Basically, for point 3, they have no actual evidence for harm or safety when it comes to low-moderate alcohol consumption, so they decided to err on the side of caution. In the text of their 140-odd page report they admit that there is probably little to no risk for people in these categories drinking small amounts of alcohol occasionally. They also state, quite frankly, that because they see themselves as a health advisory body, they are deliberately being conservative; not that you’ll get that nuance when the media delivers you the mini version you’ll hear on TV or read in the newspaper. The NHRMC also justifies its stance by quoting a poll reporting most people being in favour of such a recommendation. Good science, huh?

Regarding point 2 – safe alcohol limit on any single occasion – fear not; you’re not actually damaging your health by exceeding four standard drinks. No, the reasoning stems from emergency department data, showing the risk and severity of injury in ED attendees rises proportionally to alcohol intake. The problem of sample bias was clearly not factored in to their decision – one could postulate, for instance, that ED patients are more likely to be those who have consumed alcohol in potentially riskier situations – nightclubs, certain types of parties, whilst driving etc. But again, all you’ll likely hear is a blanket “no more than four” soundbite.

To the first point now: no more than two drinks/day. What about those Mediterraneans, you ask, who put away at least twice that every day? You’re right, of course – all-cause mortality is actually slightly lower in regular moderate drinkers (maybe not significantly so, but it certainly ain’t higher). It seems that the NHRMC is basing this recommendation on a study by Corrao in 1999, which I can’t be bothered paying the thirty dollars to access. Fortunately, Junkfood Science (see here and here) has analysed some of the other research on this topic for us, and in short, low-moderate alcohol consumption does not statistically alter the rates of any cancer. There are small protective trends for some and small harmful trends for others (which you would expect to find in epidemiological studies of this nature, where the chances of bias and confounding factors affecting the results are huge). The cancers supposedly increased by alcohol are those of the upper digestive and airway tracts. I can only wonder if the Corrao study adjusted for the possible higher rates of smoking amongst drinkers; certainly other studies purporting similar results did not (see first link above).

The NHRMC isn’t the only health council out there making such recommendations. I for one will be keeping my feelers out for more details on their evidence for such claims, especially the cancer links. But at this point, I remain sceptical.

Busted… again

Not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing… or just plain funny.

You Yanks with Joe “the mouth” Biden?

Ha! Yet another example of our head cheesedick kicking your head poodle’s ass.

…’ Mr Rudd warned punters to expect a “political s[hit] storm”…

Can’t really complain. After all, honesty in politics is a rare thing.

Chewin’ the fat

But still making some time for the game.

A photo essay of fat jocks.

H/T the Bris Vegas daily.

International Women’s Day Only for Canada, Evidently

So, Canadian MP Carol Hughes issues a “statement” for International Women’s Day, in which she pisses and moans about all of the really important women’s issues.

“Many events are being held across Canada today to celebrate International Women’s Day.

While the wage gap between men and women has narrowed since the 1970s, we are fighting the same battles we did 30 years ago.”

Yes, despite the fact that wage disparities are mostly a thing of the past, the feminotards are still fighting the same battles they did thirty years ago. Perhaps that’s a problem? Perhaps that is the problem?

“Using the cover of a fiscal crisis, the government has stripped the right of women to challenge pay-equity decisions.

Combined with the past decisions that ended the court challenges program and removed equality from the mandate of Status of Women Canada, this government has done all it can to ensure the ‘pink ghetto’ of underpaid and undervalued work will continue.”

No, what’s really happening here is that a feminist is lamenting the fact that there will be less work for shysters who file mostly frivolous lawsuits.

“Pay equity is not as simple as equal pay for doing the same job as a man.

What equity implies is that work of equal value receives similar compensation.

It is not as cut and dry , and often requires third-party intervention to settle disputes – the courts.”

I rest my case: Feminotards hate men… unless they’re lawyers wasting taxpayer money in court. Plus, they have reasoning abilities approaching absolute zero: Pay equity is exactly as simple as equal pay for doing the same job as a man.

Of course, she goes on and on and on like a broken fucking record on this one single topic, ignoring all of the real issues facing INTERNATIONAL women. Like, oh, I don’t know, let’s start with women in Muslim countries having their genitals mutilated so that they can never have orgasms, for starters (If Muslims think their god is so great, then why did their god fuck up and give women the physiology to enjoy sex, anyway? How come it’s left to mere men to fix their god’s mistake?).

Then, of course, she could have touched upon even more serious problems with Muslims in her very own Canada who kill women in the name of honor for such crimes against humanity as rejecting abusive husbands or being raped.

Yes, she has it exactly right: Wage disparities in Canada are the largest problem women face worldwide.

This is the kind of abject fuckwit you Canadians have running your government. Not that the US is doing any better, mind you. Here, we are getting the Obamateur Hour for at least four years. Tax cheats are running the Treasury, for crying out loud.

Of course, I’m a US citizen, but I was born in Newfoundland, so shit like this really pisses me off. Idiot politicians everywhere seem to have exactly no sense of perspective on anything right now. To call world politicians today dysfunctional would be giving them too much credit. They are actively working to be scumbags.

/rant

Lost In Translation… somehow

OK. Not even the fact it’s not a proper sentence. It’s a verb phrase.  And the restaurant did serve good tucker. And it was a wild and crazy night. But still… and the fact it was called ‘Rodeo Restaurant’? Damn.

What Does a Trillion Look Like?

With president Obama’s budgets, we need to think in terms of trillions. Billions are hard enough to conceptualize, but a trillion is truly mind boggling. Well, thanks to the efforts of PageTutor, we can easily visualize one trillion dollars in one hundred dollar bills.

This is a Franklin:

And, this is a trillion dollars worth of Franklins:

The little red figure on the lower left is a man!

Read the whole enchilada to see all of the steps from the hundred to the trillion.

Memo – Attn: Nilk

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Regarding this (and this and this), I give you this.

Seriously.  I reckon you should go for it.  Craig sounds a way better match for you than that Sgt. Joey Jones guy

.

H/T Bolta

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Did The Earth Move For You, Too?

It did for me about 5 minutes ago. It’s 9.05pm here, and it was certainly not what I expected as I was putting Magilla to bed.

While the bed shook, it wasn’t quite a scene from The Exorcist

Needless to say, my earthquake stories aren’t very exciting.

UPDATE:The Hun’s report at 9.32pm

THE centre of Melbourne has been rocked by an earth tremor, with worried residents reporting buildings shaking across the metropolitan area.

Householders from Reservoir, in the city’s north, to Kew and Cheltenham, southeast of Melbourne, said they felt the tremor – which lasted a few seconds – shortly before 9pm (AEDT), today.

A spokeswoman for Victoria Police also said there had been an earth tremor but said there were no reports of any damage immediately after the incident.

Further information and comment was being sought from Geoscience Australia, which monitors earthquake activity.

In Which BingBing Insults J.M.

So, I find that BingBing has a new group called, “World Class” to promote racial and cultural harmony but, strangely, J.M. is not invited!

“World Class is an organization in Seoul that brings together all nationalities to discuss world issues and break down cultural barriers and prejudice. We meet once a week. No Canadians please.”

Did I miss some dustup or other here between BingBing and J.M.?

How many rockets can you buy for five billion bucks?

As if the international community raising/pledging $5,200,000,000 for Hamas to buy more rockets to reconstruct their territory after Israel finally took action against Hamas’ daily rocket attacks wasn’t enough to make you feel ill, resident Internet idiot, Damian Lataaaan still isn’t happy.

It is cynically being used to manipulate a series of political outcomes that will benefit only Israel, not least of which will be the hopeful sidelining of Hamas as a political power in the Gaza.

First, Lataaaan has no actual evidence of this. Second, why would this be such a bad thing anyway?

Let’s face it. If Hamas really gave a rats about their people, then they wouldn’t use them as human shields or use money desperately needed for schools and hospitals to buy yet more rockets and the like.

But of course, Lataaaan would sympathise with a bunch of folks who tell their children to kill their neighbours. Fuckwit.

Just WTF do you want, Lataan?

Chastizing Obama over his approach to Iran because he’s being to harsh on those nice Iranians? Sympathising with a government that tells its children to hate?

Lataan needs help.

What we already knew.

If you can overlook the sometimes shaky automatic translation from the original Danish, here’s a welcome study supporting what so many of us have been saying for years about the infamous Mann Hockey Stick.

Via JunkScience.

Memo to Wronwright: sloppiness will not be tolerated.

A reminder to all VRWC operatives: please clean up after your mess. This sort of thing getting out simply isn’t acceptable.

A Note from Rafe Champion [UPDATE]

I recently received this email from Rafe with permission to post it here, with the added note, “I will be pleased to see it circulate.”

~ ~ ~

Kilmeny Niland, spouse of Rafe Champion and webmistress of the Rathouse passed away last week after a lingering illness.

The funeral service will be held at the Northern Suburbs Crematorium
199 Delhi Road
North Ryde (Sydney)

in the South Chapel

at 10.00 am

Wednesday 4th March

A eulogy will be delivered by Mr Paul Delprat, the principal of the Julian Ashton Art School.

In a few weeks an exhibition of Kilmeny’s work and a celebration of her life will be held at the Julian Ashton Art School at Middle Head, with a picnic/barbeque in the adjacent park overlooking the harbour. This was one of Kilmeny’s favorite places. The date and time will be announced on her website.

http://www.kilmenyniland.com

All friends and admirers are welcome!

Rafe Champion

~ ~ ~

UPDATE:  More from Rafe, again with permission to publish here:

Kilmeny with Hugh, Leo, Thomas and Paddy. (Courtesy of Rafe Champion)

Kilmeny and Rafe (courtesy Rafe Champion)

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**Previous post, with links to some touching tributes:  Very Sad News

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T-Bagging Obama

Thats not how you do it

Its ok, its historical….

With all the talk of tea parties in the US as a protest against the porkulous spending orgy about to be embarked upon Im surprised there haven’t been any references to t-bagging “the one”.

Here’s the protests Im talking about http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2009/02/28/legteaparty0228.html

The rant which started this is a thing of beauty, and should be shown more widely.

For those of a delicate disposition Id recommend not venturing below the fold, the version of tea party Im about to elaborate on is NSFW.

God Really Does Hate Climo-Tards!

A few posts ago, I speculated that God must hate climo-tards, because The Gore Effect manifests whenever they protest global warming “climate change.” Well, right on cue, a blizzard shut down today’s climate protest in Washington. It even kept Nancy Pelosi from appearing.

“(CNSNews.com) – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had to cancel an appearance Monday at a global warming rally in Washington, D.C., that was hit by a snowstorm because her flight was delayed, her office told CNSNews.com.

Brianna Cayo-Cotter, the spokesman for the Energy Action Coalition that held the rally, told a group of reporters that she had been in contact with Pelosi and that her flight had been delayed because of inclement weather.

A blizzard Sunday night and early Monday morning blanketed the nation’s capital with snow, causing events to be cancelled and delayed across the city.

House Select Energy Independence and Global Warming Chairman Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who was scheduled to speak at the global warming event, also canceled his appearance because of the inclement weather, a spokesman from his committee’s office told CNSNews.com on Monday.”

Frankly, anything that keeps Pelosi away from D.C. is good by me.

Humorously, this was all predicted by Greg Pollowitz of Planet Gore back in December.

“That’s right, folks: the Left’s day of civil disobedience in D.C. to protest global warming looks to be snowed out — just as I predicted back in December. [Must-read links here - Beef]“

Adding insult to injury, Princeton physicist Dr. William Happer compared climo-tards to human-sacrificing Aztecs before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment back on February 25th.

“Happer noted that climate change has long worried humans.

“Sometimes the obsession for control of the climate got a bit out of hand, as in the Aztec [society] where the local scientific/religious establishment of the year 1500 had long since announced that the debate was over and at least 20,000 human sacrifices a year were needed to keep the sun moving, the rain falling; and thus stop climate change. The widespread dissatisfaction of the [neighboring tribes] who were unfortunate enough to be the source of these sacrifices played an important part in the success of the Spanish conquest of Mexico.”…

Happer told the Senators, “I believe that the increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm and will be good for mankind,” noting that more CO2 helps plants yield more food per acre.”

Epic LULZ!

When are you climo-tards going to learn? God hates you! Why? Because you’re stupid, that’s why.

Yikes.

A dire warning from Tim Blair:

“He’s watching us, people. Remain vigilant.”

Be afraid.  Be very afraid.

NOTICE

At the request of someone I  hold in very high regard, I have just removed from the public domain a post I recently authored.

I sincerely apologise for any inconvenience, but believe me – I wouldn’t have done it had there not been compelling reasons for it.

spot_the_dog

Very sad news.

Via JF Beck, I have just learned that one of our Internet friends and frequent correspondant to many of us here, Rafe Champion, has lost his beautiful and talented wife  Kilmeny Niland to a particularly aggressive form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

There is a lovely tribute by Nicholas Gruen at Club Troppo.  Please do click over and read it.

Let our thoughts and prayers be with Rafe and his family, and let us wish them strength and peace in the days to come.

Our most sincere condolences, Rafe.

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UPDATE:  Another touching tribute, by SkepticLawyer who used to blog with Rafe over at Catallaxy.

UPDATE #2: “A Note from Rafe Champion,” with details of Kilmeny’s upcoming memorial service and some lovely photos he’s chosen to share.

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spot_the_dog on behalf of the Tizona Group