Oklahoma beats Spokane
Truly amazing. Northern Okla, my old stomping ground, has set some low temps that beat Spokane's all-time records. The Spokane record low is -25, with several years hitting -22 or -23. Negative temps aren't rare here; every winter bumps zero for at least a week, and about half of all winters dip a little below.

Last night in Okla, both Enid and Ponca hit -23, Newkirk and Medford hit -27, Nowata hit -31.

Those values are much farther from the norm in Okla, where +15 is the bottom in most years. Their household plumbing and heating systems, and their city water systems, weren't designed with subzero cold in mind. Their roofs are not designed for two feet of snow followed by extreme cold. An occasional inch or two, melting the next day, is the typical winter pattern.

Gonna be lots of ice dams, lots of collapsed roofs, lots of ruined ceilings and walls.

This winter is truly strange. Began in La Niña form, early and heavy in November, 30 inches of Global Warming here. Felt like it was going to break all records. Then after early December it suddenly flipped over to El Niño form, slamming California and the Midwest hard. Since that switchover the Northwest has received pretty much average temps and precip.

Maybe this winter is a tranny. Call it Miss Niño Fabuloso.


  ¶ 12:18 PM

  Numba One Boy
China Numba One Boy, Missa Lush Rimbaugh, dirigentry serve goars of Grorious China yestaday. Missa Rimbaugh say "Amelican manufactulel just as good as arways. Amelican manufactulel stirr Numba One in Wold!"

Nonsense. Pure propaganda to keep the masses sedated.

Our manufacturers may still be Number One in dollar sales, but that's because they're making big expensive things like cars and aircraft and heavy construction equipment. We still do those big things well.

All the smaller stuff has moved elsewhere.

Simple proof: If we were still manufacturing most things, I could buy something made in America. In actual fact, I cannot buy anything made in America, no matter how hard I try. Not clothing, not household appliances, not furniture, not cookware, not computers. All made elsewhere, mostly China.

In fairness, the situation may truly look different from Missa Lush's perspective. He mainly buys multi-million-dollar things like Fleets of Gulfstream Jets and 9000-Horsepower Armored SUVs and 24-Paks of Disposable Mexican Servants. Thus his purchases are aligned with the class of things we still make.
  ¶ 6:27 AM

  Because I say so, that's why!
The article about Gramm and Goldman's famine, mentioned in the previous entry, includes one wildly powerful quotation from John Lanchester.

"Finance, like other forms of human behaviour, underwent a change in the 20th century, a shift equivalent to the emergence of modernism in the arts – a break with common sense, a turn towards self-referentiality and abstraction and notions that couldn't be explained in workaday English."

The same turn has happened in science and in law, and in all cases it happened around 1970.

[Footnote for accuracy: the type has always existed, as Swift illustrated 300 years ago. But the complete takeover by this type, the fulfillment of Swift's dystopia, happened around 1970.]

Polistra has discussed this evil tendency in a mathy way, as the abandonment of all natural limits, the loss of all feel for cycles and friction and feedback.

These insane Men of Infinite Appetites believe they have transcended the lowly bounds of earth, transcended the lowly laws of physics, transcended the lowly laws of economics.

They believe that their own computer models, or their own artistic "installations", or their own multi-layer derivatives, or their own injunctions based purely on ideology, are the same as factual reality.

Why? Because I say so, that's why. Pure raw infantile ego, pure aristocracy.

I am an Artist, therefore everything I do is Art. I am a Scientist, therefore everything I do is Science. I am a Financier, therefore everything I create has Value. I am a Justice, therefore everything I say becomes part of the Constitution.

You lowly Vulgarians and Skeptics are NOT ALLOWED to question My Noble and Godlike Work, because you are Vulgarians and Skeptics and I am God.

What's the difference between these Men of Infinite Appetites and the lunatics we "treat" with drugs (or more often leave on the streets to suffer and create trouble?) Easy. The Men of Infinite Appetites have titles of nobility, which in modern terms means graduate degrees. PhD, LLD, MBA, MFA. The lunatics we "treat" with drugs do not have titles of nobility.

= = = = =

In short, we are back in the Dark Ages. It's official. The Enlightenment, the Protestant Reformation, the concept that reality exists and can be observed in a common way, has been cancelled. Lights out. We're back to Dark Matter, Hidden Warmth, Hidden Dimensions, Dark Markets, Penumbras & Emanations, Hidden Discrimination. Mysterious forces and factors that can never be observed but must be obeyed on faith, no matter how many trillions of dollars the obedience costs, no matter how many millions of people are killed in the process. Why? Because the Priest says so.
  ¶ 3:21 AM

  Phil and Ben's Excellent Famine
There has been some truly informative discussion at WUWT about world food prices, triggered by Krugman's claim that "global warming" caused the riots in Egypt. Most of the commenters simply took the line that food prices didn't go up anywhere, and used a chart of food prices IN AMERICA to make the claim. I knew that wasn't right, because I'd been following enough international news to know that food has become vastly more expensive in some countries... but I had no idea why this was happening.

Other commenters came along to explain the current situation. Gang Leader Bugsy Bernanke is pulling the old Weimar trick, on a somewhat smaller scale. He's devaluing the American dollar to "pay back" our massive debt to foreign creditors by lowering its value. We don't see a lot of the inflation here, because the devaluation is mainly with respect to other currencies; but the inflation hits poor countries when they pay much higher prices for American food commodities.

The most interesting link pointed to an earlier scam by the same people, which also caused starvation and riots in foreign countries. Our media didn't bother to tell us about this, because they were part of the scam.

Here's the story in concise form. It started, like all other recent economic problems, with Phil Gramm. Along with repealing Glass-Steagall in 1999, making the whole set of insane bubbles possible, Gramm also repealed specific regulations on farm speculation. Previously hedging had been restricted to farmers and grain dealers who had skin in the game. Now it was open to Goldman Sachs, and they grabbed it and ran into the Land of Infinite Greed with securitization. In 2006, when their housing derivatives began to crumble, Goldman transferred near-infinite amounts of mythical cash into their agriculture derivatives, which caused world food prices on the "futurable" grains to skyrocket. Poor countries went into famine; unknown numbers of people died. The prices returned to a normal range of variability in 2008, but only because the whole set of bubbles collapsed together and Goldman couldn't keep the balls in the air.

The blood is on your hands, Phil Gramm and Goldman Sachs.

Labels: the broken circle

  ¶ 6:55 PM

  Best discussion of taxes in history
I've never been able to appreciate Repooflicans, primarily because I just can't get interested in taxes, let alone excited about the subject. And ZERO TAXES FOR BILLIONAIRES is the only subject Repooflicans ever talk about.

However! Here at last is a discussion of taxes that grabs my attention!

Found on this bountiful website.
  ¶ 10:16 AM

  Best pun in history


Spoken by author Richard Maney in this Info Please episode from May 1943. I don't want to spoil it; just listen to the clip. To save time, skip the first 8 minutes and listen especially for the question about Jap Admiral Yamamoto.

The episode also includes some delightful banter by Ethel Barrymore, who was well-informed, thoroughly pro-American, and a great laugher. Unlike modern Hollywood types, decerebrate Leninbots incapable of humor.
  ¶ 5:23 AM

  How it works
The Three Horsemen of the modern apocalypse: Climate Change, Human Rights and Free Trade. I've been hitting the first two lately but haven't hit the third.

"Free trade always benefits everyone" is another of those vicious Agreed-On Lies. Governments employ charlatans called "Economists" to generate fake numbers that supposedly "prove" this lie, but normal people still recognize it as a vicious lie.


Today's news includes a hitherto unpublicized example of how "free trade" destroyed an entire sector of American agriculture and transferred it to hostile countries:

In the early 2000s the U.S. government encouraged Peruvian farmers to grow asparagus instead of drugs. [The policy was implemented through the Andean Trade Preferences Act.] Northwest asparagus growers say that policy devastated them.

Since then, all the processing plants in Washington State have moved to South America where labor and environmental costs are lower.

Now those who can prove they were hurt by that policy will share $15 million from an earmark to the U.S. agriculture bill.

Terri Hayles farms north of Pasco, Washington. She says the payment will be nice but: "The reality is, the money that the growers lost, this doesn't even pay the interest on what we lost. They're willing to compensate us something, which is better than nothing."

In 1990, Washington farmers produced 110 million pounds of asparagus. Last year they harvested just 17 million pounds.

As always. Delete American business, turn painfully acquired skills and facilities into worthless crap, then give the damaged Americans a few dollars of welfare and expect them to be grateful.

Labels: skill-estate

  ¶ 7:42 AM

  Always nice when they admit it
It's been obvious for a while that American big business no longer operates on the profit motive. Its main variable, the goal of all activity, is stock price, not profit. And this is exactly why American business no longer serves the basic purpose of commerce in general, why it no longer wants American employees or American consumers, why it no longer deserves support or respect.

But it's been hard to find straightforward admissions of this fact; most "debates" follow the Agreed-On Lie that American business seeks profit. As always, the brand-D side says profit is bad and the brand-R side says profit is good. As always, they're "arguing" about a myth.

Here's Jim Manzi, a big business insider, comparing teacher evaluations with retail sales evaluations:

Beyond this, no list of metrics can usually adequately summarize performance, either. In absolute theory, what we would want to know in a business would be the impact of a given employee’s behavior on company stock price. But we can never really measure that. Instead, we have a bunch of proxies that we believe collectively approximate this.

Note the completely matter-of-fact tone.

Labels: the broken circle

  ¶ 7:00 AM

  Oh.
I was pondering why each "party" wants so badly to get the numerical majority in the Lower and Upper Nuthouses. As soon as each party gets the majority, it just sits there for two years without doing anything, so what's the po....

Oh.



Why do I always overthink these things?

The Law of Inferred Intent works every time, but I often forget to apply it.
  ¶ 2:51 PM

  Oh boy! Pretty shiny pictures!
NASA's latest "achievement" is this:



Wow! I'm impressed! When these two satellites are aligned just right, which happens every two years, they can see the sun from two different angles! Zowie! It's Buck Rogers all over again! Maybe by 2525 AD they'll figure out how to use Photoshop to line up the two sides!

Satire off.

What a sad end for an agency that once specialized in both science and adventure.

Now they support the genocidal terrorist activities of James Hansen, who has already murdered science and wants to murder the entire human race. And they keep trying to work with an antique gadget designed by Raymond Loewy. And they try to persuade us that a 3d view of the sun will tell us more than 400 previous years of real sunspot research.




Back when the Soviet Union was based in Russia, it used to tout its great technological achievements such as the Trabant. In 1989 the Soviets moved to America, much to the relief of Russia. Since then, our Soviets have been practicing the same tawdry lies.
  ¶ 5:20 AM

  Elegiac, not erroneous
Aguilera flubs anthem:

"... at the twilight's last reaming."

Not an error at all. A good poetic description of this unfortunate land's final 30 years, basically all of Aguilera's lifetime.
  ¶ 3:20 AM

  Just a thought
I'm really starting to wonder if the whole AGW scam was a bankshot. On the surface it's designed to enrich participants in the 'Carbon Exchanges'. But those businesses have been allowed to fail easily without any governmental bailouts.

Maybe Emperor Soros has always understood the simple reality that we're heading for a very cold period. Maybe he set up the AGW scam to draw governments and dumb investors (Algore) into the wrong group of investments. When those turn out to be useless, we'll find "to our surprise" that Soros owns all the stuff you need for an Ice Age.

[Incidentally, I posted the above at NRO combox under the name 'WPA38'. I've been using that name there since they re-opened commenting ... not for anonymity but only because 'Polistra' is somehow stuck in a previous subscription and can't be re-used. The name 'WPA38' refers to this paragraph, which I really ought to paste and post every day instead of trying to write new stuff. Maybe I'll put that passage on my gravestone followed by "I told you so, you fucking fools."]
  ¶ 5:05 AM

  Why I listen to NPR, part 6
This morning, while the other news media were breathlessly reporting on Egypt's "democratization", and wondering whether Egypt's new "democracy" will accomplish the only goal that our media understand, namely "human rights" (i.e. absolute privilege for fags, amorphodites and bullbitches) ... While all that crap was rolling out of the other media's posterior orifices, NPR decided to interview a realist and hear some facts.

History prof J. Rufus Fears of OU told the story of Egypt. For 5000 years Egypt's rulers have been just like Mubarak, and for 5000 years Egypt's "transitions of power" have occurred when the people rioted over high food prices. Period. No reason to expect anything else. The Arab culture has its own ways which are not our ways.

Bravo to NPR for carrying a factual view straightforwardly and respectfully, without sighing and laughing and grunting and eye-rolling all the way through, without overlaying cartoony music or screechy grindy sound effects, as all other Republican and Democrat media always do when they feel impelled to carry facts.

= = = = =

Think about this... you have a system that has worked for 5000 years, has kept your nation in one place and one piece, kept your nation in an important position on the world stage from Cleopatra to Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Now some annoying teenage bully of a country, with a system that worked for exactly 200 years before collapsing, is trying to persuade you to adopt the collapsed system. Would you buy this junked Vega?
  ¶ 12:42 PM

  WOW! England wakes up!!!!!!!
Huge news from Britain:

British Muslims must subscribe to mainstream values of freedom and equality, David Cameron will say as he declares that the doctrine of multiculturalism has “failed” and will be abandoned.

... The Prime Minister will declare an end to “passive tolerance” of divided communities, and say that members of all faiths must integrate into wider society and accept core values.

To be British is to believe in freedom of speech and religion, democracy and equal rights regardless of race, sex or sexuality, he will say. Proclaiming a doctrine of “muscular liberalism”, he will say that everyone, from ministers to ordinary voters, should actively confront those who hold extremist views.

Cameron is following Angela Merkel, basically copying her words from a few months ago.

Nevertheless, this is a tremendous advance in rhetoric, and if followed by regulatory and police action, it will be the first sign that an English-speaking country has STARTED TO FIGHT the current war, the first real response to the real threat of Jihad. After ten years of utterly wasted Phoney War in Iraq and Afghanistan, which killed lots of their civilians and lots of our soldiers for exactly zero purpose, we're finally getting back to Dec. 8, 1941.

That's a big If. Remains to be seen, and Polistra will be watching closely....



Polistra is praying to St George, patron saint of England. Grant them the moral strength to carry out this difficult war.

= = = = =

Later, after hearing the speech itself: It's not clear that Cameron can make this happen. There's a basic logical weakness.

On one level he states that Muslims are different from Englishmen. He acknowledges that the existing policy tolerates traditional Muslim attitudes while criminalizing traditional English attitudes. This makes law enforcement absurd, and quite properly leads Englishmen to withdraw their consent from the government. In objective fact the governments of US, UK and Australia have abjectly surrendered to Islam, and the Christians understand it only too well.

But at the same time Cameron also says the primary value that defines Englishness is a belief in equality.

Can't have it both ways. Either you observe human nature accurately, which means you notice, discuss and act on real differences; or you follow Robespierre, Lincoln and Lenin into the modern world of evil delusion, where no differences can be seen, mentioned or acted on.

Cameron tries to square the circle in the same way that the Buckleyite neocoms do: it's all about an imposed ideology, which anyone could adopt under the right conditions. Anyone can get democracy if they want it, anyone can get "radical Islamism" if they want it. Nope. Culture is more permanent than that, and culture is partly innate.

Near the end of the speech he destroys the whole point by saying "Anyone who claims there's a war between Christians and Muslims is speaking nonsense." It's possible that he feels the need to say this for some stupid public-relations purpose; I always prefer to judge politicians by actions, not words. But you really can't fight a war unless you know it's a war. The Islamic side knows it's a war.
  ¶ 5:59 PM

  On the way to hell 2
An unusual Arctic freeze has caused electricity failures in Texas, and now natural gas failures in New Mexico. Some of this may be genuinely unpredictable, but it's the job of utility companies to account for Nature's vagaries.

This is what happens when you throw all the government's money into hippie-ass power-CONSUMING devices like windmills and solar, and throw all the government's regulatory power into stopping all other electric generation.

This is what happens when the entire cultural and governmental and scientific establishment adheres to a LUNATIC AND INTENTIONALLY SUICIDAL religion.

The "scientists", and the governments blindly relying on their insanity, cannot prepare for cold weather, because they no longer understand UP AND DOWN, they no longer understand CYCLES.

In the deranged decerebrate JimJonesMinds of "scientists", this cold air simply doesn't exist. Only the Hidden Variable, the Dark Warmth, exists. The Dark Warmth continues getting warmer and warmer and warmer and warmer and warmer, in linear and infinite form. By now the Dark Warmth has reached Ninety-Forty-Eleven Thousand Dozen Gazillion Pagiga-degrees [Kelvin, of course], and any second now it will BURST THROUGH the wormhole and ROAST US ALL!!!!!!!!

We're fucked. Heading for Haiti, heading for hell.

A simple solution, a literal Silver Bullet, is available now. The Hyperion mini-reactor, available now, is buried deep in the ground where no cold air can reach it. The Hyperion doesn't need to be hardened against "unprecedented", i.e. NORMAL, parts of Nature's cycle.
  ¶ 5:23 AM

  On the way down to hell
Haven't spotted a Self-explanatory Sentence lately.

This isn't exactly an SES, in that the meaning isn't fully self-contained. But when taken in context, it packs a punch. I literally jumped back from the screen when I read it.

Context: 'Bootstrap Analysis', an urban architecture blog, looking at Detroit decay in 2008. Under pictures of collapsing mansions in the Brush Park area of Detroit, one commenter FROM THE PHILIPPINES wrote:

i think the pictures were beautiful. the houses were indeed in decay, but they tell a story, and leave much to think about. i hope things get better for all of you there...

Blam. We are objects of pity to Filipinos. That's where 30 years of exceptionalism, 30 years of fucking around in other countries while abandoning the people of this country, has taken us. Headed for Haiti, headed for Hell.

= = = = =

Update several days later: Mark Steyn, subbing for Rush, hits the Detroit tragedy today. In typical Neocom Egalitarian style, Steyn attributes the problem to Democrats. For a Commie, whether Neo or not, all problems must be caused by ideology, not the culture. In plain fact Detroit's problem is black rule, not Democrat rule. Everywhere on earth, in Africa itself and in black areas of America, blacks have shown that they are incapable of ruling. Wherever they rule, you get total corruption, violence and poverty.

Reminds me of something. Back in 1964, our family went to visit maternal Grandfather in suburban Detroit. We hadn't seen him often because he had separated from Grandma long before I was born, and Michigan was a long way from Kansas. Grandpa was dying of cancer caused by alcohol, and it was also alcohol that had caused the permanent separation. He was showing us around the Detroit area, saying things like "Well, as you can see, the coloreds are taking over here. It won't be a fit place to live, but at least I won't be living here much longer." My parents tried unsuccessfully to shush him, and later spent a long time explaining why Grandpa was wrong. Nope, Grandpa was right. He was a steam plant engineer, and knew the critical importance of accurate observations. A dishonest reading can blow the whole plant to hell. That was my first lesson in the difference between Real Reality and Commie "Reality". I'm still catching up to Grandpa, who didn't need any lessons
  ¶ 9:29 AM

  Hooray for Egypt!
Anderson Cooper attacked by mob.

About goddamn time. This evil mutant amorphodite monstrosity has done more than any politician to ruin America. It's too bad s/he didn't get attacked by the Gulf-area businessmen whose livelihood s/he destroyed; but as aforementioned, Americans are thoroughly beaten down and incapable of proper vengeance against our own tyrants.

I hereby take back all the nasty things I've said about Arabs. They clearly have a stronger sense of justice, and a stronger desire for sensible government, than Americans or Brits. (But I do not take back anything I've said about Arabians.)

Later: Fox's Greg Palkott also got a richly-deserved whipass. I'm getting fonder and fonder of those Egyptians.
  ¶ 10:29 AM

  Land of the free?
According to this BBC source, the successful and fairly non-violent Tunisian revolution was triggered by one man resisting tyranny:

Last month an unemployed young man set himself on fire in Tunisia, and the flames appear to have engulfed a region. Officials wouldn't let Mohamed Bouazizi sell vegetables without a licence, and his desperate act triggered an upsising that toppled the government of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Since then we've seen a dramatic chain reaction, as people across the Arab World have protested against what they see as authoritarian and oppressive rule.

Think about that.

Our internal propaganda likes to portray America as a "free country" where the people won't consent to arbitrary actions.

Okay then, who would self-immolate if our government refused a license to sell vegies for no reason at all? Nobody, because tyranny is the rule, not the exception. We are beaten down, tenderized, pulverized by 30 years of black-robed enemy saboteurs giving "rights" to privileged classes and stealing "rights" from normal people.

Admittedly, this form of tyranny doesn't often affect rich people or big corporations, because they have armies of lawyers and the government doesn't want the hassle. Except when the license involves something that could be called "environmental", and then even the rich companies have trouble avoiding the tyrant's iron fist, as the Conoco situation illustrates.

We are more accustomed to tyranny than Tunisians are.

  ¶ 4:32 AM

  Rollin, rollin, rollin....
The huge drums for Conoco's refinery in Montana will finally start their overland trip tonight. After many months of expensive and completely unjustified "legal" wrangling, the Idaho Dept of Transport finally put its foot down and made an actual decision. I don't know why the sudden good sense; maybe Conoco finally gave IDOT the bribe it was waiting for, maybe the "judge" simply got tired.

In any case, hippie-ass envirotyrants lose one, America wins one!




= = = = =

Update next morning: First leg of trip completed without problems. The hippie-ass envirotyrants had threatened to "shadow" the convoy, but didn't materialize. Nothing like a fait accompli to wither protesters. Good video here.

Update after trip completed: Apparently the surveyors didn't get some of the angles and dimensions right. In a couple places the trucks struggled to get around a turn with a rocky ledge on one side, scraping part of the load and causing longer delays than planned.

As I said before: There's a deeper problem at the source. This hugely complicated transport route wouldn't have been needed if Conoco had built its refinery the old way, with American workers forging and fabricating everything on site from American steel panels. Those pieces could have been shipped routinely by normal rail or truck freight from Wheeling or Pittsburgh, and this mess wouldn't have been possible. But since Conoco chose the modular approach to minimize American labor, maximize Chinese profit, and maximize shipping, the hippies had a chance to break the system.

And now this misplanning of the route adds another illustration of the gross distortion of modern American business. All energy goes into lawyering and stock manipulation. No energy goes into engineering and design. The Chinese shit we buy at WalMart is shit because it was designed shittily by Americans (or more likely by Chinese spies working in "American" engineering departments), not because it was built by Chinamen in China.
  ¶ 5:45 PM

  Isolationism comeback?
It's interesting to watch the various commentators responding to the events in Egypt. Obama is, of course, continuing all Bush policies seamlessly, and the usual party hacks are responding to this in their usual way. Republican hacks are wildly against the Bush policy because it now carries the horrible satanic name of Obama. Democrat hacks are wildly for the Bush policy because it now carries the magnificent godlike name of Obama.

But some of the semi-independent types (eg Jerry Doyle, Jason Peters) are beginning to think more independently than usual, beginning to wonder if it's time to stop meddling in other countries, time to stop influencing other countries, time to start treating other countries like adults.

We can do plenty of good by showing specific respect to countries and factions, as we did with the little Baltic countries from 1940 to 1989. Because we had consistently recognized them as real countries during their Soviet occupation, they respected us in return. We didn't lift a finger to help them, and that turned out to be the best approach.

Whatever a country wants to do within its own borders is none of our damn business; it only becomes our business if and when the country directly attacks us. At that point our business is to delete the attacking country from the face of the earth.

= = = = =

How I got back to isolationism:

In 1996, Newt's grand accomplishment of welfare reform, still the one and only good thing done by the US govt in my lifetime, caused me to support Newt's party. Then 9/11 stirred some form of patriotism, which kept me from fully analyzing the multiple signs that Sultan Bush was fighting the wrong wars. In 2006, the Dubai ports fiasco woke me up. I had to assemble all the signs and determine that Sultan Bush was objectively working for the other side, even if his cute little walnut-sized brain might not have understood what he was doing. Because he was stuck in the Nixon-Kissinger model of universal intervention, universal influence, playing every game on every side, he ended up doing exactly what Sheikh Osama wanted him to do. Sultan Bush was deeply and murderously meddling in two countries that had not attacked us, and kissing the hem of the filthy Arab Crown Prince in the country that had attacked us. And the current president continues following Kissinger.

After that, I slowly evolved back to my original isolationist view after encountering the harsh unbreakable logic of Michael Scheuer.

= = = = =

I was way too slow to understand the truth, but my awakening didn't matter. Now it's refreshing to see awakenings in a few people whose voices are actually heard.
  ¶ 5:59 AM