Not PC: FRIDAY MORNING RAMBLE: It hasn’t been a peaceful week

Friday, 14 September 2012

FRIDAY MORNING RAMBLE: It hasn’t been a peaceful week

Knowledge is power. Here’s some reading from around the traps.

A sad story with a happy ending. “A New Zealand man who admitted helping his chronically ill wife die has been discharged without conviction.” Thank goodness. But the right to voluntary euthanasia should be enshrined in law, not left up to the discretion of a judge skating the edge of the law to deliver justice—with all the final comforts it denies the loved one, and all the necessary legal safeguards it must flout.
Man avoids conviction for helping wife die – NEWS.MSN

“It was a great disappointment that Justice Venning was not prepared to declare NIWA’s data adjustments to be a breach of the Crown Research Institutes Act 1992.
On the law, the Judge found that any review should be ‘tolerant’ and ‘cautious’ because NIWA was ‘a specialist body acting within its own sphere of expertise.’ He declined to rule on the disputed science…
Where does this now leave the NZ Climate Science Coalition’s long-term effort to show that the NIWA temperature adjustments are wrong?”
Quo vadis? – Barry Brill, CLIMATE CONVERSATION GROUP

The Green Party is perpetuating the claim that development beyond Auckland’s “city limits” imposes a high cost on ratepayers—ignoring the impact on affordability for new home-owners priced out of the market. Phil McDermott responds with facts.
The Answer Is Urban Consolidation – What Was The Question? – Phil McDermott, CITIES MATTER

No point propping up newsprint says Steven Joyce in Kawerau, we'll prop up biofuel instead. Nek minnit...
EU going cold on biofuels. – CATALLAXY FILES

I’m still calling for National supporters to tell me what they consider the Key Government’s greatest achievements. I really do want to know, you know.
Calling all National supporters – NOT PC

* * * * *

Near-simultaneous attacks on US embassies in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Sudan, Tunisia … all on the anniversary of 9/11, and all are “spontaneous”? Give me a break. “There was nothing spontaneous about these attacks. They were planned.”
Come and Get It, Hillary – Edward Cline, RULE OF REASON
Muslim rioting, violence in Israel, Gaza, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco, Iraq, Iran and Kashmir – Robert Spencer, JIHAD WATCH

The attacks “had no reference to the current film, which means that they simply searched for anything to use as an excuse.”
Arabic Sources Reveal the Truth Regarding Attacks on U.S. Embassy in Egypt – WALID SHOEBAT
The 9/11 attacks on the US embassies were not about a movie – CAROLINE GLICK

The first reaction of American political leadership? “To condemn the Christians who made the film and to reject the principles of the First Amendment.” It’s a new age of censorship (and, contrary to the link, it’s not just Obama). “The film is just a pretext, argues Robert Spencer. “This is an all-out push to intimidate the West into restricting speech so that Islam and Muslims are established as a privileged class beyond criticism.”
The Second 9/11: Today will go down in infamy as the day our government became our enemy
– PJ MEDIA
Guardian calls for free speech restrictions in wake of jihad murder of U.S. ambassador – Robert Spencer, JIHAD WATCH
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff asks preacher not to back anti-Muslim film – AP
UK's Channel 4 cancels Islam documentary screening after presenter threatened – DAILY TELEGRAPH (UK)
The Tragedy of Alexandria’s Book Market - NERVANA
All For One – Amit Ghate, THRUTCH

“Forgive President Obama if he seemed a bit shell-shocked during his brief statement Wednesday on the murderous attack against an American consulate in Libya. In June 2009, he had grand plans for harmony between East and West. In a celebrated speech delivered in Cairo, Obama spoke earnestly about the need for the West and the Muslim world to look past old hostilities and suspicions.
And then on Tuesday night, his grand vision came crashing down.”
The second 9/11 illustrates futility of groveling for peace – Editorial, WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Deconstructing Obama’s Cairo Speech – THE DAILY BLADE (2009)

Meanwhile, “the debate over Iran's nuclear program has become so feckless -- so disconnected from reality -- that perhaps it's time to inject a dose of what those of us who served on the national security side of the Reagan administration used to call "real-world intelligence…. Of course Iran is building a nuclear bomb; the evidence is obvious and overwhelming. The only purpose of those leaked National Intelligence Estimates asserting that Iran hasn't actually made the decision to build a nuclear bomb, and of similar leaked documents from European intelligence services, is to prevent what the analysts fear would happen. They're afraid that if they officially judge Iran to be on the verge of having a nuclear bomb, political pressure for a military attack will become irresistible. They want to delay action until it's too late, so we will be left with no choice except to live with a nuclear-armed Iran.”
A Dose of Real-World Intel on Iran – Herbert Meyer, AMERICAN THINKER

“The capacity for unclouded enjoyment...does not belong to...
fools; an inviolate peace of spirit is not the achievement of a drifter.”
- Ayn Rand

The negative feedback cycle of welfare payments make it obvious that money alone is not a value: it can’t replace the spiritual value of engaging in a productive life.
The Corrupting Influence of Entitlements – Amit Ghate, THRUTCH

“What governs politics is not policy details but ‘the vision thing’–a vision of right and wrong, good and evil. It’s the morality, stupid. The Democrats seem to know that.”
Obama Hears Your Whining, And He's Here to Help You Out – Harry Binswanger, FORBES

“Steven Keen is going around the country right now explaining the many, many evils, as he see them, of standard economics. That the majority of economists don't agree with Keen will not come as any surprise to most people. One person who has done a great service in debunking Keen's ideas on Debunking Economics is Professor Christopher Auld.”
Auld keen on debunking Keen – Paul Walker, ANTI DISMAL

The Greek government may be ready to offload some of the country’s last assets.
Greece may lease some of its sovereign islands to help pay the bills – Eric Crampton, OFFSETTING BEHAVIOUR

“’The income of the typical U.S. family has fallen to levels last seen in 1995, a long and pernicious slide that likely means it will be a generation before Americans regain the peak income levels reached at the close of the ’90s.’ While one should always be careful using median income figures, the data is consistent with and can be best understood when combined with a capital-structure macro model of the economy.” Which is to say, not only has all that capital consumption of the last decade-and-a-half not made us any richer, but …
New Evidence Supports an Austrian Business Cycle Interpretation of 1995-2012
– John Cochran, CIRCLE BASTIAT

Um, David Cunliffe seems to think the ministers who are driving economic and finance policies in the National Government are dyed in the wool Chicago economists. Disciples of Milton Friedman. No, he really does.
The cult of National Party economics – David Cunliffe, RED ALERT

Meanwhile, David Parker seems to think the former central bank governor Don Brash “is a Hayek disciple”—apparently unaware Hayek received his Nobel Prize for explaining how central bank meddling is the primary cause of capital consumption and the business cycle. Still, Parker also thinks Hayek was a Friedmanite on today’s central-bank monetary meddling!!-so whatever Parker learned on his world trip, it wasn’t economic history.
Meeting with Joseph Stiglitz – David Parker, RED ALERT
Hayek on the Business Cycle – Joseph Salerno, MISES INSTITUTE
John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, and F.A. Hayek Compared – Jonathan Mariano, TRIPLE PUNDIT

The deficit is not not the biggest problem; the biggest problem is the spending. “Ultimately what matters for the economy is not the size of the budget deficit but the size of government outlays — the amount of resources that government diverts to its own activities.”
Is the "Fiscal Cliff" a Threat to the Economy? – Frank Shostak, MISES DAILY

The UK is the only country surveyed where more people want to increase govt spending than decrease it. But only just.

And in other news over night…

The US Federal Reserve announced that will buy $40 billion dollars of mortgages per month … indefinitely.
As Predicted, Bernanke Launches QE3 ... Which Will Destroy the Economy – “George Washington,” ZERO HEDGE

Image via Zero Hedge

So that’s both the US and Europe’s central banks rapidly throwing money out the window then.
Draghi Acts: Is It Inflationary? – Jeff Harding, THE DAILY CAPITALIST

Any wonder the NZ dollar just spiked above US83c?

“Few of the many analyses on Federal Reserve policy consider the psychology of diminishing political and financial returns of Fed promises.”
Psychoanalyzing The Fed – Charles High Smith, ZERO HEDGE

“Nowadays, the Fed gives banks digital transfusions of money to lower long-term interest rates, which result in … Not much bang for trillions of bucks… Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke evidently thinks that driving up the stock market will quicken the animal spirits of the affluent 20 percent who own 93 percent of equities, and this “wealth effect” will spur economic activity, eventually benefiting others. So, the interest rates Barack Obama favors are a form of the trickle-down economics he execrates.”
A different kind of inflation problem – George Will, WASHINGTON POST

“Here is how it is with Keynesian policy. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Everywhere you look, there are debt and derangement, direct consequences of the Keynesian expenditure of the past three years…
Economic theory hasn’t kept up with policy so most textbooks still peddle C+I+G and teach about the importance of aggregate demand…. It is value adding production that creates growth and employment, not increased spending on anything. Most people are too polite to say it, but macroeconomic theory is now about as flat earth as it could possibly be.”
Fool me twice, shame on me – Steven Kates, CATALLAXY FILES

Not just the last three years. The result of 99-years of Federal Reserve type playtime economics? “In the entire ‘developed’ world, there is only one country that runs a budget surplus, even as the entire ‘developed’ world is now, according to the Reinhart and Rogoff definition of sustainable public leverage, insolvent.”
99 Years Of Keynesian-Monetarist "Winning" – Tyler Durden, ZERO HEDGE

Let’s remind ourselves shall we…
The Economic Consequences of Cheap Money – Ludwig Von Mises, THE CAUSES OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

And in case you needed explaining again how Quantitative Easing works, here’s Mr John Clark.

So, Yaron: How Would One Phase Out The Federal Reserve?

And now for something completely different…

Yes, you can help this poor Nigerian astronaut collect his $15 million in back pay.
Won’t you help a poor Nigerian astronaut who just wants to come home from space
– VENTURE BEAT

There can be poetry in profanity.
On cursing – Tom Jacobs, 3 QUARKS DAILY

Good news still happens. Let’s celebrate some of the successes of children taught in Montessori schools.
The Montessori Mafia – WALL STREET JOURNAL

Yaron Brook has a new book! Here’s the introduction.
Introduction to Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government
– Yaron Brook, LAISSEZ FAIRE

Do orchestral conductors do anything useful? Science discovers the truth.
The science of conducting: Von Karajan was right – THE ECONOMIST

“As a former Waldorf class teacher, I've seen first hand how unchecked screentime from films, tv and computer games can adversely affect young children as they grow, but I also believe in doing what I can as a parent to educate and turn a potential problem into an opportunity.”
My Favorite Films for Children — Maxwell's Finds – Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, APARTMENT THERAPY

“An exclusive look inside Ground Truth, the secretive program to build the world's most accurate maps.”
How Google Builds Its Maps—and What It Means for the Future of Everything – THE ATLANTIC

No, I’ve never procrastinated either. Ahem. Dr Diana Hsieh discusses why you find yourself washing your windows when you’re supposed to be getting that report finished.
The Problem of Procrastination – Diana Hsieh, PHILOSOPHY RADIO [AUDIO]

In today’s world, the income of one parent in each family goes out just to pay the tax bill. And what about the cost of those kids!
Dummy's guide: the cost of raising kids – THE AGE

A sad day. The greatest fullback in the history of AFL retires.
Matthew Scarlett tribute – GEELONG CATS
Brian Cook called him "The Senator" – HERALD SUN

First Wellington, then the world!
St Kilda will host Sydney in New Zealand on Anzac Day – HERALD SUN
AFL's four points to be earned on foreign shores for first time – WORLD FOOTY NEWS

31 life skills every young man needs to know.
Heading Out on Your Own: 31 Life Skills in 31 Days – THE ART OF MANLINESS

Did you wonder how two British newspapers reported one of the biggest politically-driven cover-ups in modern British history. I did:

It’s not the full and justifiably famous ten-minute blast from the Carnegie Hall, but with Gene Krupa, Harry James and Benny Goodman (natch) this still rocks like a bastard.