Blagojevich Calls Check

Hoot! Well played Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D). You don’t achieve high level government positions without knowing how the game is played. Move that Rook forward and call check on the King.

Blagojevich on Tuesday said he is appointing former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to fulfill the last two years of Obama’s Senate term, but Burris is unlikely to actually serve in the seat. Secretary of State Jesse White said he is refusing to co-sign the paperwork, thereby blocking the appointment.

The plea thickened when U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush joined the news conference and thanked God for Blagojevich’s selection of Burris because he is an African American with 40 years of public service. … “I don’t think there’s anyone, any U.S. senator, who’s sitting in the Senate right now, [who] would want to go on record to deny one African American from being seated in the U.S. Senate. I don’t think they want to go on record doing that.”

So the black Knight Jesse White blocks the move and a Pawn is rushed forward. I wonder if Blagojevich has a Bishop covering his Rook. Power, after all, is an ancient game.

What Would Einstein Do?

2008: The year man-made global warming was disproved.

Two sources start questioning the wisdom of government funding of science. This type of talk will greatly displease the powers that be, but consider, what would Einstein do?

David Evans: Governments have spent over $50 billion on climate research since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence for AGW. So if there is no evidence to support AGW, and the missing hotspot shows that AGW is wrong, why does most of the world still believe in AGW?

Frank Tipler: This is why I am astounded that people, who should know better, like Newt Gingrich, advocate increased government funding for scientific research. We had better science, and a more rapid advance of science, in the early part of the 20th century when there was no centralized government funding for science.

Einstein discovered relativity on his own time, while he was employed as a patent clerk. Where are the Einsteins of today? They would never be able to get a university job --- Einstein's idea that time duration depended on the observer was very much opposed to the "consensus" view of the time. Einstein's idea that light was composed of particles (now called "photons") was also considered crazy by all physicists when he first published the idea. At least then he could publish the idea. Now a refereed journal would never even consider a paper written by a patent clerk, and all 1905 physics referees would agree that relativity and quantum mechanics were nonsense, definitely against the overwhelming consensus view. So journals would reject Einstein's papers if he were to write them today.

Science is an economic good like everything else, and it is very bad for production of high quality goods for the government to control the means of production. Why can't Newt Gingrich understand this? Milton Friedman understood it, and advocated cutting off government funding for science.

Perhaps after the revolution we can take a look at actual return on investment of the billions of tax dollars granted to research, because that review will never happen prior to the uprising.

The Vallejo Precedent

In the discussion of the bankruptcy of Vallejo, CA comes this Factoid of the Day:

Consider this staggering comparison: State and local public employees comprise approximately 12 percent of the U.S. workforce and have an estimated $800 billion or more of unfunded pension liabilities (not counting other post-employment benefits). By comparison, employees in the private or corporate sector make up about 78 percent of the U.S. workforce with an estimated $450 billion of unfunded liabilities.

I foresee a steaming pile on a beeline towards our primary air circulation driver.

Our Consumer Economy

A picture is worth a thousand words.

It’s Only Money

Might as well dream big.

$227,839,800

Perhaps a corollary to the admonishment not to embezzle chump change.

Who's Being Naive

Oh Kate, if the American people were supposed to know this stuff, the New York Times and the Associated Press would have instructed them. This is just wave making.

Chicago Democrats and The Chicago Mob: Most of America thinks Mayor Daley runs Chicago. Those on the inside know that's not the case. The man who runs Chicago from behind the scenes, since the early 1990's, is Alderman Ed Burke, Chairman of Chicago's Finance Committee. Burke went from being an errand boy for Alderman Roti to the most powerful elected figure in the state of Illinois. In a corrupt state like Illinois, the guy with the most money in his campaign fund is the man at the top. In Illinois, it’s not Chicago's Mayor Daley or Governor Blagojevich but Alderman Burke.

I remember Vince Foster

wbboei Says: December 14th, 2008 at 9:30 am

Just a thought but if it were my call I would keep the governor under twenty four hour surveillance for his good and the good of the American People. You can believe the murder of the head of the Arkansas Democratic Party who was prepared to lead a pro-Hillary offensive at the Convention was not related to the election but if that is the case the timing and circumstances are to say the least suspicious. Maybe the same thing would not happen here where Obamas claim to the throne is once again at issue but it would be wise to err on the side of caution with full surveillance protection. There are simply too many people a guy like this could bring down.
...

This would be a reference to Democratic Party Governor Rod Blagojevich of Chicago. Bill Gwatney would say this is a creative but merely revengeful conspiracy theory, if ... he was still alive. Make no mistakes about facts. Obama is a practicing politician of the Chicago Way.

Global Warming Kills Beauty

snowcrystals.com

Good thing man made global warming is only a Democratic Party lie.

Stepping into the Future for Hindsight

The history of the command and control period of American history can not be fully appreciated without a basic understanding of The Blagojevich-Obama link and the Black Muslims, plus the timely financing of Nadhmi Auchi. All the government approved textbooks here in the future begin: Selfish freedom was leading America farther and farther away from social justice thus creating the need for strong leadership.

Blagojevich

Blagojevich – You can’t pronounce it but you can pronounce sentence.

Bonus Question: Who is the Sergeant Schultz of Chicago politics?
Hint: I know nothink. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooothink.
Merry Fitzmas!

Red Alert: Gold Backwardation!!!

I always view gold bugs with a healthy degree of skepticism but Antal E. Fekete lays out a soundly reasoned warning that the global financial system is going to lock up. Soon.

Red Alert: Gold Backwardation!!! In the commodity futures markets the terminus technicus for a positive basis is contango; that for a negative one, backwardation. Contango implies the existence of a healthy supply of the commodity in the warehouses available for immediate delivery, while backwardation implies shortages and conjures up the scraping of the bottom of the barrel.

Gold going to permanent backwardation means that gold is no longer for sale at any price, whether it is quoted in dollars, yens, euros, or Swiss francs. The situation is exactly the same as it has been for years: gold is not for sale at any price quoted in Zimbabwe currency, however high the quote is. To put it differently, all offers to sell gold are being withdrawn, whether it concerns newly mined gold, scrap gold, bullion gold or coined gold.

Negative basis (backwardation) means that people controlling the supply of monetary gold cannot be persuaded to part with it, regardless of the bait. These people are no speculators. They are neither Scrooges nor Shylocks. They are highly capable businessmen with a conservative frame of mind. They are determined to preserve their capital come hell or high water, for saner times, so they can re-deploy it under a saner government and a saner monetary system. Their instrument is the ownership of monetary gold.

They blithely ignore the siren song promising risk-free profits. Indeed, they could sell their physical gold in the spot market and buy it back at a discount in the futures market for delivery in 30 days. In any other commodity, traders controlling supply would jump at the opportunity. The lure of risk-free profits would be irresistible. Not so in the case of gold. Owners refuse to be coaxed out of their gold holdings, however large the bait may be. Why? Well, they don't believe that the physical gold will be there and available for delivery in 30 days' time. They don't want to be stuck with paper gold, which is useless for their purposes of capital preservation.

The full faith and trust in the US government to pay its promises is in question. I have read a challenge to the definition of spot price used in the article but overall it makes a good case that this is an indicator worth watching. If the commodities markets begin saying that gold can not be purchased with US dollars, no matter how many of those dollars are offered, it means a complete breakdown in the trust between nations. Scary stuff. The wave of time is towering over the mountains we know.

Building for the Future

I have been watching a work crew start building a commercial building. My first thought is hoping they have their financing approved. Since approved financing is time limited, I suppose they needed to start the project before the approval expires lest they lose the claim on all those million of dollars. Planning for the future always contains the hope the future will mostly continue to resemble the present.

The gentleman operating the top of the line Volvo excavator is an artist. There is an old New Yorker cartoon with the punch line: Americans love to move dirt. So true. Trench, trench, backfill, infill, grade. The rebar and concrete guys are all supporting characters to the master excavator. With every three cubic yards of topsoil he transfers into the back of a truck or smoothes along the nascent foundation, I think these are the people that will get us through the coming economic disaster.

Paulson, Bernake, Cash n’ Carry, Thomas Donilon, Wendy Sherman, Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, Tim Howard and all the rest of the best and brightest could all use some quality time on the labor farm. Chairman Mao inflicted a great deal of evil upon the life of this world but his insistence that intellectuals actually experience impoverished slave labor is one thought I know I should reject, but which still appeals to my sense of justice.