The Grayest Lady

The New York Times can publish the deepest, darkest of our national secrets without the slightest compunction ... but, when it comes to hacked salacious e-mails between two SONY executives, it's reporters cannot even view them on-line unless they have been previously exposed by some other publication. How hypocritical can the Gray Lady get? Today on "Morning Joe" a reporter from the Times revealed that the lawyers there have forbade any its reporters from being the initial revealers of any of this hacked SONY information.

Perhaps, if the Sony execs were discussing how the U.S. was uncovering Al Qaeda operations, then things would be OK?

reddit Gallery CCXXXI

Another excursion into the world of reddit Pictures. See: reddit Pics for sources.  Do yourself a favor and click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

Frog on a Berry

Asperatus clouds

Frankfurt, Germany, 

Sign of the Times

Tanzanite

Ferocity

Try to imagine that you are Sam Peckinpah and you are making a movie exhibiting the ultimate in ferocity … really insane, gory, brutal stuff. Whatever you can come up with it is but piffle compared with what the Taliban just performed in north-western Pakistan at a Pashwar school for military children. I suggest that if you have a sensitive stomach or psyche that you not read the details of what these beyond-inhuman brutes did at this school … International Business Times Story.

I have gone to the thesaurus to try to find the right adjectives … horrific, dreadful, appalling, ghastly … none are sufficiently descriptive of these murderers. In fact, it is difficult to imagine how human beings can devolve into such barbaric behavior … no matter what the justification. Perhaps, just perhaps we now see why George Bush decided to wage war against this brand of Islamic extremism … and why we used some “enhanced interrogation techniques” to extract meaningful intelligence so that we might stop such insanity.

Why we have now decided to negotiate with the Taliban in Afghanistan is so far beyond my comprehension that I won’t even try.

Afterward: Don't forget ... it's only "torture" if you do the same or worse to your prisoner than he would do to you if the roles were reversed.

After Afterward: For President Obama's reaction to this butchery read: Atlas Shrugged and he may have even abetted this attack ... see Atlas Shrugged 2.

Rags to Rags

Here’s another Walter Mitty story -- boy investment genius, not yet out of high school, makes $72 million trading stocks on Wall Street. His name is Mohammed Islam and he goes to Stuyvesant High School on the lower East Side of Manhattan and has seemingly acquired all the trappings of a multi-millionaire. Perhaps these trumped-up trappings are what influenced Jessica Pressler to write a quite typical New Yorker magazine flivver story about this wunderkind … see: New Yorker Story.

Alas, it was all a great big teenager prank and the New Yorker magazine is embarrassed … see: The Observer Exposee ... and Jessica Pressler has moved on to browner pastures … see: Capital Story.

I actually think she should have taken a shot at Rolling Stone.

Gored Oxen

Sony's corporate computers have been hacked and hacked badly ... revealing oodles of embarrassing information about their operations ... scripts, private and scurrilous e-mails, actors' salaries, Social Security numbers, actual copies of unreleased movies, etc. ... see: Hollywood Reporter Story.

The famous tinsel-town writer, Aaron Sorkin, had an op-ed yesterday in the New York Times saying that the American media's releasing of many of these revelations is "morally treasonous." ... see: New York Times Op-Ed. I find it quite revealing that such a comment is forthcoming from a media mogul ... because I am certain that, if the shoe were on the other foot,  Hollywood would reveal and revel in any disclosures that they could make about the rest of our media empire.

Everything is kosher unless and until it is your ox that is being gored.

Opera

A friend is soon to attend her first 4 ½ hour performance of “Die Meistersinger” by Richard Wagner. To me, it is funny how there seems such a bright line between opera buffs and opera baiters. My wife loves opera … me, not so much. Anyhow this friend’s initiation to this marathon opera brings to mind a few quips about this German composer:

The answer: 9-W

The question: Does your last name begin with a “V” Herr Wagner?

“Richard Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” – attributed to the humorist Edgar Wilson

“I have seen and greatly enjoyed the first act of everything Wagner created, but the effect on me has always been so powerful that one act was quite sufficient; after two acts I have gone away physically exhausted.” -- Mark Twain

"It isn't over until the fat lady sings." -- attributed to Yogi Berra

Tourist Leverage

Apparently democratically-elected Islamists are inclined toward the tyrannical takeovers of their governments. We saw this develop in Egypt where President Mohamed Morsi jumped on a fast horse to try to outrun his political opposition ... and ended up angering many of his supporters and found himself and most of his posse behind bars after street rioting and a military coup ... see: BBC Story.

Now President Erdogan of Turkey is following this same game plan by arresting 27 of his opponents on trumped-up charges ... trying to cement his control over this Muslim country (which is also a member of NATO) ... see: Yahoo News Story. Certainly and rightfully, Erdogan's despotic moves have also estranged many countries in Europe and, I hope, many of those voters who mistakenly put him into office.

President Erdogan seems so anxious to rid Turkey of its secular heritage that he might find himself in the same super-steam bath that Morsi drew for himself. I would like to be sensitive enough to the Turkish psyche to be able to predict the outcome of this passion play. But, if tourism falls off in Turkey like it fell off in Egypt, I think that this might be a catalyst in the overthrow of this caliphate-loving Caesar. Economics very often trumps ideology.

My wife wanted us to take a cruise next year that stopped in Turkey. After some discussion about the situation there, we decided to forgo this junket. This is a shame ... for Turkey was on our bucket list and there isn't much water left in our collective pail. But, if many other tourists passing such an opportunity up, means that Erdogan, like Morsi, also must dine on bread and water for a number of years, it all would be well worth it.

Heavy Metal

What do the bands Metallica, Rage Against The Machine, Queen, Eminem, David Gray. and Skinny Puppy have in common? Why their recordings all were used to “torture” prisoners at Gitmo … see: Brooklyn Vegan Blog. This last band mentioned has invoiced the U.S. government $666,000 (a devil of an amount) for using its “music” for this purpose without its permission. And it may sue the government if this requested amount isn’t remitted.

How quaint …

Will-o-the-Wisp

Mankind too often has a insidious way of pushing a program or an ideology … particularly in this day of the ever-increasing pace of technology and communications … be it social media, Internet publishing, congressional law-making, financial derivatives, climate change "science," etc. … and that is what I chose to call "convoluted complexity." By this I mean that the real truth of an issue lies below so many layers of required understandings that proponents can pull a fast one on the general public with misleading rhetoric which obscures their will-o-the-wisp hidden agendas.

This strategy has been exhibited with Jonathan Gruber’s slight of hand with Obamacare (see: Washington Post Article), the convoluted misreporting of the University of Virginia gang-rape allegations (see: Daily Caller Story ), Elizabeth Warren’s attack on Congress's continuing resolution to finance our government. She says that it is helping Wall Street banks (see: Powerline Blog) and so many other current dust-ups that set my head to spinning.

What to do? How does one uncover the actual truths in these contretemps? I have fallen back on a strategy to catch the snipe in many of these seemingly hopeless media mazes. And that is to discount anything said or written by someone who appears to be creating complexity for the sake of complexity. Once an issue requires me to get a graduate degree in a discipline in order to understand it, I discount these arguments and assume that I am being hoodwinked. (I also use this strategy with most arm-waving television ads these days … for example … "call 1-800-BAD-DRUG"). This device is not of my invention … William of Occam was one of the first to propose it … see: Science Explanation of Occam's Razor. 

It seems to work in most instances.

reddir Gallery CCXXX

Another excursion into the world of reddit Pictures. See: reddit Pics for sources.  Do yourself a favor and click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

Senseless Eco-Graffiti

See: NY Times story: CNBC Reference.

Bird's Nest Mushrooms,

Saturn Moon, Hyperion

Asian Pallas's Cat

Moonset

Rabbit Warren

Senator Elizabeth Warren is opposing the continuing financial resolution being considered tonight in Congress. This is because it may cause us to abandon provisions in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that keeps the federal government from once again bailing out the big banks in another financial crisis. Much as her rhetoric seems convincing, I sincerely doubt that this Dodd-Frank bill would do any such thing. I strongly suspect that Senator Lieawatha is seizing this opportunity to kill this compromise resolution to grab the spotlight and gain enough media attention to be able to best Hillary Clinton as the next Democrat presidential candidate.

I sincerely hope she wins on both counts. I hope this bill dies tonight and the Democrats are finally fingered as causing a government shutdown ... or we get just a three-month continuation of federal funding. This would put the Republicans, due to their majorities in both houses, in the catbird seat for the next round of budget talks after the first of the year. And I also hope against hope that Senator Warren becomes the front runner (rabbit) of the Democrat party and leaves Hillary Clinton in the dust in the race for this party's nomination. I then believe that our loony liberals would have nominated a Walter Mondale redux for 2016. I doubt that, in the general election, she would even carry Massachusetts, her home state, up against any conceivable Republican candidate ... even, perish the thought, Donald Trump.

Please Allah let it be ...

Ends vs. Means

The old political debate about whether the ends justify the means apparently depends on what the ends, in fact, are. This dichotomy has now been in the news because of Dianne Feinstein's recent polemic against the U.S.'s enhanced interrogation techniques (aka torture) following the 9/11 attacks. Here the liberal argument is that these methods applied to despicable individuals yielded no actionable intelligence ... thus cleverly attempting to deny the CIA any justification for their actions ... see Dick Cheney's comments: Real Clear Politics.

On the other hand, the Democrats have incessantly rationalized their chicanery, bribery, and mendacity surrounding the passage of Obamacare because the result was so important that these base means were of no import ... see Jonathan Gruber's justifications of these Democrats actions: LA Times Article

Now I ask you ... are a few million more people with health insurance (don't forget, they already have healthcare ... such care cannot be denied) more important than possibly one or more new 9/11-type attacks where thousands, if not millions of Americans might be killed?

I know where I come down.

Torture

I generally have liked Senator Dianne Feinstein of California … certainly when juxtaposed next to her state’s chamber mate, Senator Barbara Boxer, the essence of liberal claptrapedness. But when you let your hurt feelings dictate your lashing out at our intelligence community at the cost of what little prestige the United States might still have abroad and the possible jeopardizing of intelligence assets around the world … you have taken a step onto the dark side ... and are now on my feces list. Senator Feinstein took to the Senate floor yesterday to excoriate the C.I.A. for its role in the “torture” of captured Al Qaeda prisoners who had orchestrated the murder of 3,000 Americans … see: New York Times Article for some slightly biased reportage.

Obviously the definition of torture is generally proscribed by the beliefs of the beholder and I don’t intend to debate it here except to say that too many liberals endorsed these coercive practices right after 9/11 … only to perform a elaborate pirouette years later when the politics permitted. And when you incur the wrath of former Senator Bob Kerrey, another unrepentant liberal, Senator Feinstein, you clearly have let your ego trump your patriotism … see: USA Today OpEd.

This California senator certainly has the institutional memory to understand what Senator Church’s Intelligence Committee’s attack on the C.I.A. did back in the 1970s. Its resulting restrictions on our intelligence community probably had a lot to do with the failures that led to 9/11. Yet she has let a few misguided C.I.A. operative’s actions color her indictment of this agency which, in turn, may result in similar terrorist atrocities on our soil in the future. But alas, Senator Feinstein, like Senator Church, will likely by then be long gone and not suffer any of these consequences … and the merry-go-round will return our intelligence community to a position of “whatever it takes.”

As far as I am concerned, the real torture is watching these misguided bubbleheads give away the farm due to a case of overweening moral superiority.

Afterward: I think I may have come up with an interesting definition of torture -- when you are interrogating a prisoner, if you do less to him than what he would do to you if the roles were reversed, then it is not torture. (Therefore equal or greater abuse compared to what he would do to you would be torture.)

reddit Gallery CCXXIX -- Sports Cars

Another excursion into the world of reddit Pictures. See: reddit Pics for sources.  Do yourself a favor and click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

Porsche 918

ASton Martin DBS

BMW 18

Aston Martin One -77

1957 Jaguar

1957 BMW 507

Aston Martin DBC

Collusion?

Now we learn that Mexico has stopped the flood of illegal minors from Central America somewhat before the past November's elections … see: Breitbart Article. This must mean that it purposely permitted the huge influx of this same group earlier this past summer. And the obvious question that this raises is, Why? Has the Mexican government been colluding with the Obama administration to try to influence the outcome of our elections … and earlier to grease the passage of an Obama immigration amnesty bill?

And was Mexico getting cold feet … which is why we were flying these illegals into Texas from Central America  … see: Forums Story?

It may take many years before we have definitive answers to these questions … but, seeing how, in the past, this administration has attempted illegal or immoral means to orchestrate things to satisfy its liberal agenda (remember Fast and Furious), I wouldn’t be half surprised that it had colluded with the Mexican poobahs in these matters. However, experiencing this kind of nasty and base corruption on the part of the Mexicans shocks … shocks me to the core!

I think that Charles Krauthammer keeps calling us a Banana Republic ... perhaps he is right?

Goose for the Gander

When the terms "rape" or "sexual assault" appear in the press these days (the meme that apparently keeps the main-stream media's blood flowing ... witness Bill Cosby's spotlight), the gender that is top of mind is female. This makes a certain amount of cultural sense in that females are generally thought to be weaker and more vulnerable (Lena Dunham being a major exception). However, when I just read that there are more male rapes in the military than female ones (raw numbers, not percentages), I was a little taken aback ... see: Enews Strory. And this then got me to thinking.

With Rolling Stone magazine's apology for its poor reporting in the University of Virginia fraternity gang-rape story, our current obsessive media focus on male sexual predation on females has taken a step backward. However, the huge numbers of males being raped in prisons usually engenders only unsympathetic snickers. And, if a female teacher is revealed as taking sexual advantage of one of her male students, the reaction is generally far more subdued than if the genders are reversed. Why this lopsided set of standards? Have we not been inculcated for the last fifty years that the sexes are equal in all respects? Should not female sports teams be wearing blue shoes in sympathy for the plight of male sexual victims?

In truth, goosing a gander should be just as serious an offense as gandering a goose (or gandering a gander).

Paper Moon

Even I was beginning to feel good about the recent government new-jobs report (up over 300,000 jobs) until I read the following CNBC article that puts its numbers in a more sobering perspective: CNBC Analysis. Apparently actual employment growth was only by 4,000 while full-time jobs declined by 150,000 and part-time jobs increased by 77,000. Even when things are looking up for Americans, it seems only a statistical illusion. 

One can surmise that we are now living in an Obamacare economy where job security and middle-class expansion is a thing of the past. First Senator Chuck Schumer and now the Obamacare co-sponsor, Senator Tom Harkin, is saying that the Obamacare law was a gigantic mistake … as it is far too complicated … see: USA Today Article/. (He still wants a single-payer health-care system however.)

So, once again, we see that we are living in a nation of make-believe numbers to gloss over legislative and administrative incompetence. What’s that old song, “It’s only a paper moon hanging over a cardboard sea …”?

Firing Squad

I have previously written about the threat to the American fraternity system based upon the gang rape accusation at a University of Virginia fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, as published in Rolling Stone magazine. This resulted in the president of this university closing down all fraternities there until next Spring ... see: The Alpha of the Omega. Now we learn that this magazine's article, which never had checked with the fraternity in question, is beginning to unravel as many of its revelations are unable to be verified ... see: Enews Article.

This non-scandal is quite reminiscent of the Duke University lacrosse team scandal of a few years back which blew up in the faces of many of the professors and administration at this other "prestigious" southern university when lie after lie was exposed. We "broad-minded" liberal-educated erudites too often critique the Ferguson riots or the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations as resulting from a mob mentality ... but somehow ignore this same mindless behavior in ourselves or in those in whom we have vested authority. Sometimes we form the firing squad well before even the trial is held.

It does seem that liberal pedagogues have a penchant to follow that age-old adage, "fire, ready, aim."

Afterward: See also John Hinderaker's article in The Powerline Blog.

Choke Hold

I have not followed the Eric Garner police “choke hold” death on Staten Island, New York as closely as I followed the Michael Brown shooting death in Ferguson, Missouri. Therefore, upon reading the Diplomad’s studied opinions on these same two grand jury decisions, they sound to me quite reasoned and reasonable. Consequently I think that the grand jury in New York may have erred and the one in Missouri was quite correct … see: The Diplomad's Thoughts . The grand jury in New York probably should have at least rendered a bill of aggravated assault.

But unfortunately what’s done is done.

Three-Card Monte

President Obama has pulled another fast one ... saying he was signing an executive order recently in Las Vegas allowing up to five million illegal immigrants to avoid deportation ... amnesty if you will ... when he really didn't. Of course this would not have be the first time that he lied to the American people. In fact, his telling the truth would be a bigger news story than his pathological mendacity. If you said that you "changed the law" by signing an executive order, you would think that you would sign an executive order ... not just an ersatz memorandum and a proclamation to make it look like you are doing what you claimed. Can we ever rely on this man not to perform another three-card monte "now you see it now you don't" switcheroo ... see: WND Story.

So Obama didn't sign an executive order, he just grifted the American people and the Republican Party with another sham scam. He actually is relying on his head on Homeland Security to play along with this bunko game as though he had done what he said. Jeh Johnson actually issued a memorandum propounding "prosecutorial discretion" without official presidential authorization which supposedly implements the amnesty that Obama had promised. This way, if Obama is found to have exceeded his executive authority, he can turn over the card and show that it is not the ace. "Ha, ha, fooled ya,!" In other words this executive amnesty is even more unconstitutional than at first blush. Obama has his flunky, Johnson, deflect any future blame ... Johnson is kind of like the shill in the three-card monte crowd.

Of course one result of this misdirection is that possibly millions more Latinos will now make their way into the United States hoping to slip in under this new sham order. Is it possible to have a sleazier, more slippery, less patriotic lowlife as our president? I hope I never see another one so vile, base and corrupt.

Afterward: Here is a follow-up story with more details and verifying the original charge: WND Article.

Yeasty

There is an old Wall Street adage for investors, “Don’t fight the Fed,” meaning the Federal Reserve bank has a lot to do with the direction of the stock market. If the Fed is reducing interest rates and expanding the money supply, then the stock market should go up … and vice versa. Over the last eight months we have seen a perfect example of this working in Japan where its national bank has been engaged in this very process, it’s own version of “quantitative easing” (QE) … see: The Economist Explanation.  It is basically printing yen to a fair-thee-well while holding interest rates at zero (see: Trading Economics.) The result … the Nikkei 225, the primary stock index in Japan has been quite yeasty … going from 14,000 to 17,900 in just the past eight months, a 29% gain (almost 42% on an annualized basis) … see the chart below:

Nikkei 225

And this has occurred during a period of effectively an economic recession in Japan. Also note that the yen has weakened considerably against the U.S. dollar … going from 102 per dollar to now almost 120 per dollar. This obviously helps the Japanese exporters but does nothing for American investors in Japanese stocks as it has cut into their gains in yen after converting these yen back into dollars.

Now comes the rub. The American stock market has been on a roll ever since the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank started its own QE back in 2009 (see: NY Times Article.) This impetus has also helped the U.S. stock market considerably … boosting the American stock market’s Dow Jones Average from below 7000 to 17900 during this same six year period … also quite frothy ... see the chart below:

Dow Jones Average

The issue then becomes, will the U.S. stock market continue on its extended roll even after the Fed stopped the money supply expansion part of its QE program two months ago? The next shoe to drop will be when it increases interest rates ... maybe next summer.

Personally, I’m not one to fight the Fed …

reddit Gallery CCXXIII

Another excursion into the world of reddit Pictures. See: reddit Pics for sources.  Do yourself a favor and click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

Coincidence?

Rainbow Lightning

Mendoza, Argentina

Norway Majesty

Homebuilt Tucker Torpedo

Gravitas

Charles Barkley

Rush Limbaugh posed a question on his radio show yesterday, "Who is the only respected black leader who can speak out truthfully about the situation in Ferguson without being vilified in the national media?" The answer, after a bit of filler tease, was Charles Barkley ...  who had just called the recent looters in this St. Louis suburb "scumbags" ... see: Breitbart Article. (Although Bob Beckel did take a shot at Barkley last night on "The Five" on Fox ... perhaps because he had listened to Limbaugh?)

Now for the much more revealing question ... who was the last black person with sufficient gravitas and courage to speak out about the excesses and dislocations within the black community? Scroll down for the answer ...

Bill Cosby

Frack OPEC

A funny thing happened on the way to world economic dominance by that oil cartel, OPEC. And that is capitalism and the innovation that this "greed" begets has reared it ugly head and is sending many of these OPEC members squeeling for cover. Saudi Arabia, the elephant in the OPEC room, suddenly realized that oil-well fracking in the United States had become a strategic threat to its dominant hold on the energy markets and so decided to flood the world with oil (at least not cut production during a period of oil oversupply) in order to upset the shale-oil economics ... see the very insightful: UK Telegraph Article.

I suggest a careful reading of the previous article for it clearly illustrates how the fat, dumb, and happy OPEC cartel ... plus Russia ... had thought that they had the rest of the world by the short hairs ... and could have their way with us. Oops! They forgot that the ingenuity of free men somehow has a way of dispatching tyranny (and even the oppressive energy policies of the President of the United States.) And, as a consequence, most OPEC members, having ignored the fundamental advantages of capitalism, now are suffering as much or more than the targets of the Saudi's actions, the U.S. oil frackers. Even Saudi Arabia itself will start hurting if it keeps on this pricing pressure for any lengthy period of time. Sob! Sob!

Hands Up Gallery

Michael Brown ...

with a gun

with an itch

with Cigarillos

with a doobie

with his homies