Occupy Black Friday

Nick Kristof had a very upbeat Thanksgiving column.

Comments

[Jane]

Bonjour!

[peter]

Buon Giorno

[narciso]

'A bug not a feature'

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/11/24/obama-administration-approving-only-35-percent-of-gulf-drilling-plans/

[henry]

Walker is still signing laws the unions don't like! If teachers want to view porn on school computers, they should sign a recall petition today.

[centralcal]

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving surprise.

After baking the ham, calling my son in Pittsburgh, and loading up the car, I drove the few blocks to my daughter's house where the family was gathering - kids, grandkids, etc.

I walked into the kitchen and heard Happy Thanksgiving, Mom - it was my Pittsburgh son and his girlfriend who had flown out yesterday to surprise me! Of course, I cried. "But, I just called you an hour ago in Pittsburgh!" "Mom, its a cell phone - duh!"

I guess if I couldn't have the now famous (A)B brined turkey, this was a damned good Thanksgiving anyway.

[Jane]

Wow Centralcal, that is wonderful!

[narciso]

From a George Will column, on Hot Air;

A market research firm found that people who buy the $43,000 Chevy Volt (seats four in space not taken by its 400-pound battery) or the $34,500 Nissan Leaf, and who get a $7,500 government bribe (a.k.a. tax credit) for doing so, have average annual incomes of $150,000, and half of the buyers own at least two other vehicles.

[narciso]

What do they say, you tax what you want less of;

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/24/opinion/how-to-end-the-black-friday-madness.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

[Melinda Romanoff]

Accidentally turned off the Narcisolator.

Fixed now.

[Melinda Romanoff]

c-cal-

How nice a surprise is that!

[daddy]

Black Friday:

"The day's name originated in Philadelphia, where it originally was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on the day after Thanksgiving."

Just didn't want anyone hammering TM unjustly for Racism.

[RichatUF]

LOL Tom. And it was nice of you not to link it.

[centralcal]

Yeah, it was pretty special. He has spent a Christmas or two with the family here in California. But, this was the first Thanksgiving in almost 10 years. So - woo hoo!

[AliceH]

My goodness - that NYT tax black friday sales is some of the most unmitigated stupid I've read.

[narciso]

Considering he was apologetic about getting Yamamoto shot down, nothing surprises me;

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/11/justice-stevens-writes-of-his-of.html

[narciso]

Irony, when a Mexican oligarch pays your bills, what do you care about the economy.
a Russian one, would go all 'Ivan the Terrible' on them.

[narciso]

'unexpectedly' there's nothing really new about any of this,

http://www.weeklystandard.com/author/matthew-continetti

[claricefeldman]

How great,cc

[Danube of Thought]

Nothing to report at Raz today.

[RichatUF]

DoT-

Its a Festivus miracle! Another reason for Obama to feel lucky.

[jimmyk]

More evidence that OWS has a gripe, but is barking up the wrong tree:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204554204577025922155198762.html

The story is about "a group of well-connected investors and analysts with access to top Federal Reserve officials who give them a chance at early clues to the central bank's next policy moves..."

[narciso]

Ah, the stupid is strong with this one;

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/11/crypto-fascist_hollywood_who_could_have_guessed.html

Let see, the villain was a rogue spook in the first film, who seemingly was willing to provoke a nuclear attack

[Benjamin Franklin]

Hoo Boy. Now they've really lost the public.

Standing in the way of their $3 waffle-makers?

They ARE un-American

[Porchlight]

Aw, centralcal, how sweet! That is so nice.

[Ignatz]

--...their defeat at the hands of super heroes or Bruce Willis type everymans a confirmation that order has little to do with politics and everything to do with the survival of civilization.........
Perhaps Moody would like to see the forces of chaos triumph. I doubt it.--

The above, from narciso's link, is patently wrong. The few rational liberals left don't want chaos but the loony left which increasingly dominates that side of the equation very much wants chaos and the destruction of Western civilization, which it quite heartily despises.

[cathyf]

I figure Black Friday is dead after this year anyway. Around here, the retailers started their "doorbusters" with online sales before the stores even opened. A coworker's daughter and her roommate headed out at midnight basically for the party -- and then called home and said that such-and-such doorbuster that they wanted was already gone. The mom logged in and ordered it through the web site (free delivery for Black Friday orders) and reported back to the girls, "it's on order." By about now the people who showed up at the stores have probably figured out that they were chumps...

[Benjamin Franklin]

As someone said: you can get attention by running naked through Times Square, to. But I don't think that's the kind of attention you want.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/11/22/team_romney_crows_about_that_obama_ad_it_worked_.html

"The offending moment comes when Obama says "if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose." That was a quote from a way-too-honest McCain adviser that Obama loved to repeat on the trail. By evening, the ad had been attacked, derided, parodied, and ruled "pants on fire" worthy by Politifact. The Romney campaign could have cared less.

longtime operative, simply said that the ad "worked."

"They always squeal the most when you hold a mirror up to them," he said, "and they overreacted, clearly. All they did was make the ad more effective."

[Porchlight]

Here's the song of the day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywYWxrf5zNo

[narciso]

I was referring more to Moody's piece, but Moran really hasn't been paying attention, from Tottenham to Time Square they have shown
their preference for Chaos.

Other notions that seemed right, after too much sherry;

http://www.businessinsider.com/martin-wolf-nails-it-2011-11?op=1

[Benjamin Franklin]

See?

Don't stand in the way, even if you're the 'Greeter'. Pepperspray cop is an inspirational guy..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/police-10-injured-at-wal-mart-as-woman-pepper-sprays-customers-seeking-black-friday-deals/2011/11/25/gIQAiqjcuN_story.html?tid=pm_national_pop

[narciso]

"You can have the model T in any color, as long as it Black'

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-25/egypt-appoints-ganzouri-as-prime-minister-as-protesters-object.html

[narciso]

WE've moved beyond Python, we are now in the 'Kids in the Hall' absurdity;

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/25/2516481/dont-ruin-holiday-season-with.html

[Benjamin Franklin]

Let's see. 1/10th of one percent means 3000 people? Let them eat yellowcake....

Yikes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/opinion/we-are-the-99-9.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

But, you say, the rich pay taxes! Indeed, they do. And they could — and should, from the point of view of the 99.9 percent — be paying substantially more in taxes, not offered even more tax breaks, despite the alleged budget crisis, because of the wonderful things they supposedly do.

Still, don’t some of the very rich get that way by producing innovations that are worth far more to the world than the income they receive? Sure, but if you look at who really makes up the 0.1 percent, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that, by and large, the members of the super-elite are overpaid, not underpaid, for what they do.

For who are the 0.1 percent? Very few of them are Steve Jobs-type innovators; most of them are corporate bigwigs and financial wheeler-dealers. One recent analysis found that 43 percent of the super-elite are executives at nonfinancial companies, 18 percent are in finance and another 12 percent are lawyers or in real estate. And these are not, to put it mildly, professions in which there is a clear relationship between someone’s income and his economic contribution.

[matt]

Good morning all. An amazing Thanksgiving with @ 10 additional attendees. I do love a full house. Luckily the other half had prepared,and everyone had a great time.

Off on another adventure today. Will be on and off for the next couple of weeks. Will have to compare penguin recipes with daddy when I get back.

[narciso]

It always strikes me, in what context do they
think this would sound proper;

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/11/24/thorne-responds.html

[Cecil Turner]

Here's the main point from Kristof's "nicer" Thanksgiving column:

The pace of moral progress has accelerated in the last few decades. Pinker notes that on issues such as civil rights, the role of women, equality for gays, beating of children and treatment of animals, “the attitudes of conservatives have followed the trajectory of liberals, with the result that today’s conservatives are more liberal than yesterday’s liberals.”

Because, of course, liberal=moral. And no doubt lefty audiences nod knowingly when reading such tripe, probably whilst preparing to chide conservatives for their lack of self-awareness.

[Porchlight]

And these are not, to put it mildly, professions in which there is a clear relationship between someone’s income and his economic contribution.

Those who profess to despise the concept of the undeserving poor, somehow just love the concept of the undeserving rich.

[Benjamin Franklin]

Coming soon to your neighborhood...

China Syndrome, of course, is fallacious. When the melted core reaches an aquifer, a beautiful geyser erupts into the upper atomosphere, carrying the nutrients to all without any discrimination.

Our 'precious bodily fluids' will benefit

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201111240030

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201111240030

"During court proceedings concerning a radioactive golf course, Tokyo Electric Power Co. stunned lawyers by saying the utility was not responsible for decontamination because it no longer "owned" the radioactive substances.

“Radioactive materials (such as cesium) that scattered and fell from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant belong to individual landowners there, not TEPCO,” the utility said.

That argument did not sit well with the companies that own and operate the Sunfield Nihonmatsu Golf Club, just 45 kilometers west of the stricken TEPCO plant in Fukushima Prefecture.

The Tokyo District Court also rejected that idea.

But in a ruling described as inconsistent by lawyers, the court essentially freed TEPCO from responsibility for decontamination work, saying the cleanup efforts should be done by the central and local governments."

[Benjamin Franklin]

Europe has it's own 'mysterious' problem.

http://enenews.com/tepco-radioactive-substances-from-fukushima-belong-to-landowners-not-us-as-november-tests-show-massive-contamination-far-outside-evacuation-zone
The Nuclear Industry’s Pharmaceutical Hypothesis

[W]hat would remain most likely is that the source of the radioactive iodine is either a commercial or research reactor. [...]

For iodine-131 to appear in measurable quantities, it has to result from a chain reaction of uranium fission – something that takes place in nuclear reactors run at commercial nuclear power plants or research organisations.

And despite suggestions made that the concentrations detected in the atmosphere above Europe could have come from medical sources, a health institution that routinely uses radioactive iodine for medical or pharmaceutical purposes would hardly have enough of the substance for the leak to spread as wide as was recorded in measurements taken in countries that are thousands of kilometres apart.

[Benjamin Franklin]

sorry wrong link aspect.

http://enenews.com/

[Cecil Turner]

Then there's Nick's "occupy" column, which is predictably clueless. First he suggests over-the-top measures by police are responsible for growing the movement (ignoring the efforts of propagandists like himself and his employer). But the truly silly stuff is his blinkered economic analysis (that reads like a grab-bag of socialist talking points). Finally he expresses his "hope" that the OWS types will take over the public agenda . . . as if they weren't overly represented amongst the professional chattering class already.

[Cecil Turner]

It's also a bit amusing to watch all the lefties complain about class stratification whilst simultaneously stumping for confiscatory income tax.

[narciso]

Reality never enters into it, it's more the resentiments again the petit bourgeois that drive them;

http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/4208/full

[Benjamin Franklin]

They should have let them bleed. Nothing to see here. Move along. Just some Righties who eat pepperspray for their own personal pleasure.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/brian-morton/39819/otherwise-occupied

"There are all the signs: billionaire authority figure in charge (New York Mayor Bloomberg), check. Overzealous indiscriminate paramilitary-dressed police (New York, Oakland), check. Late-night police raids (New York), check. Clearing out the media "for their own protection," check. Indiscriminately beating or arresting reporters (New York), check.

In a bit of supreme irony, a reporter and a videographer for the conservative web publication The Daily Caller were beaten by New York City police at the Occupy Wall Street protest and given aid by the protesters. The Daily Caller, started by right-wing gadfly and former political writer Tucker Carlson, had previously mocked the OWS movement, with articles titled, "Note to Occupy Wall Street: Rape, riots, murder, arson, pushing old ladies down the stairs, lice, and crapping in public don't poll well.""

[Jane]

My niece and her husband were here from Philly. Re: Sanduski: They think everyone has known for a long time, that the DA was killed or paid off to cover it up and the 2nd Mile foundation was a front for renting out boys to all the big donors.

[In a powerful way, the worst one I've seen.]

ClimateGate II is exposing the perversion of the BBC bigtime. Check out email # 1683. It is killer.
===============

[Janet]

The pace of moral progress has accelerated in the last few decades. Pinker notes that on issues such as civil rights, the role of women, equality for gays, beating of children and treatment of animals, “the attitudes of conservatives have followed the trajectory of liberals, with the result that today’s conservatives are more liberal than yesterday’s liberals.”

Good Lord. If you look at the beliefs of liberal allies the picture isn't so pretty. NAMBLA & Islam are two that come to mind...

[Benjamin Franklin]

Newt ! He decorates his Christmas tree with his own warts.

Huzzah!

http://consortiumnews.com/2011/11/25/gingrich-the-ultimate-beltway-bandit/

"Granted, Abramoff’s in the middle of his promotion tour of confession and attempted redemption, a pot obscenely eager to call his kettle and former mentor black — especially if it sells books. But Casino Jack does have a point.

Gingrich personifies everything rotten about the ATM machine we call Washington: the merchandising of favors and votes; the conversion of past incumbency into insider information, making your contacts and the ability to play the system available to the highest bidder; the archetypal revolving door between government service and shilling for corporate America.

Yet there he is, suddenly riding at the top of the polls, his debate skills lauded, his churlish dismissal of the media praised, and infused with sufficient cheek to portray himself to gullible elements of the electorate as an outsider. It’s as if Kim Kardashian proclaimed herself American Housewife of the Year.

(Gingrich now is trying to play the inside-outside game both ways, proclaiming last week, “We just tried four years of amateur ignorance and it didn’t work very well. So having someone who actually knows Washington might be a really good thing.”)"

[Janet]

Can you post #1683, Kim? ...or show me the link & I will.

[Neo]

From JournoList to activist, it appears that WaPo‘s liberal blogger Ezra Klein is once again blurring the lines between being a journalist and trying to sway politics. In what appears to be at a minimum a breach of journalism ethics, Klein spoke to a group of Senate Democratic Chiefs of Staff last Friday about the Supercommittee, just days before the Committee announced its failing. “It was kind of weird,” said a longtime Senate Democratic aide, explaining that while people “enjoyed it” and gave it “positive reviews” this sort of thing is far from typical.

[All the King's horses and all the King's men.]

Iconoclastic.
=======

[narciso]

Didn't find that one, but will this one do;

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/24/bbcs-kirby-admission-to-phil-jones-on-impartiality/

[Ignatz]

--Good Lord. If you look at the beliefs of liberal allies the picture isn't so pretty. NAMBLA & Islam are two that come to mind...--

You don't get it Janet. Slouching toward Gomorrah is "Winning!"

[Jim Ryan]

Yeah, kim, throw us a bone and paste the text. I can't find 1683 on WUWT. Don't make us download and unzip the packet, please oh please!

[What's behind the green door?]

n, 'objective impartial (ho ho) BBC' will haunt him past the grave.
====================

[narciso]

Apparently they aren't even 'willing to take one for the team'

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/24/caribou-supposedly-roasted-by-global-warming-found-unharmed/

[Neo]

Activist Bill Ayers to speak to Occupy Harrisburg
HARRISBURG--Bill Ayers, a controversial activist and retired professor, will be back in the midstate next month to address an Occupy Harrisburg gathering.

Ayers will lead a discussion at 6 p.m. Dec. 14 at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore. He is expected to discuss activism and grassroots organization. The talk is free and open to the public.

[Benjamin Franklin]

Kim isn't in the business of providing info, just snide snrak.

[Neo]

A male registered nurse and Vietnam war Army medic has sued the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, saying he was fired for disobeying a Muslim supervisor's order not to treat women wearing conservative Islamic dress.

John Benitez Jr. filed a sex discrimination suit in Detroit U.S. District Court on Wednesday after getting the go-ahead from the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in a 'right to sue' letter on October 19.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Here's a post at EcoWho denoting #1683:

Post author: ""I remember seeing a BBC program some years back where they had a guy who appears to not know the truth about global warming and is conflicted by skeptical views on the hockey stick. He goes around and speaks to people about these thougthts and at the end "discovers" the science is settled.

Email #1683 is dated Sept 2005 and is from the BBC Producer Jonathan Renouf to Keith Briffa:

" Hi Keith,
Good to talk to you this morning. Just a few thoughts to reiterate what we're hoping to get
out of filming tomorrow.
1) Your interview appears at a crucial point in the film. Up until now our presenter (Paul
Rose, he'll be there tomorrow) has followed two conflicting thoughts. On the one hand he's
understood that the world is currently getting warmer. But on the other he's discovered
lots of historical stories (the Bronze Age, the MWP, the LIA) which tell him that climate
changes naturally all the time. In trying to resolve this paradox he's come across this
thing called the hockey stick curve, and he's come to you to explain it to him.

2) Your essential job is to "prove" to Paul that what we're experiencing now is NOT just
another of those natural fluctuations we've seen in the past. The hockey stick curve is a
crucial piece of evidence because it shows how abnormal the present period is - the present
warming is unprecedented in speed and amplitude, something like that. This is a very big
moment in the film when Paul is finally convinced of the reality of man made global
warming.

3) The hockey stick curve shows that what Paul thought were big climate events (the Bronze
Age maximum, the MWP, the LIA) actually when looked at in a global context weren't quite as
dramatic as he thought. They're there, but they are nothing like as sudden or big.

4) Paul can question you on things like: How reliable is the hockey stick curve? How do you
work out past climate (cue for you to talk about proxies)? What drives all the "natural"
fluctations in climate (this can be answered in very broad terms eg it's down to changes in
the sun's output, volcanoes etc)

5) In terms of filming my first choice is to do it as a projection in Zicer, where you show
the Mann curve, then flick up as many other ones as you think are important (within
reason!) and elaborate the point that what's happening now is unprecedented compared to
these historic records. In my ideal world, you walk right up to the projector image and
point things out on the screen, with parts of the projected image falling on your heads and
shoulders. Stills of tree rings or anything else climate related eg ice cores, corals,
would also work as powerpoints, because you could talk about them as egs of proxies.

Hopefully this makes it clear what I'm trying to achieve."

This clearly shows the program for the sham it is - a thinly disguised piece of propoganda. I remember at the time thinking of the questions I would have asked about the Hockey Stick...

Can anyone recall the title of the program and when it was aired?""

[Couldn't put CAWGY together again. Not dyslexia, art.]

L!ink U!nder N!ame. If it doesn't work, it's on the more tips thread, the latestl, at Bishop Hill's @ 3:41PM 11/25 in a comment by ThinkingScientist.

This one is a precis for the whole hoax. It encapsulates and makes accessible the scam.
===================

[Jim Ryan]

Yikes, narciso, that one will do, indeed. Unless 1683 makes that one look tame...

[Melinda Romanoff]

And back to work.

[Benjamin Franklin]

That was instructive. Is there an 'off' button on that device you use, Kim?

[Benjamin Franklin]

You might want to wait. Chaco says he's digging into the partial email matter today. Maybe that doesn't matter. heh.

[narciso]

Assuming that the program aired later, from the time of the original exchange;

http://www.paulrose.org/meltdown-global-warming-journey.html

[Jim Ryan]

Thanks!

[Janet]

Thank you all for the Climategate links!

[narciso]

It would appear so, from this profile;

http://www.paulrose.org/about-paul.html

[Benjamin Franklin]

Florida? Uh, well,....nothing to see there. Move along......to higher ground. or I'll pepperspray you.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110308150228.htm

The results of the study will be published this month in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
The nearly 20-year study reveals that in 2006, a year in which comparable results for mass loss in mountain glaciers and ice caps are available from a separate study conducted using other methods, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets lost a combined mass of 475 gigatonnes a year on average. That's enough to raise global sea level by an average of 1.3 millimeters (.05 inches) a year. (A gigatonne is one billion metric tons, or more than 2.2 trillion pounds.) Ice sheets are defined as being larger than 50,000 square kilometers, or 20,000 square miles, and only exist in Greenland and Antarctica while ice caps are areas smaller than 50,000 square km.
The pace at which the polar ice sheets are losing mass was found to be accelerating rapidly. Each year over the course of the study, the two ice sheets lost a combined average of 36.3 gigatonnes more than they did the year before. In comparison, the 2006 study of mountain glaciers and ice caps estimated their loss at 402 gigatonnes a year on average, with a year-over-year acceleration rate three times smaller than that of the ice sheets.

[Rick Ballard]

Clarice,

1683 might be your Pieces hook. I really don't believe that there is any difference between the BBC propaganda machine and the NYT but we don't have an NYT email.

Yet.

[bgates]

when all outlets open earlier, no one benefits. Few people actually want to shop in the wee hours, and the purchases that do occur then are presumably offset, dollar for dollar, by reduced sales during normal business hours.

It's fun to read that (from the above "I Don't Like Black Friday, So It Should Be Taxed" piece) in light of Franksgiving, which I just learned about yesterday from Ace. (The tradition dating to Lincoln was for presidents to declare a day of thanksgiving on the last Thursday in November; in 1939 Roosevelt decided having Thanksgiving on Nov 30 would hurt holiday retail sales, so he announced - on October 31 - that he was moving Thanksgiving to Nov 23.)

[rse]

Well it is a scam and a scheme but Aus has still moved to tax carbon credits. LUN says they are moving to fine any business that attributes decrease in profits or need to increase pricing to taxing carbon.

Plus we still have the problem that most of the college and university presidents have committed in writing to making cc and sustainability the major focus of college coursework.

Kim-did you see that link I posted this AM on the other thread on all the dinero being paid to good buddies of the WB to do these planning assessments all over the world?

[Happy Thanksgiving, Dana. From PuK and Bad.]

Awfully glad to see bgates. Sorry, rse, I haven't been able to keep up with anything. Well, cooking and eating went very well.
===========

[Benjamin Franklin]

Kim's marketing plan;

http://www.solarbotics.com/products/60005/.

He's already made his nut here.....

[Melinda Romanoff]

Hah!

[Melinda Romanoff]

And the march through the good ones at Bishop Hill, where I swiped that earlier c&p (still feel guilty, so I'm going to offer up the link)

The post I copied was put up at 3:41 PM, the one right after it is even worse, about Email #1724, where a whole BBC script was turned over for rewrite.

Revolting. Combine that with Young Ezra's little chat up with Dem Senate staffers and I think Clarice just might be able to scrape together some sort of material for her column.

Maybe enough, but just enough. I hope.

[Stephanie]

when all outlets open earlier, no one benefits. Few people actually want to shop in the wee hours, and the purchases that do occur then are presumably offset, dollar for dollar, by reduced sales during normal business hours.

Oh, Really? I made out like a bandit. Four pairs of boots, 4 sweaters, a robe, slippers, 4 dress shirts and 4 ties for under $300. And I was back in bed in two hours. Of course, it helps that I don't generally go to bed til 3 am so it was no biggie running the gauntlet at 3 am for the swag.

It also helped that I went into the store on Wednesday and the nice shoe department manager put my selections on hold and all I had to do was waltz up to him and he went and grabbed them out of the back and I was paying and out the door to the car to dump them in the trunk in under 15 minutes. I almost felt sorry for the chickies trying on their boots and rushing around like idiots... almost. ;)

[Benjamin Franklin]

This is it? Guilt seems unjustified, but it is revolting- lol

Nov 25, 2011
Via a reader:

#4101 - Edward Cook tells Phil Jones that Mike Mann is "serious enemy" and "vindictive". Mike Mann had criticized his work.

#4091 – Phil Jones tries to teach a statistician to suck eggs, and gets his ass handed to him.

#4025 – Keith Briffa questions Mike Mann’s objectivity

#0497 - Jones falls out with Mann

[Janet]

from narciso's 11:55 link about the BBC reporter Alex Kirby - "He has no formal scientific training."

[sbw]

I figured they called it Black Friday because of the official who reported to us there was a stabbing at a local -- I'll leave it unnamed -- department store shortly after midnight.

[Stephanie]

Drudge has reported on a bit more of the cognitive dissonance of the Obama team as Obama's offering his merchandise for 10% off at his website in hopes of sparking some sales...

Would that he could make the leap on the effects of lower costs on his pocketbook to the taxpayer's.

Oh, who am I kidding, the taxpayer's pocketbook is his pocketbook at the point of a gun and thieves have no need for 'sales.'

[Manuel Transmission]

Things are getting pretty bad up here on our St. Janes prototype island. This excerpted letter is part of a chain of emails that I cannot link to, but are flying around up here in the Great NW, so I think I can properly post this one here. Please excuse the length. This is all part of the Agenda 21 and other encroachments that I mentioned (and rse chased down) back in early October. This is from a local farmer responding to one of our team members sympathizing with this farmer's plight.

We have received a rude awakening as to the power of the government.  There is no negotiation, no consultation, no room for creativity or innovation in their scheme of things--and by the way, don't be late with the tax check or they can put you behind bars.  It looks as though the farm-stand is doomed--we are not going to spend $15-20,000 meeting pointless demands to keep our small volume stand open.  It is basically a community service anyway.  I hate to say it, but we have long felt that given our approach (we are educated, well spoken and more on the organic, locavore side of the world) insulated us from government harassment to some degree.  We have worked with regulators and non-profit groups to resolve things creatively and advocate for our friends and colleagues, like the Buffums, who are less comfortable in that role).  The past two years have completely stripped us of this illusion. The Friends' proposal for the Ag CAO is truly frightening--they are proposing phasing out agriculture on non Ag Resource lands--to the point that a Friday Harbor resident wanting to raise strawberries for sale on an urban lot would be subject to criminal prosecution, or even an owner of a rural farm forest parcel.

I have been reading up on Amartya Sen, a nobel prize winning Indian economist.  His best known work documents that contrary to popular opinion famines are caused not by short sighted farmers, environmental damage, extreme weather, poverty or pests as generally imagined.  He convincingly documented that famines are caused instead by governments seizing control of natural resources and distorting incentives and markets.  What if food prices continue to rise, incomes continue to fall, and San Juan County criminalizes food production in 3/4 of the county?  I suppose we can all go on food stamps then, but who is going to keep footing that bill?

We engage in magical thinking in SJC in particular and the U.S. as a whole.  Up until this point there has been enough money to paper over some of the rougher edges--that is to say the economy has continued to function in spite of tripping over a pointless regulation every other step.  We may have exhausted our options to the point where we might actually be able to start rolling back some of this nonsense. 

I am giving some serious thought to filing for Jeff Morris' legislative seat.  I don't imagine I would win, but it might be cathartic to bring up some of these issues in a wider sphere.  In the interim, we are going to continue to publicize our current situation far and wide. 

By the way, I couldn't agree more about the timber industry.  It makes me physically ill to see artificially idle, untended and non-productive lands side by side with hopeless, drug addicted, sick people.  We have networks of good friends in both Hoquiam and S.E. Alaska and have watched those communities dissolve and many of their people degenerate to basically sub-human levels so that well meaning but ignorant activists thousands of miles away can enjoy the vicarious notion that a tree they will never see in a forest they will never visit is free from human interference.  It is a pointless, sadistic waste.
Thanks for your support and happy Thanksgiving.  I for one am thankful to be able to provide for my family and hope to maintain that right.

[Jack is Back!]

Clarice,

Off to the movies - Arthur Christmas - but an idea for Sunday: Obama's War on the Economy.

Gulf Oil drilling moratorium while bankrolling Soros and Brazil to do their own E&P drilling.

No to the Oil Sands pipeline

Light warfare Jet fighter to Brazil and not Wichita

The Green energy mess where you invest in bankruptcy instead of economic growth.

Endorsing the OWS movement that now wants to shut down the busiest retail operations day in America and all those seasonal jobs it provides.

There are more examples but in the Holiday season you are a real scrooge of a president if you are trying to keep people from working.

Just a start - other can fill it in.

[Jane]

Man Tran,

The tea party is all into Agenda 21 via the John Birch society which I find a bit scary. I find Agenda 21 a lot scarier.

[Benjamin Franklin]

" He convincingly documented that famines are caused instead by governments seizing control of natural resources and distorting incentives and markets."

People, like the beleagured Farmer, see what they want to see in theoretics and facts. I think Sen would see the puppet strings of Wall Street and declare them part of the governmental problem.
His thoughts seek to balance the needs of the poor with the population in general. After taking Sen out of context, I understand what the farmer is saying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen

"Welfare economics seeks to evaluate economic policies in terms of their effects on the well-being of the community. Sen, who devoted his career to such issues, was called the "conscience of his profession." His influential monograph Collective Choice and Social Welfare (1970), which addressed problems related to individual rights (including formulation of the liberal paradox), justice and equity, majority rule, and the availability of information about individual conditions, inspired researchers to turn their attention to issues of basic welfare. Sen devised methods of measuring poverty that yielded useful information for improving economic conditions for the poor. For instance, his theoretical work on inequality provided an explanation for why there are fewer women than men in India and China despite the fact that in the West and in poor but medically unbiased countries, women have lower mortality rates at all ages, live longer, and make a slight majority of the population. Sen claimed that this skewed ratio results from the better health treatment and childhood opportunities afforded boys in those countries, as well as sex-specific abortion.
Governments and international organizations handling food crises were influenced by Sen's work. His views encouraged policy makers to pay attention not only to alleviating immediate suffering but also to finding ways to replace the lost income of the poor, as, for example, through public-works projects, and to maintain stable prices for food. A vigorous defender of political freedom, Sen believed that famines do not occur in functioning democracies because their leaders must be more responsive to the demands of the citizens. In order for economic growth to be achieved, he argued, social reforms, such as improvements in education and public health, must precede economic reform."
[edit]

[Benjamin Franklin]

Chaco; Are you interested in the conspiracy behind Agenda 21?

Status Quo, notwithstanding?

[caro]

ManTran, that is truly heart-wrenching. I hope your friend runs for congress.

Wasting resources,including human and natural, is a travesty.

We missed you and MrsMT on Eurodam.

[Ignatz]

--well meaning but ignorant activists thousands of miles away can enjoy the vicarious notion that a tree they will never see in a forest they will never visit is free from human interference--

I believe I have previously mentioned that in over 25 years of logging and visiting literally thousands of different timber lands I have yet to encounter the mythical "tree hugger" out where the actual trees are.
They are apparently confined to only national parks and large, easily accessible trees, under which a contingent of media folks with cameras can be found.

[Ignatz]

--Up until this point there has been enough money to paper over some of the rougher edges--that is to say the economy has continued to function in spite of tripping over a pointless regulation every other step.--

But Barry has told us that regulations create jobs. This fool is obviously merely seeing what he wants to see.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

For who are the 0.1 percent? Very few of them are Steve Jobs-type innovators; most of them are corporate bigwigs and financial wheeler-dealers.

Ben, what you miss in this argument is that corporate bigwigs and financial wheeler-dealers do useful things too. You mention Steve Jobs the innovator, but forget Steve Jobs the CEO that saved Apple. You look at Google re-inventing the Internet and forget Andy Bechtolsheim, who wrote them the first $100,000 check that let them get started (and made a shitload of money from it.) Or Eric Schmidt, who made it a business. Even what's his name from New Jersey, who clearly had found his level of incompetence somewhere between getting fired from Goldman and running for office, had done some stuff that made significant amounts of money available for people who were actually doing things with it.

Underlying that is frank ignorance. If you understood how these things worked, you'd understand why the money guys are needed.

[glasater]

ManTran-

I'm copying your email message and sending it along to our local Tea Party leader.
As Jane mentions, our local TP is all into Agenda 21.
Please send along to me any other messages you might find useful if you're so inclined.
Thanks!

[Benjamin Franklin]

"If you understood how these things worked, you'd understand why the money guys are needed.

You mean 'trickle-down'? I understand the concept. I just think it
is a very inefficient machine. Donald Trump understands how to manipulate the system and appear to do things, when very little, at all is done for the populace, as a whole.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Ben, go look up the half-life of I-131 -- it's a tad over 8 days. Then go look up the radionuclide measurements around the Fukushima reactors, where there is no detectable I131.

And then propose to me the magical mechanism that would transfer I131 from a reactor accident many months ago to Europe now while leaving no trace in Japan and detectable 131I in Europe, 32 half-lives later.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

You mean 'trickle-down'?

No I don't, and you prove my point.

[Benjamin Franklin]

I'm not suggesting the rads in Europe have anything to do with Fuku.

[Janet]

Wow, great post ManTran. The left is choking the life outta us.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Kim isn't in the business of providing info, just snide snrak.

You're not in much position to talk Ben.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

You might want to wait. Chaco says he's digging into the partial email matter today. Maybe that doesn't matter. heh.

No, you stupid ass, I said *you* can look if you like. I do plan to look at the emails, but frankly having read a whole *lot* of these emails in the last two years, I don't think there's much of a cotnext issue at all.

[Benjamin Franklin]

BTW;

Are you suggesting Fukushima is in no danger of spewing pixie dust into the atmosphere?