Agenda Driven Research

It's great to see partisan, agenda driven research moving out of academia and into Washington where it belongs.

I am especially touched by the depth of Sen. Feinstein's faith:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the committee, declined to discuss specific findings, but released a written statement describing decisions to allow the CIA to build a network of secret prisons and employ harsh interrogation measures as “terrible mistakes.”

“I also believe this report will settle the debate once and for all over whether our nation should ever employ coercive interrogation techniques,” Feinstein said.

A partisan top-secret report the public has not seen and may never see will settle the debate. Only at MSNBC. OK, and the NY Times. Well, and CN and ABC and CBS and... hmm, she may be right.

SINCE YOU ASK: Folks who insist that we shouldn't "torture" because it is morally abhorrent don't need t see this report. The many libs hung up on the notion that torture will never, ever work are engaging in yet another faith-based initative if they think a secret report will convince anyone of anything.

Comments

[boatbuilder]

No mention of Khalid Sheik Muhammad in that article. Puzzling.

[narciso]

Except for the fact that in at least three instances, they gave us the leads for Al Kuwaiti, and prevented a dozen plots, just right off the top of my head, including the two against
the Library Tower 'but that's not important right now'

[fdcol63]

I think Dianne needs to be subjected to some enhanced interrogation about whether or not she's helped her husband's financial dealings. I bet she'd sing just like KSM.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Let us hope that the Republicans regain the Senate in 2014 so that they can issue a report that "will settle the debate once and for all over whether our nation should ever employ coercive interrogation techniques."
Then if the Dems get it back in '16 they can settle it once and for all, again.

Feinstein isn't a moron which makes her hacktastic career even more execrable than some doughnut hole like Boxer.

[narciso]

It's bordering on triplethink, we first heard of the Courier, from Ould Slahi, who was briefly tied to the Hamburg cell, and was high profile enough he was the contact, that comes from Bowden, then we knew of Quahtani's contacts through the Wikileaks file, not to mention Al Libi and Hasan Ghul, who we let go after a spell.

[Soylent Red]

Saddam Hussein, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and OBL were unavailable for comment.

But I'll bet two of them blame Bush.

[Danube of Thought on IPad]

It'll settle the debate until we need to squeeze some asshole to get information to save lives. At that point I'm willing to let the professionals take over, and I don't care to know what they decide is needed. And I also don't care what Dianne Feinstein thinks or says about it.

[narciso]

Btw, a great PoI cliffhanger, topped up with 'gimme shelter' how is Reese getting out of this one.?

[Jane on Ipad]

If Feinstein has a problem with "torture" why the hell isn't she lobbying the WH to do something about the Pakistani MD that helped us get Obama?

[Captain Hate]

narc, I'd have thought that FBI guy knew what Reese looked like (which explains that little snafu we thought we'd noticed before) although maybe Gorelick's firewall kept that from happening. [Judy]IT COULD HAPPEN[/Tenuta].

[narciso]

Yet another exzmple, that teaches when you have an inkling to aid the US, like with that young Jeddawi from yemen , think again, because they will sell you out in a cold stone second.

[narciso]

You would think that, but much like in real life, one can't assume that,

[Gus]

The REAL WORK of protecting AMERICA is cancelled, when LIBTARDS pick the DEFENSE SECRETARY. We are in deep trouble. Let's ROLL.

[Gus]

THIS BULLSHIT IS SIMPLE.

ERR TO THE SIDE OF OUR ENEMIES??

LIBTARDS are easy. Eradicating them is much more difficult.
Libtards err to our enemies. They think it gives them a MORAL HIGH GROUND. Feckin' nonsense. Killing babies is LIBTARDS BIZNESS. And BIZNESS is good.

[Gus]

Danube, FEINSTEIN is a PATRIOT!!! How? We don't know!

[Dave (in MA)]

As Howie Carr pointed out on his show yesterday, this was the equivalent of a Friday Afternoon News Dump on Wednesday. Half of Deval's cabinet resigned or was let go while the big headline was Treasurer Timmy's mistrial.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_politics/2012/12/embattled_execs_quit_deval_cabinet

[When it reigns it poors.]

I'm shocked, shocked, at my research into your agenda.
=======================

[Jim Ryan]

Ah. I always suspected that you had an agenda, kim.

[Ralph L]

Prince Albert died on this day in 1861. Two more days until Beethoven's birthday.

[Manuel Transmission]

Did he die in the can?

[daddy]

To contribute to Kim's 12:10 ClimateGate shocker, here's James Delingpole on the same topic:

Man-made global warming: even the IPCC admits the jig is up

[peter]

LOL, Manny.

[rse]

But Club of Rome and Meadows Limits to Growth from 1972 is widely rejected now too but that is not stopping Meadows from training teachers to use modelling software based on its erroneous assumptions for Common Core implementation training.

If the next generation knows little science and has been told and shown visually through models from an early age of this purported crisis, they will believe there is one, regardless of reality.

The part of the WUWT report I found so compelling was the admission from Figueres on the transformation away from the Industrial Revolution to a centrally planned Low Carbon managed society. Precisely what I have been saying for months since I read those Belmont Challenge documents and figured out Cambridge Education was a subsidiary of Mott MacDonald.

[Jim Ryan]

If you have real faith then you keep believing, with unwavering conviction, that man is ruining the earth. You don't base your faith on the vagaries of the scientific findings of the day. Faith has its own rewards, including a sense of redemption and purpose, as well as, if you make it to deacon or priest, large cash awards and power over people you resent.

[Jim Ryan]

Kim wasn't linking to any particular post. The link youse are referring to is this one.

[Jane: Mock the Media]

Yeah Dave, what was that about?

The word is the report on Benghazi is bad and they are considering holding back parts of it, including Hillary, and will be released in a Christmas dump so Susan Rice resigned (from nothing actually)so the press would have no interest in the President's malpractice.

Why anyone would think that anyone in the media would care about Obama's malpractice is beyond me.

[peter]

Dinah Washington died this date, 1963.

[Jane: Mock the Media]

Best news of the day week year:

BOO FREAKIN’ HOO: Politico, Daily Kos Upset ‘Fox News-Breitbart Crowd’ Gaining Influence.

[Sbw iPhone]

Can some explain to naive me how the fiscal cliff takes wealth out of the economy? Doesn't it just go elsewhere?

[henry]

sbw, it takes wealth from the economy (via massive tax increases) and puts it into government where through the magic of cronyism redistribution for a fee it is vaporized. The key is that waste is a reduction in wealth, and the government is far more accomplished at waste than the private sector, or in many cases the government is simply waste.

[Jim Eagle]

sbw,

Doesn't it take wealth out of the private sector economy through higher taxes that only goes to the government making it larger? Higher taxes get passed on in the private sector economy which compound inflation. Taxes like these just slow everything down.

[Janet]

Ann Barnhardt giving a Patrick Henry speech. When shall we be stronger?

[Jim Eagle]

Damn, henry, You an I must be drinking the same brand of coffee today:)

[rse]

sbw-the way I explain this to, for example, fellow female lawyers who are reflexively Democrat, is that any dollar the govt takes buys at best 60 cents in services. The rest, the 40 cents goes poof. If it had been left in private hands that dollar would have bought more than a dollar's worth of goods and services through trade. The exact amount more is subject to dispute.

That's why what government does with the dollars it takes, any dollar, better be put to good use.

[rse]

Don Boudreaux has a great letter to the WaPo on the dangers of govt planning and persistent innovations to "do something."

http://cafehayek.com/2012/12/the-question-is-who-plans.html

[henry]

JiB, seems rse likes that blend as well. ; )

[Melinda Romanoff]

Janet-

I believe we are in the midst of the annealing stage of the process. Recall that the French and Indian wars had run for years before a few brave people stood up and said "Enough!", when they knew most of their fellow countrymen felt exactly the same way.

[Melinda Romanoff]

henry-

Don't forget the loss of future growth through malinvestment.

[henry]

Mel, my Solyndra stock has low growth prospects?

[Melinda Romanoff]

Check your in-box. I think I sent you something on that.

[Janet]

rse's link reminds me of this quote - "The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?"
Frederick Bastiat

[hit and run]

Just when you thought you'd never have to think about the election again...

The Results for the 2012 JOM Election Haruspicy Competition

Results are tallied using the predicted margin Romney vs Obama minus actual result. For example, if the prediction was Romney 50, Obama 48 and the actual result was Romney 48, Obama 50, that would result in a 4 point variance -- predicted Romney win by two, ended up Obama by two. Obviously that means the lower the score the better.

I am only providing results for the overall popular vote (PV), the electoral college (EC), turnout by party (TO) and the battleground states. The submissions for other categories varied too much to make tabulating realistic.

Winner by Category (Category-Variance-Name):

PV 6 Sue
EC 4 Thomas Collins
TO 5 DoT
CO 7 Sue
FL 4 Thomas Collins
IA 6 Elliott
OH 2 Thomas Collins
MI 1 hrtshpdbx
NV 0 Sue
NH 5 hit and run
NC -1 Thomas Collins
PA 1 hrtshpdbx
VA 7 Thomas Collins / Stephanie (tie)
MN 3 Thomas Collins
WI 5 Sue

TC won 6 categories and Sue won 4. TC and Sue are also the only contestants to have overestimated an Obama result in any category - TC by one point in NC and Sue by one point in NV.

The overall result takes each person's average result for the categories in which they made a prediction. To be eligible for the overall rankings, a contestant must have made a prediction in at least 10 of the 15 categories being scored.

Overall (Avg Variance-Name):

4.91 Thomas Collins
5.66 Sue
7.16 hit and run
7.27 Richard
7.32 Porchlight
7.36 hrtshpdbox
7.66 sbw
7.77 Elliott
8.38 Porchlight Père
8.39 jimmyk
8.57 Stephanie
8.76 Rick Ballard
8.96 caro
9.47 bgates
9.60 Jack is Back
13.67 Sandy Daze

On behalf of the absent JMH, I would like to thank all participants (but I wont, that's just how I roll).

Congratulations (of a sort) to TC who won the competition going away. Your prize is the re-election of Obama. Thanks for that.

[NK]

So the Dems have a 'secret report' that answers all of the grave national security and ethical questions regarding EI. My god, this is government by Scientology -- the Dems are just effin' wackjobs. Why not make Tom Cruise Emperor and be up front about it.

[sbw]

Thanks. You answered my question well. I just phrased the question poorly.

If I hadn't been waiting for an appointment and thinking on my iPhone with my thumbs, I would have phrased what I was wondering this way:

Obama and the MSM lapdogs phrase the teror of the Fiscal Cliff as "drastic spending cuts that will drag down the economy." Huh? Isn't that absurd and shouldn't the talking heads be called out for it?

Wealth not spent by the government is spent/invested (which is another way of spending) in the private sector.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Very absurd, but very important to the agenda.

So it will lead.

[henry]

sbw, I think the answer is a rewording of your last sentence: Wealth not spent consumed by the government is spent/invested in the private sector.

[Janet]

Mel,
Just FYI (with the inheritance talk on the last thread)...my father-in-law has moved in with us & we are arranging an estate sale in Chicago (Hyde Park area). He has a lot of 78 jazz records...maybe 150-200. I'll let ya know when it's gonna happen if you're interested. I don't know the quality or anything, & I won't be there (I'm staying out of it all)...but when I heard about the records I thought of you & Captain Hate.

[Danube of Thought on IPad]

Janet, your quote reminds me of Milton Friedman's question to a bewildered Phil Donahue: "Where are you going to find all these angels?"

[sbw]

Delightful change, henry, that makes the point deliciously clear. Thanks.

[Melinda Romanoff]

JAnet-

Do not fail to contact the Jazz Record Mart. They buy 78s and have a massive inventory. I have to consciously avoid walking near there. When MT & I caught up here, he stayed two blocks away. I had the sweats.

[Melinda Romanoff]

And I'll definitely browse, when the time comes. I'm on the hunt for some very specific holes to fill.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Allred is repping Tony Camargo in his suit against SCrowder for receiving his fist?

You can not make this s$^% up.

[centralcal]

Robert Stacy McCain ‏@rsmccain

HOLY FREAKING CRAP: @scrowder being SUED by union thug Tony Camargo with GLORIA ALLRED as Camargo's lawyer?
-----

Disgusting!

[henry]

sbw, I got lucky with that one -- pols spouting off about government investment has bothered me since the 80s. I remember some proposals from that time to put government accounts on the same basis as corporate accounts, with things like aircraft carriers as capital investments to be depreciated and transfer payments as pure expense. Tip O'Neal crushed the idea because it would show the true waste that social programs always were.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--Can some explain to naive me how the fiscal cliff takes wealth out of the economy? Doesn't it just go elsewhere?

Posted by: Sbw iPhone | December 14, 2012 at 07:59 AM--

The problem is, of the supposed $7 trillion in savings over 10 years only $1.2T is from spending cuts while the remaining $5.8T is tax increases.
Were the numbers reversed I'd say we were on the 'precipice' of a golden age.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Hard to think of better news for Crowder than opponent now represented by incompetent media whore.

[Janet]

What is even more frustrating about Obamacare is that the "organizers of humanity" didn't even know or read what they passed.
It is untenable that we should have to obey a law that was unknown.

Obey this!
What is it?
We don't know.

[Danube of Thought on IPad]

Crowder should hope the case goes to trial, where Allred is useless.

[Danube of Thought on IPad]

Who knew Ravi Shankar was Norah Jones's father?

[henry]

Is Allred licensed in MI?

[Janet]

Is Allred licensed in MI?

Perhaps MI is like MA...you don't have to be licensed.

[Melinda Romanoff]

DoT-

He has two Grammy nominated daughters, Nora and Anoushka Shankar, and a son who predeceased him. I knew about the daughters, but not the son.

[MarkO]

I knew. Don't ask me how.

[NK]

Janet@959-- heh

[Dave (in MA)]

Don't make me unleash the Allred baseball bat gif again.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Bye-Bye, Dick Bove.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Steny says Cliff vote may take place in 2013.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

How?

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

How many abnormal midgets would it take to capsize Guam?

[Melinda Romanoff]

All red and hoaxed, I am.

[RichatUF]

not following your 1006.

A vote in 2013 for the fiscal cliff, after we fall off. Well since congress doesn't read what they pass anyway, they'll find out what all actually expires.

[RichatUF]

Don't make me unleash the Allred baseball bat gif again.

Please don't.

[Manuel Transmission]

rse, But Club of Rome and Meadows Limits to Growth from 1972 is widely rejected now too but that is not stopping Meadows from training teachers to use modelling software based on its erroneous assumptions for Common Core implementation training.

As I mentioned some time ago, I joined Ginormous Institute in 72 and immediately was exposed to all that. We had a seat at CoR and I read many of the studies. The punchline was that my buds there were all seasoned dynamics modelers and they all laughed hysterically at the child like cluelessness of Forest, Meadows, et al.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Dick Bove, noted bank analyst who said "Lehman is a buy, here.", has been released by his firm from making stupid statements on live TV on their behalf.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

A racist creep wants to know if RGIII is really black, especially since he has a white fiance. At the end Stephen A smith demonstrates again he's too sensible for ESPN.
Funny how we have come full circle from black men being literally lynched by whites for miscegenation and now they're being figuratively lynched by other blacks.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Ig-

And in other California insanity news, check out the state program that picks up your mortgage payments when your unemployment runs out.

Pander Bear Brown.

[Manuel Transmission]

As I recall, Nora didn't know she was Ravi's daughter until into her 20s. Never heard whether they kept up afterwards.

[RichatUF]

has been released by his firm from making stupid statements on live TV on their behalf

Ooops. He can join the funemployment ranks. It isn't that he lost his job, he got an Obama tax cut. Obama is freeing another wage slave, just as Lincoln did.

[/openmic night]

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--Ig-

And in other California insanity news...--

Mel,
Thank goodness and Algore that we have the internet because there aren't enough trees to print all of the CA insanity news.

$3,000 a month for nine months to continue not working; brilliant.

[NK]

MelR/Ig-- dear god, the Dem critters in Ca and Ill almost-- almost,but not quite-- make the Dems in Blue State hell NY and Ct look sane by comparison.

[Melinda Romanoff]

NK-

And just what did the City Of Bridgeport commit to buying this morning? Fuel Cell Farm?

Get back in line.

[NK]

MelR-- here's a link-- Meh story, just a small micro generation plant. Small potatoes, but you KNOW some Dem piggies stuck their nose in the fuel cell trough, facilitated by CL&P, using our ridiculously high electric rates to pay for the ... well... payoff to the pols. If the Dems wanted to reduce electric rates, they would work with Pa. to build a nat gas pipeline from the Central Pa marcellus shale fields to fuel the power plants in Ct with 4cent nat gas, so we aren't paying $4/gallon fuel to make steam and turn turbines. BUT NOOOOO-- there's no payoff for the pols in that; besids with lower electrical rates, new businesses could start and with more workers, it may complicate winning elections for Dems. http://www.nasdaq.com/article/fuelcell-energy-announces-sale-of-a-149-megawatt-fuel-cell-park-in-bridgeport-connecticut-to-domi-20121214-00102

[Jane: Mock the Media]

HOLY FREAKING CRAP: @scrowder being SUED by union thug Tony Camargo with GLORIA ALLRED as Camargo's lawyer?

I think it's perfect. So what's the complaint? Provoking him? If that is now a valid claim I'm changing my area of practice. Hell I can think of about a thousand people I have a claim against.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Jane-

It was a hoax. I bit on the hook too.

[centralcal]

It was a hoax? Aw darn - it sounded so plausible!

[Jim Eagle]

NK,

Fuel Cell plants are best used in "distributed power" schemes. Base-load is a misnomer in that unlike certain oil and gas fired systems they are too small for peaking power but they can give you more than 95% availability - the region of base load plants.

Back in the day, the idea was to locate these 8 to 20 MW units geographically within large population areas. No need for long distant high voltage transmission and step-down distribution. You can obtain better grid security while minimizing down times due to storms like Sandy. Don't know what happened to that but I bet EPRI has some papers on it.

[Jim Eagle]

NK,

That didn't take long:) Here is a good reference link to Fuel Cell Technology for Distributed Power.

[Melinda Romanoff]

JiB-

If harrjf shows up, that's precisely what they did around Madison, WI.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Sorry, they're using the 3 fanjet engine design. but distributed around the city for demand boost. Very clever.

[NK]

what an educational tool JOM commenters are. you guys confirmed what I assumed, a small scale local boost to the grid-- but the project does nothing to reduce the City's or State's incredibly high rates.

[Jane: Mock the Media]

Too bad it was a hoax, I already started my class action against every democrat on the planet. My motto: Nothing less than Pigford!

[harrjf]

Mel, I lurk as time permits. Usually way too much.

[دردشة عراقنا]

thak u

[شات عراقنا]

thanks

[Spy Phone Software Inc]

Also, some apps help me to find bookstores and books that are not so easy to find.

[Isko]

I actually wcehatd the video last night, and he looks like a really nice guy I love getting getting a look behind the scenes of how other people work and would say the whole thing was well worth watching.