Oops ... The Tiger Just Escaped the Cage

picture: young Sarah

I get such a kick out of leftists cat-calling Palin ... calling her stupid, inarticulate, under-educated, ... basically a ditz. The whole leftist noise machine reminds me of the approach taken toward Reagan before, during, and after he trounced them in two elections. What I find most peculiar is that the left is so obsessed with Palin, even though she is so apparently beneath them. Many go as far as to "hope for" an Obama/Palin contest in 2012, stating that Palin will get creamed by the uber-brain Obama. For a group so confident in their own wisdom, Palin certianly has their attention.

Two recent essays sum up perfectly the alternative view to the predictable leftist swill.

Both look at Palin and the elite chattering classes, including the Republican elite who fear her just about as much as the left. While "fear" in the RNC case is miscast in the media as fear that she'll lose them the next election, the essay makes it clear that the truth is actually quite plain and makes perfect sense.

Palin v. Pundits:

The accomplished Alaskan governor can gaze into the face of tiny Trig and inherently know that she still has much to learn, even from her little guy. Meanwhile, her less accomplished critics gaze mostly into TV cameras (and mirrors) and have convinced themselves that they already know it all.

Well gosh darn. Who is right?

Palin v. the pundits demonstrates a profound disconnect that explains not only how and why the pundit class remains so incapable of understanding her (and much of America), it is a decent microcosm of the bigger political debate going on in this country.

... keep reading Palin v. Pundits.

Sarah Palin - All In:

There is a point in tournament poker where one player doesn't have the chips to play out the next raise, but they have great cards, so they call "all in." At that point, nobody can raise them and the hand gets played out -- either to a game changing win or a total loss for the person who made the call.

It appears Sarah Palin decided she and her family could no longer deal with the thousand cuts, so she is "all in."

Palin may well decide to stay home and make macaroni and cheese for the kids, but history may not let her. She has already established herself as a major player -- candidate or not. More importantly, the wildly critical left has put her in a financial position where she has no choice but to speak out, perhaps do a book, and make the money she needs to pay legal bills for 15 unwarranted "ethics" investigations, all of which she handily won. The legal bills remain.

[...]

What an irony if the only American President who can make a 3 point shot were taken out by a point guard who came up to his shoulder. And if the guard was a chick -- who went to a no name school?

...keep reading Sarah Palin - All In.

Why We Support Them

... and their mission.

O - Math

ht

The Imperial Presidency

The Road to Hell

... is paved with Green Bricks:

The stimulus bill was the legislative equivalent of the famous cantina scene from Star Wars, an eye-popping collection of the freakish and exotic, gathered for dubious purposes. The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, known as ACES (the American Clean Energy and Security Act), is more like the third panel in Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights — a hellscape that disturbs the sleep of anybody who contemplates it carefully.

Two main things to understand about Waxman-Markey: First, it will not reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, at least not at any point in the near future. The inclusion of carbon offsets, which can be manufactured out of thin air and political imagination, will eliminate most of the demands that the legislation puts on industry, though in doing so it will manage to drive up the prices consumers pay for every product that requires energy for its manufacture — which is to say, for everything. Second, it represents a worse abuse of the public trust and purse than the stimulus and the bailouts put together. Waxman-Markey creates a permanent new regime in which environmental romanticism and corporate welfare are mixed together to form political poison. From comic bureaucratic power grabs (check out the section of the bill on candelabras) to the creation of new welfare programs for Democratic constituencies to, above all, massive giveaways for every financial, industrial, and political lobby imaginable, this bill would permanently deform American politics and economic life.

The House of Representatives, famously, did not read this bill before passing it, which is testament to either Nancy Pelosi’s managerial incompetency or her political wile, or possibly both. If you take the time to read the legislation, you’ll discover four major themes: special-interest giveaways, regulatory mandates unrelated to climate change, fanciful technological programs worthy of The Jetsons, and assorted left-wing wish fulfillment. We cannot cover every swirl and brushstroke of this masterpiece of misgovernance, but here’s a breakdown of its 50 most outrageous features.

... keep reading.

Buchanan Gets What Harper Doesn't

What's so difficult about this?

Last Saturday, Honduran soldiers marched into the presidential palace, bundled up President Manuel Zelaya and put him on a plane for Costa Rica.

The ouster had been ordered by the Supreme Court and approved by the Congress, as Zelaya was attempting an illegal referendum to change the Honduran constitution so he could run for another term.

Will someone please explain why this bloodless transfer of power to the civilian legislator first in line for the presidency, in a sovereign nation, is any business of the United Nations, the Organization of American States, Hugo Chavez, the Castro brothers or Barack Obama? For all have denounced the "coup" and demanded Zelaya's immediate return.

The hypocrisy here is astounding.

... keep reading.

Update: Another View

The coup d'état took place on June 28, 2009 when the Honduran military broke down the door to Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, drove him to the airport in his pajamas, and flew him out of the country. According to the Honduran Constitution, speaker of the parliament Roberto Micheletti was next in the line of presidential succession, and he was sworn in as president by the national congress that day. The coup ended nearly 40 years of democratic rule in Honduras, but many government officials claim that the coup was in fact legal.

The reason behind the coup was that President Zelaya was attempting to grab more power. He had proposed a ballot referendum to modify the Honduran Constitution so that he could seek a second term in office. The Supreme Court, attorney general, legislators, and human-rights ombudsman all agreed that this was unconstitutional, but he ordered the Honduran military to distribute the ballots anyway in order to poll public opinion. The head of the army refused, and so Zelaya fired him and the ballots were apparently distributed after all.

... keep reading.

Bush's Greatest Contribution to the 08-09 Crash

... was the removal of the uptick rule and certifying 3X Short ETFs.

Allowing multi-billion dollar ETFs to short the market at 3X leverage is insane when coupled with the removal of the uptick rule. What Bush allowed the SEC to do, was to create the perfect storm of destruction. The financial crisis coupled with more short selling power than has ever been unleashed in the history of stocks must be laid at the feet of the Bush administration ... and it all came together in 2007.

Now, after the damage has been done, some sanity may be returning. There would've been a stock crash; but many argue that the depth of the crash, especially among financials, was driven by a trifecta of shorts, no uptick rule, and 3X Short ETFs that allowed for the crushing of entire sectors.

In essence, large funds were free to drive down the value of all stocks within a sector with almost unlimited power ... X3. Add to this the almost impossible to catch illegal practice of naked shorts coupled with options trading and you get the picture. It'd take very little to place bets in the futures market, then drive entire sectors up or down using the power of 3X ETFs ... and cash in big time in futures once the targeted ETFs had done their dirty work.

There is already strong evidence that just such hanky-panky took place ... hanky-panky to the tune of billions.

Sanity:

They have been reviled as the bad hats of Wall Street, nefarious traders who cashed in on the market collapse and, some insist, helped precipitate it.

Now short-sellers, the market skeptics who correctly called last year’s downturn, are coming under even more unwanted scrutiny, this time from federal regulators. The Securities and Exchange Commission appears poised to reverse itself and reinstate rules that would make shorting stocks — that is, betting their prices will decline — somewhat more difficult.

Whether the SEC will go far enough to satisfy the many critics of short-sellers is far from certain. The controversial role of these investors has divided not only the financial industry, but also federal regulators. As the SEC considers its options, the debate is heating up.

Hedge funds and big pension funds argue that short-selling is vital to modern markets. Such trading not only enables investors to hedge their risks but also to ferret out weak companies or, as in the case of Enron, outright frauds.

But many banks, whose stocks came under attack last autumn, maintain that unfettered short-selling is dangerous. The shorts, their argument goes, helped bring down Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers last year.

New Canadian Aircraft Carrier

... In Prince Goerge BC:

Invitation to all Warmists

... to shred the heretics:

Readers may find the title familiar, that’s because Basil Copeland and I also did a paper looking at solar signatures in climatic data, which has received a lot of criticism because we made an analytical error in our attempt. But errors are useful, teachable moments, even if they are embarrassing, and our second attempt though, titled,

Evidence of a Lunisolar Influence on Decadal and Bidecadal Oscillations In Globally Averaged Temperature Trends

hasn’t been significantly challenged yet that I am aware of. Basil and I welcome any comments or suggestions on that work.

So, let's get at it warmists ... just go over to WUWT.

Reconciling Your Outward Patriotism

... with your inner thug:



... and don't expect much different from Canada's own "Mr. Dance-with-Obama.

Mumbai Documentary

... the rest of the series.

Is the Government Press Rebelling?

... correct me if I'm wrong ... but didn't our own PM Harper try the "pre-packaged" questions root?

The Death of Global Warming Alarmism

... may be in the clouds:

You’ve probably all heard of Svensmark and the Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) to cloud cover modulation theory by now. Lot’s of warmists say it is “discredited”. However, CERN in Switzerland isn’t following that thinking, and after getting some encouraging results in the CLOUD06 experiment, they have funded a much larger and more comprehensive CLOUD09 experiment. I figure if it is “discredited”, a bunch of smart guys and gals like CERN wouldn’t be ramping up the investigation. There’s also word now of a new correlation:

[...]

He does a superb job of tying it all together. I found Kirkby’s slide show quite interesting, and I’ve grabbed some slides for our WUWT readers. He proposes a GCR to cloud droplet mechanism, which to me, makes sense meteorologically. He also touches on the possibility that the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) may have been shifted due to GCR modulation during the LIA/Maunder Minimum. This ties in with Willis Eschenbach’s theories of the ITCZ being a “thermostatic mechanism” for the planet with some amplification effects. – Anthony

Slide Show of a theory that may bring down AGW.

... any guess as to what the next great "scare" will be? Perhaps AGC?

A Canada Day F U

... from our favorite supremasists:

I guess the Canadian Arab Federation should remove the Canadian from their name and just be the plain Terrorist Supporting Arab Federation. Hello Canadian Arab Federation vice president Omar Shaban:

... the details.

Dead on Arrival

Dictators on a Wire

Little Fibs

... tend to be worthless, but cause you just as much trouble as big ones when you are found out. So, why not simply make up whoppers and let the chips fall where they may ... at least that's what some warmists have figured out:

More importantly, however, the author of the weblog makes the statement that the following climate metrics “are progressing faster than was expected a few years ago” ;

1. “rising sea levels”

NOT TRUE; e.g. see the University of Colorado at Boulder Sea Level Change analysis.

Sea level has actually flattened since 2006.

2. “the increase of heat stored in the ocean”

NOT TRUE; see

Update On A Comparison Of Upper Ocean Heat Content Changes With The GISS Model Predictions.

Their has been no statistically significant warming of the upper ocean since 2003.

3. “shrinking Arctic sea ice”

NOT TRUE; see the Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Anomaly from the University of Illinois Cyrosphere Today website. Since 2008, the anomalies have actually decreased.

These climate metrics might again start following the predictions of the models. However, until and unless they do, the authors of the Copenhagen Congress Synthesis Report and the author of the Real Climate weblog are erroneously communicating the reality of the how the climate system is actually behaving.

Media and policymakers who blindly accept these claims are either naive or are deliberately slanting the science to promote their particular advocacy position.

... the details.

Storm Front

I've added two more pictures from yesterday's storm chase.

The first is of a possible tornado. I was hesitant to call it such, because the distance from me was quite great and I couldn't see clear enough to confirm it. The scud near the ground was rushing toward the dark shaft. This same formation later reformed and produced the funnel I photographed.

Later the cell formed a lovely gust front and shelf.

Saskatoon Storm Chase

Picture: Funnel cloud forms just West of Rosthern Sk, June 30, 2009

I had a bit of fun storm chasing just north of Saskatoon today. A storm formed just West of Rosthern. There was tremendous inflow wind from the South East, where I was located. A wall cloud formed and produced several funnel clouds. As far as I know, there were no full blown tornadoes from this cell but later in the evening a number of powerful cells formed up East of Saskatoon. I don't know if they formed any tornadoes.

Update: A tip from the comments

The house is the only thing standing after an apparent tornado ripped apart a farmyard Tuesday in the Baljennie district, about half an hour southeast of the Battlefords.

Stan Mills was working in his shop when he noticed pieces of tin flying past the open door.

"So I just headed for my big machine lathe, and laid face down on the floor and covered up my head," Mills said Tuesday evening. "It couldn't have been two minutes later, and it seemed like the storm had died down, so I looked up and I was sitting wide open.

"There wasn't a shop left or a Quonset. It's all gone."

Mills' wife rode out the storm inside the house. Their home survived, but a two-by-four sticks out of one wall. The grain bins, shop, barn, and trees are all gone.

"Then the people started coming and word got around, and I got lots of help. You sure can't beat neighbours."

The 76-year-old Mills says while he's comforted by the help, it's sad to see the destruction.

"50 years of building up, on a farm, and [in] three minutes it's disappeared."

Environment Canada says the RCMP reported a sighting of a tornado touching down in the Hafford area, east of the Battlefords, and this may have been the same tornado, but they're working to confirm it.

How the Mighty Fall

California is proof that when "progressive" spending takes hold ... even the richest state can be brought low once tax-payers have been squeezed to the bone to pay for the lavish entitlements and perks they themselves have demanded. I know that most are blaming California lawmakers ... I blame the voters themselves:

California is preparing to issue IOUs to its creditors this week as it grapples with an unprecedented cash crunch and prepares to begin its new fiscal year deep in the red.

Once the US’s richest state, California now has the dubious distinction of having the worst credit rating in the country.

It is facing a budget deficit of $24bn (€17bn, £14.5bn) yet Arnold Schwarzenegger, its governor, and the state assembly cannot agree on a budget that would address the shortfall.

California’s fiscal year ends on Wednesday but as the state’s cash reserves are empty, IOUs will be issued to a range of creditors, including contractors, such as information technology companies and the food service groups that cater for prisons.

Consider California the canary in the coal mine.