Les Jones

Patterico catches the LA Times getting suckered by ACORN criminals

Friday, November 20th, 2009 | Media Behaving Badly | Permalink | No Comments |

Patterico - L.A. Times Columnist Uncritically Quoted Star of Latest ACORN Video:

In September, L.A. Times columnist James Rainey wrote a column in which he uncritically quoted ACORN worker Lavelle Stewart suggesting that she had turned Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe out of her office:

[V]isits to other ACORN offices have gone almost entirely unmentioned. Lavelle Stewart, a fair-housing coordinator in the group’s Los Angeles office, told me this week that she tried to get the “prostitute,” who claimed she had been beaten by her pimp, to go to a women’s center.

“The fact she was not taking the help I offered her made me think something was not right,” Stewart said. “It raised a red flag.”

I wasn’t so sure — and I publicly declared that Rainey had likely been suckered and would end up with egg on his face.

And sure enough, Rainey’s completely innocent ACORN worker Lavelle Stewart is caught on video offering advice on setting up an international prostitution ring and hiding the profits so that the pimp can run for elected office:

Patterico is the number one factchecker for the Los Angeles Times. I told him once that I wish there was someone like him in every big city in America keeping the newspaper honest.

Tags: acorn, youtube

Ben Bernanke has done gone and went insane

Friday, November 20th, 2009 | Economics | Permalink | No Comments |

Karl Denninger - Open Letter To The Chinese Premier:

Dear Wen Jaibao:

We in America have noted with concern your nations’ expression of alarm at our Federal Reserve’s blatant money-printing, debt monetization, and interference in the free markets, in particular the recent commentary of China’s bank regulator cited here:

“The continuous depreciation in the dollar, and the U.S. government’s indication, that in order to resume growth and maintain public confidence, it basically won’t raise interest rates for the coming 12 to 18 months, has led to massive dollar arbitrage speculation,” he told reporters in Beijing today at the International Finance Forum.

Liu said this has “seriously affected global asset prices, fuelled speculation in stock and property markets, and created new, real and insurmountable risks to the recovery of the global economy, especially emerging-market economies.”

Mr. Liu is correct, of course.  However, yesterday afternoon Ben Bernanke gave you the finger, first in his speech and then later in the Q&A in which he said:

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said it’s “not obvious” that asset prices in the U.S. are out of line with underlying values after a 64 percent jump in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index from its March low.

Donald Kohn, another Fed Governor, erected his middle finger in your direction as well with his comments last night and Yellen added her view this morning in which they also both said “we see no bubble.”  That’s three.

How many more times do you need to be flipped off before you get it: The Fed isn’t going to do what you want, and neither is Obama.  Get over yourself.

On the objective measures the price/earnings multiple of the S&P 500 currently stands at over 130, more than double its previous record and vastly beyond anything achieved even in China’s manipulated and overheated markets.  In short, they’re lying and they don’t care.

Tags: bernanke, the fed

No-tax Botox ends, Nancy Pelosi hardest hit

Thursday, November 19th, 2009 | Misc | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Senate bill includes the Botox tax.

Pelosi appeared shocked by the news

Tags: X ends Y hardest hit

The War on Products Poor People Buy

Thursday, November 19th, 2009 | Economics | Permalink | No Comments |

Reason interview with economics professor Jagdish Bhagwati - Globalization With a Human Face:

Bhagwati: Instead of pandering to union fear, Obama has got to engage them. You have got to help these doubting Thomases confront their fears. He’s got to say that trade with the poor countries is actually helping, not hurting, you. The unions’ main fear is that unskilled jobs are disappearing. They see these jobs being taken up elsewhere where the labor is cheap. But they can’t hold onto these jobs anyway. What they get in return from trade are cheap products that they need as consumers. So free trade moderates the downward pressure on their real wages.

Big portions of the wages of poor workers go toward low quality textiles, for instance. That is well-established. But if you look at the structure of protectionism, if you go and buy something from Anne Klein that’s going to be expensive, but it carries no tariff at all because these high-end designers compete on variety. Tariffs matter where the competition is on prices. So the low-quality items which poor people buy end up carrying higher tariffs than high-end items that rich people buy.

reason: So free trade’s harm to union workers as producers is minimal, but the harm to them as consumers would be very great if we didn’t have free trade?

Bhagwati: Yes. So what President Obama has to do is basically change the ethos in this country so that it understands that the United States has profited enormously from free trade. Free trade has rescued India and China from poverty, yes. But the U.S. working class has also profited from international trade.

Previously -  The War on Food Poor People Eat

Delicious free lunches for banks

Thursday, November 19th, 2009 | Economics | Permalink | No Comments |

Arnold Kling - Thoughts on the Macro Paradigm:

At this point, I was cornered. I had no choice but to say what I really believe about what the Fed was doing. In spite of all the sophisticated rhetoric about “quantitative easing” and “new tools for monetary policy,” the only way that I can understand what the Fed was doing is to say that the goal was to stimulate bank profits, not the economy. If your goal were to stimulate the economy, you would inject enough reserves to do that and not pay interest on reserves. That might require buying some long-term bonds or mortgage securities, but not the hundreds of billions that the Fed actually bought.

Everything the Fed has been doing over the past fifteen months makes sense if you think of their goal as transferring wealth from taxpayers to banks. If you try to explain it as an attempt to implement an expansionary monetary policy, you won’t even get past my high school students.

Previously - Delicious free lunches for Judge Elihu Smails

Tags: free lunches, the fed

Natalie is home

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 | East Tennessee, Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

It seemed like Natalie was about ready to come home this morning, but the tests and test results took longer than expected. She’s finally home now.

Funny thing? Last night Natalie wanted to come home more than anything. Tonight when it was time to leave the hospital she didn’t want to leave any more. She liked it and was having fun. East Tennessee Children’s Hospital is a great hospital with a great staff. We’re fortunate to have it. Many thanks to everyone who works there.

Joseph Sobran

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 | Quotes | Permalink | No Comments |

“The chances of you being harmed by terrorists are mathematically minute. The chance of your being robbed by your own government? That’s easy… 100%.”
  - Joseph Sobran

Confused about investing? Ask a celebrity. They know everything.

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 | Funny Ha-Ha | Permalink | No Comments |

Cracked - Nicolas Cage Investment Advice: Be In Movies, Buy Everything:

Hi, I’m Nicolas Cage! I’m an Oscar winning actor (!!!) and the star of all your favorite movies! I’m here to give you all the investment advice you’ll need to become famous! Now let’s begin!

But before we can begin, let’s cover some basic definitions first:

Asset - An Asset is something you own that’s worth something, like money or hair.

Liability - A Liability is something you own that is not worth something, like your family or joy.

Income - Income is money that comes to you, like flies to a magnet, or honey to a vacuum cleaner.

Expenditure - Expenditures are when money goes away from you, like squirrels do when you try to pet them.

Now let’s begin again!

Word of the Day: Diamagnetism (Metals)

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 | Science, Word of the Day | Permalink | No Comments |

Via Wikipedia.

Levitating pyrolytic carbon

Diamagnetism is the property of an object which causes it to create a magnetic field in opposition of an externally applied magnetic field, thus causing a repulsive effect. Specifically, an external magnetic field alters the orbital velocity of electrons around their nuclei, thus changing the magnetic dipole moment in the direction opposing the external field. Diamagnets are materials with a magnetic permeability less than μ₀ (a relative permeability less than 1).

Consequently, diamagnetism is a form of magnetism that is only exhibited by a substance in the presence of an externally applied magnetic field. It is generally quite a weak effect in most materials, although superconductors exhibit a strong effect.

Diamagnetic materials cause lines of magnetic flux to curve away from the material, and superconductors can exclude them completely (except for a very thin layer at the surface).

In 1778 S. J. Bergman was the first individual to observe that bismuth and antimony were repelled by magnetic fields. However, the term “diamagnetism” was coined by Michael Faraday in September 1845, when he realized that all materials in nature possessed some form of diamagnetic response to an applied magnetic field.

A thin slice of pyrolytic graphite, which is an unusually strong diamagnetic material, can be stably floated in a magnetic field, such as that from rare earth permanent magnets. This can be done with all components at room temperature, making a visually effective demonstration of diamagnetism.

The Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, has conducted experiments where water and other substances were successfully levitated. Most spectacularly, a live frog (see figure) was levitated.^[3]

See also ferromagnetism and paramagnetism.

Previous WOTD - Veblen Goods and Giffen Goods (Economics)

Tags: gold

Money trouble in Big China

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 | Economics | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Telegraph - China has now become the biggest risk to the world economy

“The inherent problems of the international economic system have not been fully addressed,” said China’s president Hu Jintao. Indeed not. China is still exporting overcapacity to the rest of us on a grand scale, with deflationary consequences.

While some fret about liquidity-driven inflation, Justin Lin, World Bank chief economist, said the greater danger is that record levels of idle plant almost everywhere will feed a downward spiral of job cuts and corporate busts. “I’m more worried about deflation,” he said.

By holding the yuan to 6.83 to the dollar to boost exports, Beijing is dumping its unemployment abroad – “stealing American jobs”, says Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. As long as China does it, other tigers must do it too.

Tags: china

Inflation or deflation? Jesse’s Cafe Americain says “selective inflation”

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 | Economics, Photos | Permalink | No Comments |

Jesse’s Café Américain: What is a “Nominal” Stock Market Chart Versus a “Deflated” View?:

“Oh this is all very well and good Jesse, but when I go to the grocery store or to the gas station or the convenience store to buy my instant Lotto tickets I pay in dollars and not gold or euros.”

Yes, but when your suppliers go to buy their goods that are imported, they pay in dollars that are depreciating. You know that some prices are moving higher despite slack demand overall. This is what we call ’selective inflation.’ This is how it starts.

P.S. Something related to this that I’ve noticed is the rise in Nikon lens prices over the past year. Nikon is based in Japan, so everything they make is ultimately denominated in yen. Even with a lousy economy and slack demand, Nikon lens prices in the U.S. have increased due to a dollar that’s deteriorating relative to the yen. This is the NexTag price chart for the Nikon 70-300mm VR showing rising prices (red is maximum, black is median, blue is minimum):

Previously - Inflation or deflation? Noriel Roubini says “deflation now, but maybe big inflation in a few years”

Tags: inflation

Natalie is in the hospital, but OK

Monday, November 16th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | 6 Comments |

Melissa admitted Natalie to Saint Mary’s tonight. Natalie was sick yesterday. She felt bad, slept a lot, and had a high fever which went down with Tylenol or ibuprofen, but then would spike right back up.

Melissa took her to the doctor this morning at 10:30 and never came home. She stayed at doctor’s offices all day and then they finally admitted Natalie to the hospital. She had a kidney infection and wouldn’t drink or eat and she hadn’t peed since 11:00 AM.

I went over there after work. While Melissa went home to get some movies and clothes and overnight things I stayed with Natalie. She got an IV, which was no fun. I promised Natalie I wouldn’t let anyone do that to her unless I knew it would help her.

She was very upset for about an hour. All she wanted to do was get the needle out of her hand and go home. Poor kiddo.

Eventually she started calming down. Finally she had to go peepee. After that she ate and drank. Melissa brought her “Ruby and Max,” which she loves to watch. Melissa’s spending the night with her and I expect they’ll both be home tomorrow.

Photo by Margaret Wood. Hard to believe Natalie looked like that just a year ago. She’s lost the baby fat and has Shirley curly hair. They grow up fast.

Dude, sorry to hear it

Monday, November 16th, 2009 | Economics | Permalink | No Comments |

Vietnam Dong Evaporates.

Scott Johnson on Obama’s trip to Japan

Monday, November 16th, 2009 | Quotes | Permalink | No Comments |

“Ashamed of his country but arrogant about himself–what a disgusting combination.”
- Scott Johnson

Tags: obama

Sarah Palin Derangement Syndrome resumes

Monday, November 16th, 2009 | Politics | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Rogue’s 11. “The Associated Press assigned 11 writers to “fact-check” Sarah Palin’s new book, and in return the 11 fact-checkers triumphantly unearthed six errors. That’s 1.8333333 writers for each error. What earth-shattering misstatements did they uncover for this impressive investment? Stand well back.”

I have a mixed opinion of Palin. She’s on the right side of most issues I care about. As far as her personally, I think she has some failings and quirks and shortcomings.

Compensating for that, she also has a superpower. Sarah Palin can drive some of her critics to frothing insanity and unforced errors. And it turns out that they’re generally the people I’d most like to see exposed for their irrationality and bias.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

Tags: sarah palin

4th generation Glocks

Sunday, November 15th, 2009 | Guns | Permalink | 5 Comments |

Lots of info here and here. New features:

• Ambidextrous Slide Catch Lever
• Interchangeable Back Straps
• Beveled Magazine Well
• Reversible Magazine Release
• New Sights
• New Disassembly Routine (no more dryfiring to disassemble)
• New Texture
• New Recoil Spring Assembly

Things That Will Not Be Seen on Gen 4 Glocks

• magazine disconnect safety
• external safety lever
• grip safety
• ambidextrous magazine release (button on both sides rather than interchangeable)
• slide serrations forward of the ejection port
• metal frame

Hat tip to Unc.

Tags: glock

Stayin’ tuned to AMC all day

Sunday, November 15th, 2009 | A&E | Permalink | 4 Comments |

Natalie has a fever, so I’m staying home with her today while she sleeps.

AMC is being very, very good to me. I’m about halfway through the Matrix trilogy. Then at 8:00 it’s the premier of “The Prisoner” mini-series with Ian McKellan.

Murderers Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber in the news*

Sunday, November 15th, 2009 | True Crime | Permalink | 3 Comments |

From Slashdot:

“Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed a German actor in 1990. Now that they are out of prison, German law states that they can’t be referred to by name in relation to the killings. Therefore, they have sued to get Wikipedia to remove their names from the Wikipedia article about the killings. The German edition of Wikipedia has already complied, but the English edition is citing US freedom of speech and a lack of presence in Germany as reasons why they don’t need to remove the name. In a bit of irony, their lawyer e-mailed the NY Times: ‘In the spirit of this discussion, I trust that you will not mention my clients’ names in your article.’”

* Notice what I did there?

Tags: wikipedia

Is there a category for that on Craig’s List?

Thursday, November 12th, 2009 | Funny Ha-Ha | Permalink | 1 Comment |

VIDEO: Beaver urinates on CBSNEWS correspondent

Tags: Is there a category for that on Craig's List?, youtube

Katie and Natalie visit the Sunsphere

Thursday, November 12th, 2009 | A&E, East Tennessee, Home Life, Quotes | Permalink | No Comments |

Katie was out of school for Veteran’s Day, so Melissa took her and Natalie out for a big day in downtown Knoxville. They went to the Veteran’s Day parade, ate at the re-opened S&W Grand nee Cafeteria, and went to the observation deck of the Sunsphere. Katie declared it the best day ever.

P.S. This Metro Pulse article about the Sunsphere is incredible -Did a 14-Year-Old Kid Help Design the Sunsphere? The kid’s design used a doughnut-shaped elevator wrapped around a central support and the elevator turned as it ascended. Wicked.

Bryce Thomas is an architect of 45 who lives and works in Seattle. He sounds modest and unassuming on the phone. Son of businessman/lawyer Perry Thomas, Bryce grew up near West Hills. In 1978, when he was 14, his parents took him on an “adventure” vacation trip to Seattle. He was awed, as most teenagers still are, at his first sight of the Space Needle, the theme structure for the 1962 World’s Fair. “The Space Needle in Seattle is very slender, very graceful,” he says. He’d heard his home town had a fair coming up, thought it needed a theme structure like the Space Needle. Talking with his parents around the dinner table, he proposed what he thought might be an appropriate design for it.

He drew a picture that impressed his father. It’s labeled “Basic Sun Globe.” He still has the drawing of it he made in July, 1978. The globe is made of “gold glass,” mounted on top of a very tall stalk, accessible by an elevator. A note, in a child’s hand, specifies, “Globe contain[s] Restaurant and Observation area. If possible use as a source of solar energy [for] operation.”

His father was impressed, and mailed the diagram to the World’s Fair authorities. They heard nothing for two years.

“I was shocked the day I went to get the newspaper,” one Sunday in 1980, Bryce says. “On the front page there was a picture of this Sunsphere proposal.”

The World’s Fair had hired design firm Community Tectonics in 1979, several months after receiving the boy’s drawings, and they’re credited with the Sunsphere’s design.

In June, 1980, Bryce received a letter from George Siler, the fair’s executive vice president, who did acknowledge the kid’s plan. “As you can imagine, we receive lots of suggestions from people about the Fair,” Siler wrote. “Many of them are impractical or not in keeping with our objectives. Yours was a notable exception. In fact, you submitted one of the best ideas we have received. Your Sun Globe is innovative, well conceived and very much in accordance with what we think our World’s Fair ought to contain.

First we called it N1H1. Then swine flu. Then hamthrax. Now it’s called …

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | Funny Ha-Ha | Permalink | No Comments |

Tuporkulosis.

Tags: swine flu

Glock vs. 1911

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | Guns | Permalink | 3 Comments |

“A Glock is like that son that goes to college, gets a decent paying job, and is just a normal person. That kid that always does the right thing, doesn’t ask for much attention, and you sometimes don’t show enough attention to because it isn’t very exciting. But that’s why you love it, you know it’s fine and you did a good job picking it out.

A 1911 on the other hand… that’s the son that acts out in school, doesn’t make it through college, never holds a good job, and never really acts right. He might even dress different, have his own style, and be more refined in appearance than the other 1911 sons. You still love it, even though it is a pain in your butt most of the time.”

– iiibdsiil

Previously

• “Put down that walnut-gripped 1911 sissy pistol and getcher self a Glock”
• Glock vs. 1911 Shootoff

Tags: 1911, glock

Google Rich Snippets

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | E-commerce | Permalink | No Comments |

This - Google Rich Snippets - makes all kinds of Googley sense. You can markup your Web page content semantically to help Google index it. Google’s initial push is to index content on review and social media Web sites. The idea is that the additional data will appear in Google search results, like this:

Here’s the inline markup for products:

   <div class="hproduct">
<span class="brand">ACME</span>
   <span class="category">Heavy objects</span>
   <span class="fn">Large all-purpose anvil</span>
   <span class="description">If you need an object to drop from a height, the classic
A23859 anvil from ACME is the way to go.</span>
   <span class="url">http://anvil.example.com</span>
</div>

Marking up our product page template took all of 10 minutes max. Best of all it looks exactly the same as it did before. It only looks different in the source code and to Google.

Once you’ve completed your markup changes run your URL through the Google Rich Snippets Testing Tool to make sure your semantic markup is copacetic.

Previously - New “canonical link” element for search engine optimization

Tags: google

Murderer of 13 year old child and 9 others executed

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 | True Crime | Permalink | No Comments |

Fox News - D.C. Sniper John Allen Muhammad Is Executed in Virginia:

Muhammad was executed for killing Dean Harold Meyers, who was shot in the head at a Manassas gas station during a spree that left 10 dead across Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. The shootings terrorized the region, as victim after victim was shot down while doing everyday chores: going shopping, pumping gas, mowing the lawn. One child was shot while walking into his middle school.

No sympathy for the murderer, much sympathy for the victims’ families.

Real estate insanity in Canada and India, too

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 | Economics | Permalink | No Comments |

America Canada - Deflation or Inflation. What’s in the Cards for Canada?:

Canada’s home prices have skyrocketed in this recession. When the dollar was at 97 cents US a couple weeks ago, average Canadian home prices hit roughly $320,000 US – an all-time high. Residential mortgage debt has over doubled since 2002. We will surpass the US in per capita residential debt within the next year. In 2009 alone, we will add 100 billion in fresh residential mortgage credit (equivalent of about 1 trillion in the US on a per capita basis).

The average price of a detached Toronto home has approached $600,000. I have attached a home listed at $559,000. The home is about a 15 minute drive from downtown in an average location. It is clearly overvalued. Yet it’s more than likely that the property will receive 20-30 bids and finally sell at over $600,000.

iTulip - Houses in Canada 2 to 3 times as expensive as U.S.:

I hope readers took note of that 1500 square foot old shack on the 30 front-foot lot in Vancouver: $989,000.

From some people with experience in Canada:

Based on my weekly research, in the GTA (accessible to the subway via a 10min. bus ride) a semidetached (3bdr/1.5bath) goes for around $450K, while a detached starts at around $600K/$650K. That is for a 1960/1970 built house in average area, with average repair to be done.

Another story:

I was in Vancouver visiting family in September and was *shocked* at the price of housing up there. As the article points out, prices are sky high and incomes are not nearly high enough to cover debt service. My cousins live in Burnaby, just 15 minutes east of downtown Vancouver. In addition to my cousin, his wife and two daughters, they have 4 other roommates to cover rent. I would guess the house is valued at close to $1,000,000 CAD although they are renters and do not own the home. I’m not sure if the roommate situation is the norm, but that seems about the only way to afford housing if you are a normal person. In any case, I definitely came away with the impression that there is a massive real estate bubble in greater Vancouver.

And in India:

Housing in India serves as a vehicle for the class that doesn’t pay tax (”Black Money”) to hoard its wealth. Ergo, due to massive income inequalities and rampant corruption/tax evasion, housing in India will always be much more expensive relative to income than in the West.

Bombay (Mumbai) is a good example of that. Prices there have been out of the reach of the vast majority of people for generations. And yet, despite massive corrections at various times, they continue to be at levels that even middle class people cannot afford (let alone the poor).

When I wanted to buy land in India, I was told that some 85 percent of the price had to be paid in hard cash (Black Money). This sum would not show up on any property deed and would not be the amount at which the transaction would be registered with the land registry for stamp duty purposes. I refused to do it. I managed to find a seller who agreed to accept the entire amount by bank draft. However, that was a rare exception.

Tags: mortgage mess