COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Crisis and Scams



The Sub-Prime Media Crisis

A BBC gloom and doom story on the sub-prime crisis this week reported that there are 55,000 homes for sale in Phoenix with about one-third of those being vacant. 55,000 homes for sale sounds like an enormous number but is it? According to WikiPedia, the population is just over 1.5 million but a Phoenix area realtor reports that the population for the Metropolitan Statistical Area is nearly 3.6 million. Another site reports that as of the 2000 census (before the bubble), the housing units for Phoenix City were 495,832 with the vacant units right at 30,000 (6.1%.) Is the sub-prime crisis as bad as the press would have us believe or will it suddenly improve after the Presidential election? Maybe the real crisis is the sub-prime media.

*****

Speaking of Arizona, I heard an interview with former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She struck me as a reasonable person but her support of quotas was obvious as she expressed her disappointment that Bush did not nominate a woman to replace her. She also said that the Courts had come under increasing attack from political corners. She sounded as if she felt the Judiciary should be immune from criticism. That has never been the case in the history of the Country. We are not required to quietly defer to whatever decisions the Courts hand down. I'm glad she's gone.

Here's some interesting reading: How Arizona Compares.


The Great Global Warming Scam

Faith Triumphs over Science.

The founder of the Weather Channel, meteorologist John Coleman, writing at the website for the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project:


It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create an illusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the "research" to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.
Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild "scientific" scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda. Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmentally conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minute documentary segment.
Someone Must Pay!

Al Gore and his Green Mountain Boys have dominated the headlines and ordained that "the debate is over" and for all practical purposes, it is. Sensing opportunity, every decent hustler in the world is looking for an angle and who can blame them now that the issue has been steamrolled through the various world bodies. Man caused global warming is now gospel so why fight it? There some is hope for the long term but in the coming years...well, as the Greens often point out...there will be some pain. Their great ideas being floated about include:
  • budgeting 3% of a nation's GDP to "combating" climate change.
  • 25% carbon taxes on travel such as airline tickets.
  • Government subsidies for more "energy efficient but more expensive" appliances, devices and automobiles. This is already occurring in California which gives rebates on more efficient household appliances so that the "payback" is reduced from say five to two years.
There is no end to the carbon hysteria and call for fees, taxes, penalties, subsidies and compensation. Smaller third world countries at risk from rising sea levels are demanding monies now to compensate for the future damages. In response, the Saudis recently called for compensation for future revenue losses due to the carbon backlash. This is only a portent of the future. Every carbon alternative scheme known to man is competing for your future tax dollars but be assured that whatever you pay will be a "small price for the greater good." And be assured, that you will pay and pay and pay.

The Climate Change Express has left the station and all the green grifters, grafters and grabbers are on board. Weak-minded Republicans in the US such as the Governors of California and Florida have just managed to take their seats. I suspect that nothing will stop this runaway until it derails itself through its own greed and avarice. When that happens, probably concurrent with the collapse of the now rising one-world government, we'll see a world the likes of which has not been seen since the Tower of Babel.


32 comments:

  1. Some day there will be a "Real" Emergency (like, you know, when the area between Antarctica and South America freezes over, stopping the warm currents, and we head into our next Glaciation.)

    At that time we will have to take Drastic Action based on what our Real, Honest to God Scientists tell us. I just hope that these Scam Artists, and fools haven't poisoned the well so badly that no one will listen.

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  2. Walla Walla (which means water,water)Washington was named 'the best place to retire' in the USA for this year. One of my old stomping grounds. I've noticed a lot of land has gone into grapes around there in the last decade or so.

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  3. At least accoring to Money Magazine which probably got something out of the deal somehow:) Nice town though, for sure. Not overrun with professors and hippies/yippies.

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  4. Vineyards?

    The Yuppies will, surely, be not far behind, Bob. :)

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  5. You might be right, Rufus. Walla Walla is not far from the river, has a nice warm climate. Beautiful mountains in the background.

    Santuary Cities come under some fire.

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  6. "I am a Green, and I entreat my friends in the movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy. Even if they were right about its dangers – and they are not – its worldwide use as our main source of energy would pose an insignificant threat compared with the dangers of intolerable and lethal heat waves and sea levels rising to drown every coastal city of the world.

    "We have no time to experiment with visionary energy sources; civilization is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear – the one safe, available energy source – now or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by our outraged planet."

    From my point of view, a little hysteria amongst the Greens might not be such a bad thing:)

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  7. Next year's global warming peace prize should go to Bush-Cheney for their work to save the planet. :)

    Now if they could just figure out that problem with the Giant Palouse Earthworm! :)

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  8. I had a nightmare last night, and dreamed of This

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  9. Bob, I'm gonna have to check out a couple of your local Ideeho newspapers one of these days. I think you done been scamming us with this giant "lollapalooza" earthworm story. (It ain't nice to "scam" your buds. :)

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  10. Now, THIS is what I'M Talking About!

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  11. But Ruf:
    Its genetically modified!

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  12. But Ruf:
    Its genetically modified!


    To the "Nines," baby, To the Nines.

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  13. Foreclosure filings in Valley soar 566% in '07
    Source: azcentral.com | news
    11-10-2007 12:00 AM

    The number of Valley homeowners losing their homes to foreclosure has shot up 566 percent so far this year, a result of the housing market's slowdown and rising interest rates on a variety of risky mortgages.{v} Foreclosures just as hard on neighbors as homeowners{b} More information on Valley foreclosures

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  14. I would like to know what the % of speculators are in involved in the foreclosures:
    Foreclosures up in metro Phoenix, Tucson.
    Maricopa County led the state with 2,127 foreclosures and Pima County had 287 last month, according to Default Research.

    However, experts contend that many investors who looked to flip Valley homes during the real estate boom are partially to blame for the subprime crisis, as many of these homes remain on the market, with unpaid mortgages.

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  15. No scam, ruf, no scam. It'll spit at you, is three feet long, and smells like a lily! Lives in a burrow, and stays out of sight.

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  16. %'s, I'm not sure.
    Anedotally, pretty high.

    I had clients that wanted to buy houses like they were disposable assets. It was very bizarre there, for a while. A house would come on the market, there'd be five or six offers in a day. About 18 months, maybe two years ago, now.

    Never saw such a thing before.
    The top came off the market in Vegas, and the Californios came here to invest.

    They had lines outside of model homes, with lotteries to see who had a chance to be the buyer.

    Time on market for resale housing has really extended, though there has not been a lot of softening on price, maybe 8 to 12% from the peak values, on the houses that do sell.

    In my immediate area, we cruised by a house that was on the market this morning, listed at $300,000. A house down the block, one I had looked at seriously, seven years ago, sold then for @ $150,000. The house for sale today, @ $300,000, was without the amenities of the house down the street. These being late 1950's early '60's era homes on one acre lots, in Phoenix proper.

    The influx of retired midwesterners has not stemmed, but there never was much employment infrastructure in AZ.

    Construction and Call Centers, those were our specialties.
    The construction trades have gone to illegals, which is holding down wages for legal residents, the Call Centers migrating to India or Canada.

    The high per capita energy use, I'd believe it. A/C blastin' six months a year, makes for some high demands.
    Without A/C, the people would wither, dry up & blow away.

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  17. from Letters to the Editor--Lewiston Tribune--Nov 10, 2007

    'In a recent editorial Tom Henderson discussed what is supposedly known about super worms. He didn't say whether he believed it to be truth or fiction.

    Personanlly, I'm pretty gullible, and I can't help feeling that many creatures exist that are pretty unique. (I saw some at Halloween.)

    In reality, however, a 3 foot long worm that smells like a flower and can spit at an antagonist? OK!

    It is not my intention to belittle those who have seen, smelled or been spat upon. After all, three or four encounters in the past cenury don't seem to be carved in stone, informationwise.

    Several members of the animal world have the ability to spit as a defense mechanism, camels nd llamas, to name a couple. There is also a species of cobra that spits fluid at the eyes of an antagonist, and the spittle is very poisonous and is usually fatal.

    My nephew farms on the Palouse, as did his father before him. Neither has ever seen one of the monstrous worms but neither will state positively that they don't exist. My nephew will call me if he ever finds one, and I will surely drive out to see it.'

    Harley Williams

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  18. Bob, ya had me - Until that smells like a lily part. :)

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  19. The Giant Palouse Earthworm--aka--The Giant Easter Worm :)

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  20. Each year out here, at Easter, we have the Easter Worm Hunt in the parks, for the kids.

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  21. By da way, did I ever tell you'uns that my fete smeld like rose petuls?

    chuckle, chuckle

    heh, heh

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  22. Speaking of scams:

    Curveball

    www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
    NSAEBB/NSAEBB234/index.htm

    Now ask yourself this: How was it that such an important strategic source was never polygraphed, per SOP?

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  23. I mean, hell, even that ratfuck Chalabi was polygraphed. Twice.

    He failed. Twice. Leaving the bright bulb of the OVP to retain his services post-burn, without a care in the world. But at least it was done.

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  24. Interesting piece, bob, from Ohio.

    Where the terrain along the border is to "rough" Mr Chertoff said there'll be no fence.

    Damned, wish he'd been in charge in Panama, we installed fence, triple concertina, on damned near cliffs, it was so steep.

    Old General KC Leuer, he wouldn't believe there was country so tough that it couldn't be walked across.

    We strung fence, then took it down.
    Many times.

    It's not believed by Homeland Security, that folk can walk across the desert. It's just to rough and tough.

    Excuses abound.

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  25. TEHRAN, Iran (Associated Press) -- Iran and Pakistan have reached a deal to build a multi-billion-dollar pipeline to transport natural gas between the two countries, Iranian state television reported Saturday.

    The United States opposes the project because it fears it will weaken efforts to isolate Iran, which it accuses of running a clandestine nuclear weapons program.

    The pipeline is expected to run 1,625 miles from Iran to Pakistan and should carry 150 million 5.2 billion cubic feet of gas a day.

    "The text of the Peace Pipeline contract has been finalized," state TV quoted Iran's deputy minister in charge of the project, Hojatollah Ganimifard, as saying.

    The contract will be formally signed next month, the TV station said.

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  26. According to Jennifer Sims, German intelligence wouldn't let us, even as they warned us off him.

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  27. And there we were, cutler, running all over Iraq looking for WMD links to Europe. No shit.

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