Dawn of the Age of Oligarchy: the Alliance between Government and the 1% - The Daily Beast: "“We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few,” Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis once noted, “but we can't have both.”Read More......
These sentiments are still valid. Many, if not most Americans, recognize that our political economy is not working for the majority of the country. The vast majority recognize the reality of crony capitalism and understand that government contracts go to the politically connected. More troubling still, less than one third believe the country even operates under a free market system. Most suspect that the American dream is falling increasingly out of reach. By margins of more than two to one, Americans say they enjoy fewer economic opportunities than their parents, and that their offspring will have far less job security and disposable income.
Today, Americans increasingly see the same threat Brandeis saw. American politics has ceased to function as a rising democracy and come to resemble an emerging plutocracy. "
Monday, June 30, 2014
Plutocracy Update
Sunday, June 29, 2014
COTD: Welcome To Ever More National Bankruptcy
Wind turbine payback period claimed to be within 8 months | Watts Up With That?: "Max Hugoson says:Read More......
June 16, 2014 at 1:33 pm
Back in my “previous life”, the major utility I worked for was “beaten up” by the state regulators, and to install a certain amount of gas turbine peakers (needed for growth, summers) they had to “subsidize” 100 Megawatts of wind turbines (100 units that is.). That they did, placing them in the WINDIEST PLACE in the STATE (clue, somewhere near, around the Dakotas, a very open and windy area.) Subsequent to development, and for the next 10 years, I was able to watch the Grid Operations System (GOS) system,and see the amount generated. Yep, after 10 years of operation, the wonderful wind power (“free”, don’t you know) produced an AVERAGE of 8.7 Megawatts, orr 8.7% capacity factor. (The gas turbines, of course, produced about a 99% cap factor, not “free”.) Now, what of this? Despite the FIGHT the utility had to go through with the PUC (Public Utilities Commission) the cost figures came out. Installed, each unit was a little under $2 Million. Using STANDARD industrial amortization, the net cost during that 10 years, was…hang on to your hat, about $1.65 per KWHr. If you had a standard cost of $100 a month for your electricity, if you had WIND power you could be paying $2000 a month. Wonderful way to personal bankruptcy and national bankruptcy."
Friday, June 27, 2014
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Le Deluge
Instapundit » Blog Archive » BILL WHITTLE: Afterburner: Le Deluge – Obama is Quickly Becoming Louis XV. This piece by Mark L…: "BILL WHITTLE: Afterburner: Le Deluge – Obama is Quickly Becoming Louis XV."
Anthropodermic Bibliopegy -- Ask For It By Name
Ace of Spades HQ: "So they've found several books at the Harvard University Library that are bound with human skin. Ew. There's even a name for this sort of thing. It's called anthropodermic bibliopegy. It's kind of like cannibalism, only more literate. So even though the books specifically say things like "this book is bound in human skin", I guess they didn't take these simple declarative sentences seriously. At least, not until recently, when some genius decided they should run some lab tests on the cover material. So the results came back and the ssmples turned out to be, hold on to your hats, human skin, just like the books said.Read More......
Anthropodermic bibliopegy. Ask for it by name."
COTD: Got It
Instapundit » Blog Archive » HOW CONVENIENT: IRS CANCELLED Contract with Email-Storage Firm Weeks After Lerner’s Computer Cras…: "TheDignifiedRantRead More......
So, the dog ate their homework; a car hit the dog, killing it; and the driver of the car who hit the dog who ate the homework is missing.
Got it.
2 hours ago Like (20) Link To Comment"
The Deepest Check to Despotism
The Deepest Check to Despotism – Our Robot Overlords and Their Human Masters | Jason Jordan: "In a very significant sense, then, the personal conscience of a nation’s soldiery represents the deepest check to despotism.RTWT of course -- it's not long. Unfortunately though, I've quoted the cheeriest part... Read More......
Despots have long recognized this implication, and in response have long recruited soldiers (especially personal palace guards) hailing from different ethnic and/or religious backgrounds from the general society…those whose loyalty lies entirely with their paymaster rather than the public at large. Perhaps the most famous example are the Gardes suisses that Bourbon monarchs kept encamped on the outskirts of Paris. Other examples include the Ottoman Janissaries, Ayyubid Mamluks, Roman Germani corporis custodes, Byzantine Hetaireia and Varangian Guard, Russian Cossacks—even the Waffen-SS, which operated outside of the German Heer and was loyal only to the Nazi Party and the Führer.
This fact casts the ongoing automation and robotization of Western militaries in a new unsettling light. An army of machines—serving blindly at the behest of whomever owns the controls—is perhaps the most sweeping exemplar of this historical trend, and poses the same threat to liberty.
Moreover, the extent to which despotic regimes go to propagandize and thereby reduce their own soldiery to robots is a sufficient answer to the concern over fully autonomous military robots: the State will never allow their existence, not for fear of what they might do, but for fear of what they might not do."
Friday, June 20, 2014
Choking On Smoke From The Guns...
Moonbattery » Smoking Gun Indicating That Obama Administration Knew in Advance About Massive Influx of Illegal Alien Children: "The massive flood of largely underage illegal aliens currently inundating the undefended border constitutes Alinsky-style community organizing applied at the transnational level. If you have been waiting for a smoking gun to affirm your gut instinct that this disaster was planned by the Obama Regime, wait no longer:"
COTD: Implanting It
Bill Henck: Inside the IRS, part 4 | Power Line:Read More......
Jay Comeau · Top Commenter · San Diego State University
The govt. has taken over the rights of the citizenry. And they control all the levers of power. We live in the illusion of freedom, like animals on a reserv[e]. America has devolved into a colonoscopy of it's citizens. Think about that. They're not trying to find cancer, they're implanting it.
Reply · · about an hour ago
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Not One O Us
Bill Whittle asks who the real traitors among us are: "Quite possibly Bill Whittle’s most powerful video ever:"
Sunday, June 15, 2014
The Memory Hole Leads To A Real Hole
Roger L. Simon » America, the Headless Horseman: "This is a moment when we need a Churchill and what we have is the man who sent Churchill’s bust home — a nowhere man whose only demonstrable skill is fund-raising. (In that way, however, he was even outdone by Abu Bakr himself who evidently snatched several hundred million for his cause from Mosul banks in one day.)RTWT. Read More......
Today, on Twitter, a veteran named J. R. Salzman tweeted: “I did not get an arm blown off in Baghdad so you could sit on your ass and watch Iraq fall, @BarackObama. I did my job. DO YOUR JOB.” It got retweeted over 2600 times and climbing. It’s easy to see why.
Imagine, if you will, what it would have been like if Barack Obama had been president during 9/11, not George W. Bush. We might be under Sharia law by now. What a joke that would be on all the paleo-feminists on college campuses complaining about micro-agressions and other PC illusions. They’d be walking around in head coverings, if they still had heads."
Thursday, June 12, 2014
COTY on Iraq
American Training Personnel Evacuating Iraqi Airbase at Balad After Looting $429 Million & More Gold Bullion From Mosul Central Bank, ISIS Is Now "The Richest Terror Force In the World":
"116 I'm surprised Obama didn't keep the Americans there and use 'ransoming' them as a way to get more terrorists out of gitmo.
Posted by: Bevel Lemelisk at June 12, 2014 03:49 PM (DxSU2)"That's definitely the "Comment of the Year" doncha' think?
Did I forget to mention that the terrorist leader who engineered the takeover of Mosul was if not released from Gitmo probably at least released from an Iraqi prison camp? Read More......
Mission Accomplished
Obama’s “Mission Accomplished” Moment | Power Line: "The crisis in the Middle East is way too serious for political opportunism. On the other hand, the Democrats have engaged in nothing but political opportunism with regard to that region since 2003. So why not point out that we are experiencing Barack Obama’s “Mission Accomplished” moment? Has an American president ever been so clueless about the state of the world?"
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
It Would Seem That O Duce Was Correct That He Had Al Qaeda On The Run...
Instapundit » Blog Archive » OBAMA DIDN’T LOSE IRAQ, HE GAVE IT AWAY: White House worried as militants take Iraqi cities. The…: "Obama gave up on the status of forces negotiations because he was in a hurry to skedaddle. Now there’s a good chance that Iraq — which was stable and doing comparatively well in 2008 — will be taken over by Islamists. Then, of course, there are the debacles in Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan. . . .
UPDATE: Iraqi Insurgents Capture Northern Cities, Move Toward Baghdad.
ANOTHER UPDATE: US and UK speak of deep concern as al-Qaeda take swathes of northern Iraq, sparking a mass exodus of civilians."... toward Baghdad that is... Read More......
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Friday, June 6, 2014
It's All Booosh's Fault...
Vodafone: governments use secret cables to tap phones - Telegraph: "Government agencies are able to listen to phone conversations live and even track the location of citizens without warrants using secret cables connected directly to network equipment, admits Vodafone today.... and Hussein Milhouse is only too happy to destroy his political enemies with it. Read More......
The company said that secret wires have been connected to its network and those belonging to competitors, giving government agencies the ability to tap in to phone and broadband traffic. In many countries this is mandatory for all telecoms companies, it said"
Thursday, June 5, 2014
God Help Us All
Moonbattery » Roadside America: "One more from Tactical Firearms in Katy, Texas:"
Oh, and did I forget to mention that this is the putative
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Hello, NSA? This Is Barack Calling...
Instapundit » Blog Archive » JACLYN CASHMAN: Hillary’s secret ‘lunch’ with prez raises questions. “Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdah…: "Also: Chuck Todd: W.H. Caught ‘Flat-Footed’ by Bergdahl Response. Don’t they even read Rolling Stone? Oh, who am I kidding? Nobody reads Rolling Stone. But if they had, Michael Hastings could have filled them in. You know, before he died.Read More......
Related: “Wonder how long it is before oppo on outspoken members of Bergdahl’s platoon starts popping up.” How long does it take for Valerie Jarrett to call the NSA? Then launder through Journolisters. . . ."
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Oof
Instapundit » Blog Archive » TRADING PRIVATE BERGDAHL: A brutal spoof poster from Mad Magazine. UPDATE: “If I’ve lost Ma…: "TRADING PRIVATE BERGDAHL: A brutal spoof poster from Mad Magazine."
He must not want to talk about the V.A. really, really bad. Either that or he's so foreign he's actually from Mars... Read More......
Did I Forget To Mention Stray Voltage?
Ace of Spades HQ: "I can't help but think that Obama needed this deal now -- remember, the Taliban have been pushing this deal for two years, so it's not like they were going to pull back this deal any time soon -- because he needed some "stray voltage" to keep the VA scandal out of the headlines.Read More......
If you forget, "stray voltage" is David Plouffe's term for any story or meme, whether helpful or harmful, which gets the nation talking about something Obama would prefer talking about."
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Deniable Intimidation
Instapundit » Blog Archive » MORE MCCARTHYISM, THIS TIME IN DETROIT: Public letter to Emma Howland-Bolton, teacher at Detroit pu…: "MORE MCCARTHYISM, THIS TIME IN DETROIT: Public letter to Emma Howland-Bolton, teacher at Detroit public schools, regarding threats of violence and death by protesters under her organization.Read More......
As Richard Fernandez has said: “It is impossible to understand the politics of the Left without grasping that it is all about deniable intimidation.”"
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