Freezing In The Dark: Preview Edition

Gas Prices Under President Obama in Pictures | The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.: "Fact: President Barack Obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu wants to “figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” At the time he made the statement, gas cost $7 – $8 a gallon in Europe.
Fact: Since taking office, President Obama’s entire energy agenda has made a gallon of gas more expensive:

Immediately after taking office in 2009, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, canceled 77 leases for oil and gas drilling in Utah.
The EPA announced new rules mandating the use of 36 billion gallons worth of renewable fuels (like ethanol) by 2020."

And exactly what part of this don't you understand?:

Premium is now over $3 in my neighborhood -- how about yours?

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A Drive Through Your Future

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Introduction to the Perestroika Deception

You might remember my recent post highlighting a lecture by the Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov.

Then there's what Vladimir Bukovsky has to say in "The Power of Memory and Acknowledgement":

Because we didn’t win the Cold War, it isn’t over. We were given a chance to win in 1991. To do it we needed a Nuremburg trial, but not a trial of people. In a country like the Soviet Union, if you tried to find all the guilty, you would end up with 19 million people, and who needs another Gulag? This isn’t about punishing individuals. It’s about judging the system. I spent a lot of time trying to persuade the Yeltsin government to conduct such a trial. Yeltsin finally said, “No.” The reason he had to say no was the enormous pressure he felt from the West not to have such a trial. I’ve seen the cables he received from all over the world, mostly from Russian embassies, ex-plaining that local politicians and governments were vehemently against any trials or disclosure of crimes or opening of archives. Finally Yeltsin just gave in.

Because of documents I recovered, we now understand why the West was so against putting the communist system on trial. It is not only that the West was infiltrated by the Soviets much deeper than we ever thought, but also that there was ideological collaboration between left-wing parties in the West and the Soviet Union. This ideological collaboration ran very
deep.

For example—and this brings us back to the European Union—in the middle of the 1980s the European left parties talked to Gorbachev and explained to him that because it is difficult to organize socialism in one country, it should be done in all of Europe at once. Gorbachev agreed. They launched a project called “Common European Home,” which was, in essence, the precursor to the European Union.

RTWT. But what does he know as a Soviet dissident? Why he must be crazy since he was a Soviet "psychiatric patient" right?

Welcome to the "Perestroika Deception":

The Cold War is over and Communism is a non-issue for most Americans. Communism is such a non-issue that Communist plans to undermine American society have proceeded for years virtually undetected and unhindered. Recent events have aided this process, with President Obama's aggressive drive toward Socialism fitting neatly into decades of Communist strategy.[2]

That long and patient strategy of deception was developed in the halls of the KGB, and dutifully carried out by Communist subversives in the United States. Prominent KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn has called it the "perestroika deception."[3]

According to KGB documents published by Golitsyn, "perestroika" and "glasnost" were always intended from the beginning to serve as a media ploy to deceive the West into lowering its defenses to the point where Soviet goals could proceed unchallenged. Of Golitsyn's 194 predictions, 139 had been fulfilled as of 1993.[4]

It's easy to be a prole. It's much harder to open your eyes.

Financial crisis? We are indeed living in a crisis -- but it's much worse than you think.

Oh never mind, who's going to be on "Dancing with the Stars" today?

UPDATE: Video added of Bukovsky lecturing at the Cato Institute. Below is a short version and the full hour long version is here.

Bukovsky was also involved in "The Soviet Story". Oh yes -- how could we forget that?:

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Even See B.S. Gets It

And nothing predicts a reality freight train better than see B.S. getting it. Because that means it's far, far too late to get off the tracks.

60 Minutes: Fiscal day of reckoning is here | The Right Scoop: "I know this problem is bigger than Obama, but geez, how can the MSM do fabulous reports like this and not see that the whole trillion dollar stimulus was just a load of crap. It did nothing more than grow our debt, and all the money that was given to state and local governments has now run out. Just like GM, after taking tax payer money several times and finally having to go bankrupt to fix their core problems, state and local governments will have to do the same. It’s ridiculous that they just continue to let Obama and crew lie about this when the facts are staring them right in the face!"

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But Don't Raise The Retirement Age!

We wouldn't want real science so get done now would we? Not when we can spend our lives on drunken vacations instead:

CERN Research Budget Gets Cut: "European particle physics research center CERN located near Geneva, Switzerland has gotten its budget cut by 6% over the next five years. Europe no longer has the money to fund it.

CERN's budget gets the axe as Europe pisses away all its money on climate research.
It was just a question of time. With so much money being pissed away on bogus climate research and save-the-world projects, eventually you run out of funds to pay for real science and research.

How many billions have been poured into researching the non-problem of climate change? The IPCC? Hansen’s GISS surface station folly? Green subsidies? The list is endless."

And I'll bet about a hundred dollars that you were unaware of this:

An experiment designed to investigate the link between solar activity and the climate has its first results in the bag. At the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco today, Joachim Curtius presented data from the first runs of the CLOUD (‘cosmics leaving outdoor droplets’) experiment at CERN – the European particle physics lab outside of Geneva.

The experiment has a long and bumpy history. The idea is to test the theory that cosmic rays spur the formation of particles in the air that nucleate clouds, in turn making skies cloudier and the planet cooler. Researchers have noted a dearth of sunspots (which is linked to more cosmic rays) during the ‘little ice age’ of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and a peak in sunspots (linked to a drop in cosmic rays) during the late 1980s, when global cloudiness dropped by about 3% (see Nature‘s feature on the project). No one knows how big this effect might be, and the idea that it might account for a big chunk of the warming over the last century is highly controversial.

CLOUD uses a particle beam from CERN as a stand-in for cosmic rays, and fires them through an ultra-clean steel chamber filled with select atmospheric gases, to see if and how particles that could nucleate clouds are formed. Project head Jasper Kirkby proposed the experiment back in 1998. But it had a hard time getting off the ground – perhaps in part because Kirkby received bad press for emphasizing the importance of cosmic rays to climate change (see this story from the National Post). CLOUD finally got going in 2006, and they started work with the full kit in November 2009 (here’s a CERN video update about that).

The results haven’t yet been published, so Curtius declined to discuss the details. But the important thing is that the project is working – they have seen sulphuric acid and water combine to make particles when blasted by the CERN beam, for example, in a way that matches predictions of the most recent models. The data should help the team to quantify how much of an impact the Sun is having on climate within 2-3 years, Curtius says – though there are a lot more pieces of the puzzle to fill in.

You can watch the most recent lecture by Kirkby at CERN here. WTWT -- you will quickly learn you have been soaked in lies by the oligarchical collectivists.

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Imperious

Instapundit » Blog Archive » WALTER OLSON: Rise Of An Imperial City, Cont’d. “Even as most of the country remains mired in seri…: "WALTER OLSON: Rise Of An Imperial City, Cont’d. “Even as most of the country remains mired in serious housing recession, the capital has bounced back smartly . . . . The rise has been so dramatic that for the first time in five years, the average asking rent in D.C. is higher than in New York City, according to CoStar and a new report of third-quarter activity by commercial real estate firm Cassidy Turley.” Plus this: “Even as veteran reporters elsewhere scrounge for work, talent and money continue to pour into Washington’s specialized news-gathering business, most particularly the sorts of newsletters that (for a subscription price in the thousands of dollars) will bring you fresh and fine-grained news of the doings of federal regulatory agencies in fields like energy, pharmaceuticals, securities and telecommunications.”"

But don't worry. Those Tea Party types are just innumerate hicks. Ummm, hmmm...

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Joblessness Made Simple

If you can't figure it out after watching this you never will. Skip ahead a bit until Stockman comes on of course.

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Let Them Eat Pie

The Simple, Two-Color Pie-Chart That Perfectly Illustrates the Fiscal Suicide of the United States of America: "Democrats can blame Bush, Greenspan, Reagan, Millard Fillmore and James Madison. But this year's deficit is on their heads alone.

Karl Denninger is using this chart to speak some truth to power: in a nutshell, the Democrats' era of vast unfunded, unconstitutional social engineering experiments -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Department of Education, the Department of Labor and hundreds of other bureaucracies -- is drawing to a close, like it or not.

The Pelosi-Obama-Reid Democrats just hastened their demise."

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The King O Junk

RTWT:

Belmont Club » Helplessly Hoping: "William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection argues that the latest Wikileak has shoved President Obama into Jimmy Carter territory. The leaks have shown him to be completely impotent, unable to even protect his own secrets or preserve his allies from embarrassment. The hard Left can push him around and take his money in a political dance apache. The Asia Times makes the same observation, but dryly notes that the loss of respect — AKA the failure of political deterrence — can cause much more serious international consequences. Barack Obama’s allies may already be starting to Finlandize themselves, convinced if proof were lacking, that Obama can’t even keep the deal he won’t honor secret. It is the political capstone of a meltdown. Obama’s credibility — and by extension America’s — has been downgraded to junk bond status."

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5 Sentences

I need to find me one of these:

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The Ben Bernank

Drop Everything And Watch This! ROFL!

Just wow...

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Hayek vs. Keynes: The Sequel

I don't know how to recommend this highly enough. I implore you to spend the 10 minutes.

Then go here and expand your horizons to a 2 page summary of "The Road To Serfdom" written by Hayek himself. Surely you can survive that?

And did you know that a Reader's Digest version of it exists as well. Can that be too much to ask of you?

But Reader's Digest is gone isn't it?

And only "txt u l8tr" remains.

Sorry. Has my contempt for Gramsci become noticeable at last?

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Out Of The Ditch ... And Over The Cliff

Ramirez on the ditch analogy - Hot Air: "Barack Obama has a certain fondness for the analogy of the car in a ditch, which apparently comes with lots of optional accessories, like Slurpees, lattes, and so on. Michael Ramirez decides to take a test drive with a car analogy of his own, and the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for Investors Business Daily discovers that it’s a clunker after all:"

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Short And Sweet

Get out and vote tomorrow today if you haven't already done so. I have already early voted of course ;)

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Drop Everything And Read This Before The Election

This is the best very short course on Stanley Kurtz' new book "Radical-in-Chief" that you're likely to read before the election. I'm far enough into reading Kurtz' book that I already can't recommend it highly enough.

I think the Strib is now regretting letting this particular piece of Samizdata through their firewall and will probably be taking it down soon. So I have reproduced it in its entirety here if you use the "Read more" link.

Katherine Kersten: Obama has been hiding his real agenda

It sounds far-fetched, but the president is the “Radical-in-Chief.”

By KATHERINE KERSTEN, Star Tribune

Last update: October 23, 2010 - 4:51 PM

In the heady days of 2008, Americans warmed quickly to the prospect of Barack Obama as our 44th president. Obama promised to be just what our fractured nation needed — a non-ideological, post-partisan consensus builder, guided by mainstream pragmatic thinking.

When the story broke about Obama’s relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright — his pastor for 20 years, a “black-power” radical and a fan of Fidel Castro — we raised our eyebrows. We did the same when we heard of Obama’s longtime connection to Bill Ayers, an unrepentant former Weather Underground terrorist. But Obama blew these relationships off as exaggerated or unimportant, and we trusted his assurances.

Now a new book by Stanley Kurtz — a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a Harvard PhD — reveals why we should have probed the disconnect when we had a chance. Americans increasingly sense we were sold a bill of goods, and Kurtz explains why in “Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism.” Our president isn’t what he claims to be, says Kurtz. Obama’s plummeting approval ratings, and the electoral tsunami about to hit Democrats, reflect voters’ sense of betrayal.

In fact, Kurtz goes further, and makes an electrifying charge: Obama has purposely disguised what he believes, and is actively seeking to mislead the American people about his agenda. Obama, says Kurtz, is a socialist. He believes — not in state ownership — but in a savvier version of socialism that seeks to transform and undermine American capitalism through ever-expanding government control; irreversible entitlements; and a metastasizing public sector.

I know this sounds far-fetched. Even Kurtz says he didn’t expect it when he began his research. But the more we learn about “community organizing” — which Obama has called the “best education” he ever had — the more we see that Wright and Ayers were clues to a below-the-radar radical network that has shaped both the president’s worldview and the deceptive tactics he uses to disguise it.

Americans were lulled into ignoring Obama’s background because they think of “community organizers” as well-intentioned do-gooders. In fact, the father of community organizing was Saul Alinsky, a far-left icon and the author of the 1971 book, “Rules for Radicals.” Alinsky taught that community organizing is about accumulating the raw power necessary for the radical transformation of America’s economic and social structure.

Alinsky knew that the American people are not ready for socialism. To advance radical goals, he said, activists must pose as pragmatists and work within the system. While New Left radicals were rioting at the 1968 Democratic convention, Alinskyite community organizers were working behind the scenes, infiltrating Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty and funneling money to their far-left organizations. In dealing with “enemies” Alinsky was ruthless. He advocated the “politics of personal destruction”: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

Obama began his career as a community organizer in Chicago in 1985. His teachers were Alinsky disciples, and he immersed himself in their ideas and methods. For years, Obama ran workshops on Alinsky’s methodology, worked with Alinskyite organizations, and served on radical boards.

Obama got his start in politics in 1996, when Illinois state Sen. Alice Palmer hand-picked him to succeed her. Kurtz describes Palmer as a “hard Marxist,” who had praised the Soviet Union in the communist People’s Daily World. Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn — another notorious Weather Underground alum — hosted an announcement party at their home. During his campaign, Obama promised to bring the spirit of community organizing to his new position.

In 2004, after Obama became a U.S. senator, Michelle Obama confirmed his Alinskyite intentions. “Barack is not a politician first and foremost,” she said. “He’s a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change.”

Obama’s immersion in socialist organizing, and his mastery of the tactics of infiltration and disguise, explain both his agenda and modus operandi as president. He has relentlessly advanced the incremental strategy of his mentors — vastly expanding state control in the health care, energy, environmental and financial sectors. Cronies from his community organizing days have advised his campaign, crafted his grassroots strategy and lobbied for his programs, according to Kurtz. We see Alinsky’s ghost in Obama’s tactical ruthlessness, and his ferocious, unprecedented demonization of opponents.

Over the past two years, Americans have grown increasingly angry that Obama’s governance has differed so starkly from his campaign rhetoric. Kurtz reveals that Obama was intentionally deceiving us all along.

Katherine Kersten is a Twin Cities writer and speaker. Reach her at kakersten@gmail.com.

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The Chinese Professor

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We're #15!

Inaction has consequences:

24 Scary Facts About the U.S. Economy Crossing Wall Street: "Here are 24 scary facts about the U.S. economy:

#1 Ten years ago, the United States was ranked number one in average wealth per adult. In 2010, the United States has fallen to seventh.

#2 The United States once had the highest proportion of young adults with post-secondary degrees in the world. Today, the U.S. has fallen to 12th.

#3 In the 2009 “prosperity index” published by the Legatum Institute, the United States was ranked as just the ninth most prosperous country in the world. That was down five places from 2008.

#4 In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th.

#5 The economy of India is projected to become larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2050.

#6 One prominent economist now says that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040."

Three F's and we're out. (That would be Football, Facebook and Fraud.)

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This Is It

You might have seen the chart of actual unemployment vs what Obama predicted with the "stimulus" boondoggle. It turns out you ain't seen nuttin':

Ace of Spades HQ: "You can see that from the late 60's up until 2000 federal spending was pretty much a straight line relative to the median household income. Then jumps to a new higher growth rate around 2002 (most likely due to 9/11). But look at what happened in 2007 when the Democrats took over the House.

Ho-ly crap!

Not only did federal spending shoot up but median income actually fell. This isn't just new unsustainable growth - this is an effin death spiral where spending has become completely decoupled from people's incomes. This is the kind of graph you see in engineering when a system is heading into failure. A few more years of this and we will be in Greek bankruptcy territory.

So if you're looking for a single chart that crystallizes the current greatest danger to the US and why the Tea Party has appeared, this is it."

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Cancelled

This is one of the most concise summaries of the current "economic" disaster you will ever read -- so take the two minutes:

Bill Buckler Discusses The Last Price Standing Of "True Money", Answers The Only Question Relevant To Gold Bugs | zero hedge: "'Before it can be exchanged, wealth must be created. Wealth cannot be created out of thin air. By definition, an economic good is “scarce”. If it were not, there would be no such thing as economics or exchange. Neither would be necessary because no effort or choice in the face of alternatives would be required in order to provide the GOODS which further our lives. Before we can talk about money and the VITAL role it performs, we must stress this point. Money is NOT wealth, it is the means by which wealth is exchanged amongst those who produce it. Paper money is not suited to this function.' So what is the only rational investment in times in which money's role is so often confused by pretty much everyone? 'Ninety-seven percent of all existing Treasury debt has been created since August 15, 1971! Ninety-three percent of it has been created since Mr Volcker “saved” the paper Dollar in late 1979! Please note that the gain in Treasuries and the loss in the US Dollar almost exactly cancel out. Please note also that even the biggest gain in these paper markets fades into insignificance against Gold’s rise."And here is the answer all the "gold bugs" have been waiting for: "The paper money “price” of Gold will last as long as the attempt to make paper money “work” lasts. In the end, Gold will no longer have a “price” because it has reverted to its role as MONEY. Whenever and wherever that happens, that nation can return to the production of wealth - rather than “money”."

Then click through and RTWT which is still pretty concise. And very enlightening...

UPDATE: This is quite extraordinary also. A perfect companion piece.

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The Big Bang

Debunking The Great Myth Of US Consumer Deleveraging, Or Why The US Economy Will End Not With A Whimper But A Bang | zero hedge: "Putting numbers to the data confirms that of the over $600 billion in deleveraging, only $20 billion or so of it was voluntary, with the balance occurring due to continuously irresponsible borrowing practices, in which US consumers spend, spend, spend themselves into oblivion only to be cut off cold turkey, instead of entering a slow deleveraging rehabilitation which would allow them to shift into the transition to a new creditless normal far easier.

The last observation is key as it has rather startling implications to David Rosenberg's theme of the New Frugal Normal. It would appear consumers do not, in fact, moderate their spending while still in possession of credit (regardless of its cost) - quite the contrary: they accelerate spending until the charge off threshold at the lender is breached, and all credit is cut off, also resulting in a collapse in a creditor's FICO score, cutting him or her off completely from future (at least near term) credit access. Thus what is occurring at the end of a typical consumer credit lifespan, is not a whimper but a massive bang."

UPDATE: And more on Washington's Blog. This is a RTWT.

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