06 Friday Mar 2020
Posted in News and Notes
≈ Comments Off on Robots Spray Poison on City! Thousands Dead!
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“These robots are fighting the coronavirus in China by disinfecting hospitals, taking temperatures, and preparing meals”
I like my slightly sensationalized headline better.
06 Friday Mar 2020
Posted in News and Notes
≈ Comments Off on Confirmation Friday!
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Yesterday, I quipped: “Like a deadly virus, but to infect everything and everyone. The sorcerors couldn’t stand being away:” I’m not the only one drawing the correlation; Zerohedge noticed too.
The coronavirus is now exposing a far more deadly disease: Namely, the poisonous brew of easy money, cheap debt, sweeping financialization and unbridled speculation that has been injected into the American economy by the Fed and Washington politicians.
…
So both a renewed financial and economic crisis and an abrupt change of course lie dead ahead. The 30-year era of False Prosperity is over.
Accordingly, the Turbulent Twenties have begun. This will be a decade when the chickens come home to roost. It will be a time when the cans of delay and denial may no longer be kicked down the road to tomorrow.
To the contrary, the 2020s will mark an era when today’s economic and political fantasies are crushed by America’s accumulated due bills.
Bubbles will be burst. Speculators will get carried out on their shields. Easy money wealth will evaporate. Fiscal trauma will ensue. The national joy ride will end.
The decade of reckoning that lies ahead is rooted first and foremost in the fecklessly incurred mega-debts of the private and public sectors alike. Together they have soared to the staggering sum of $75 trillion.
That’s 5X more than the $14 trillion outstanding three decades ago.
Even Yahoo! Finance has open eyes: “Liquidity Concerns Build as Key Market Stress Indicator Surges”
Given the massive electronic paper printing of late, is this a crisis of liquidity drying up? Or is it a drought? We may soon find out.
06 Friday Mar 2020
Posted in Legal/Political Columns
≈ Comments Off on As I Suspected
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Have you ever noticed that for all their partisan bluster politicians are loath to do anything substantive to harm each other or interfere in schemes not directly involving them? Why is this? Science may have the answer.
IT MIGHT BE time to reconsider what it means to call someone a “rat.”
Previous research has shown the much-maligned rodents assist comrades in need, as well as remember individual rats that have helped them—and return the favor.
Now, a new study builds on this evidence of empathy, revealing that domestic rats will avoid harming other rats.
In the study, published March 5 in the journal Current Biology, rats were trained to pull levers to get a tasty sugar pellet. If the lever delivered a mild shock to a neighbor, several of the rats stopped pulling that lever and switched to another.
“Tasty sugar pellet” – the pizza parties we’ve all heard about- Oh, wait. They’re talking about literal Rodentia Rattus… Well, I’m sure the general principles are the same.
06 Friday Mar 2020
Posted in News and Notes
≈ Comments Off on COVID-19: A Confirming Study
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The other week, I mentioned the effects of the Corona Bug over at TPC.
Let’s get this out of the way, too: while it appears the nCoV19 can infect nearly anyone (it’s a cold virus strain, BTW), it also appears to be much more dangerous to Asians. And, from what I’m hearing, it really savages the Asian male population. But, don’t take my word for it:
The observation is tentatively confirmed by Chinese biologists:
We also noticed that the only Asian donor (male) has a much higher ACE2-
expressing cell ratio than white and African American donors (2.50% vs. 0.47%
of all cells). This might explain the observation that the new Coronavirus
pandemic and previous SARS-Cov pandemic are concentrated in the Asian
area.
Again, according to official stats, most people are recovering.
05 Thursday Mar 2020
Posted in Legal/Political Columns
≈ Comments Off on Dotard Elders and Cloddish Youth
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Derek Thompson, a millennial, takes aim at the trio of elderly gents in the presidential pony show contest. Trump, Biden, and Sanders are old, that’s certain. However, the ending of his article doesn’t help the cause of sprightly discontent:
Finally, the most important challenge before the U.S. and the world—climate change—is profoundly intergenerational. Solving it requires a farsighted approach to diplomacy, invention, and technological deployment that a creaky old country will simply never master. This crisis urgently requires the input and ideas of the generations that will be most affected by it. If government of the elderly, by the elderly, and for the elderly will not perish from the Earth, the rest of us might suffer instead.
The ancient plutocrats can’t remember their names; this will not alleviate the unicorn epidemic. I’ve thought of a Gen-Xer who could potentially bail the nation out if elected. He’d loath running and you probably wouldn’t vote for him anyway.
05 Thursday Mar 2020
Posted in Legal/Political Columns
≈ Comments Off on Is Anyone at the Pentagram Competent or Honest?
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Yet another “contractor” caught double-dealing.
A military linguist was charged with providing classified information, including the real names of people spying for the U.S., to a Lebanese man connected to the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group.
In what would be a major security breach, officials said the linguist, Mariam Taha Thompson, 61 years old, who works under contract for the Defense Department, transmitted the highly classified data while serving at a Special Operations Task Force site in Erbil, Iraq.
I love the rehashing of the half-truth news from two months ago that the people have completely forgotten. Whatever, uh, did that guy make it across the volcano?
05 Thursday Mar 2020
Posted in News and Notes
≈ Comments Off on Return of REPO BUCKS!!!
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Like a deadly virus, but to infect everything and everyone. The sorcerors couldn’t stand being away:
Big banks’ demand for central bank cash remained very strong on Wednesday, leading the Federal Reserve Bank to add a fresh $100 billion to the financial system.
The Fed added the money via what’s called an overnight repurchase agreement operation, or repo. Eligible banks, called primary dealers, sought $111.48 billion from the central bank, exceeding the $100 billion cap the Fed places on overnight repos.
When a $100 BILLION!!! (OVERNIGHT!) falls short.
04 Wednesday Mar 2020
Posted in Legal/Political Columns
≈ Comments Off on Anyone Else…
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…would already be in the custody of the US Marshals for these statements, made by Chuck Schumer.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday warned Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh that they will “pay the price” if they take a position he disagrees with in deciding a case that addresses the credentials required for doctors who perform abortions.
“I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price,” Schumer told a cheering crowd of abortion-rights advocates in front of the Supreme Court.
“You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions,” the New York Democrat added.
And, considering that he’s in favor of murdering children, how do we know his judicial threats were rhetorical? Under that new Bill I mentioned the other day, if it were already law, Schumer arguably made himself a domestic “terrorist.” Whirlwind, indeed.
UPDATE: Roberts returns fire:
Roberts replied in his remarkable written statement, obtained by Fox News: “This morning, Senator Schumer spoke at a rally in front of the Supreme Court while a case was being argued inside. Senator Schumer referred to two Members of the Court by name and said he wanted to tell them that ‘You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You will not know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.'”
Roberts continued: “Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous. All Members of the Court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.”
Schumer spokesman Justin Goodman quickly responded by accusing Roberts of bias, further escalating the confrontation. Goodman insisted that Schumer was addressing Republican lawmakers when he said a “price” would be paid — even though Schumer had explicitly named Kavanaugh and Gorsuch.
Does the contempt power extend out to the steps and the sidewalk?
UPDATE: OR, for the more cosmopolitan set, I hear some nut is about to walk a wire over a volcano…
04 Wednesday Mar 2020
Posted in Other Columns
≈ Comments Off on Happi Grammer deY
When one first starts out as a writer, of any kind, there is the temptation to explore official-sounding or looking courses of training and study. Most of these come in the form of on-line services ready and eager to part a budding novelist or journalist with his last dollar. Interestingly, some of the best resources and advice are available for free. Regardless, the email solicitations come daily, even after one is semi-established, published, and moderately competent. I got one of those today, reminding me that March 5th is National Grammar Day. I checked, and it really is.
So, happi gramer dey? There out to get all of they’re word right over their: redding; righting and the oxferd coma;
04 Wednesday Mar 2020
Posted in Legal/Political Columns
≈ Comments Off on Calling on Democracy
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Marine Le Pen pleas for an open vote. Will those who pay dearest lip-service to the notion of popular governance heed her? France will find out.
“Our country is experiencing a veritable submersion, yes a submersion, I dare to use that term, because it describes the reality of the unbroken wave that is crashing upon our cities, our towns, and now, because of your irresponsible policy of placing migrants in the rural areas, even the smallest villages,” said Le Pen.
She slammed establishment politicians for trying to make discussion of immigration taboo and demonizing dissidents even as a giant demographic displacement of people was taking place and accused them of “treason” for failing to “defend their people.”
“But above all, without ever consulting the people, they organized the streams of legal migration and tolerated illegal immigration,” she added, saying this was driven by “the globalist ideology that guides them inexorably.”
Strong words from a strong woman. Elle devrait être au bureau, maintenant.
PERRIN LOVETT 