Obama Blasts Intelligence Communtiy for Christmas Bomber

Here we go again blaming the intel people.

Obama has demanded answers on why the U.S. intelligence community never pieced together information that could have prevented Abdulmutallab, charged with trying to destroy a Detroit-bound airliner, from ever getting on the plane. Obama called the situation "totally unacceptable" when he met with reporters Tuesday and put his top intelligence officials on notice that he wanted changes.

Administration officials have spent the last week poring over reams of data, looking for failings that allowed Abdulmutallab to board the Northwest Airlines flight from Nigeria by way of Amsterdam. Officials have been sending details to Brennan, who has emerged at the center of the review.

In other words the Obama people are again checking the work of the CIA and other assets when it might be the fault of bureaucracy and turf-protection. If they come to the conclusion that our intelligence operations is just a big mess and try to change that then I hope they succeed. If it is just a "blame the CIA" sort of thing then it is yet another failure of the White House. Especially when CIA guys are now dying in foreign wars.

Politico Carries Obama's Water by Comparing Shoe Bomber to Christmas Day Bomber

This is the kind of slanted reporting that the MSM loves to put out to defend the guy that they got elected to office.

Eight years ago, a terrorist bomber’s attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner was thwarted by a group of passengers, an incident that revealed some gaping holes in airline security just a few months after the attacks of Sept. 11. But it was six days before President George W. Bush, then on vacation, made any public remarks about the so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, and there were virtually no complaints from the press or any opposition Democrats that his response was sluggish or inadequate.

The problem is that it was just a few months after 9/11 and no one expected intelligence gathering and enhanced airport security to have improved so quickly. It has now been 8 years since the Shoe Bomber and we still need blind luck to thwart a terrorist attack. It is such a scary proposition and opens those same old wounds people had in the past. After all, if the true hero of this affair, Jasper Schuringa, was just a few minutes too late that plane could have blown up over Detroit.

So Americans want Obama to call a press conference the next day just to calm people down. A "be vigilant" speech where he implores Americans to keep their eyes open and remember that Al-Quida still wants to kill them would have been perfect. I mean if Obama showed even a little bit of the fire that he showed the Cambridge, Mass. Police Department people would have cheered him.

The problem is that Obama has a credibility gap when it comes to terrorism. I mean he has called them "man-caused disasters." He has his AG trying to try them in a federal court a few blocks away from where they killed so many people. He is also stupidly pushing to convict the CIA interrogators that may have successfully prevented future 9/11s.

The bad thing is that Obama doesn't seem soft of terror because he is still serving up Hellfire missiles in Pakistan to any Al-Quida scumbag that shows his face. But America just doesn't trust him to keep them safe in the same way they trusted Bush a few months after 9/11 it is just that simple.

Captain Picard now a Knight

It will be Sir Patrick Stewart to those trekkies out there.

"This is an honor that embraces those actors, directors and creative teams who have in these recent years helped fill my life with inspiration, companionship and sheer fun," said 69-year-old Stewart, who recently returned to the British stage following a long career in Hollywood that included playing Professor Charles Xavier in three "X-Men" films.

Another Terror Plot? Thanks for Telling Us Homeland Security Department

Why wasn't there a terrorist alert issued on this kind of stuff.

A man tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that could have caused an explosion in a case bearing chilling similarities to the terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Wow, that kind of sounds like this thwarted terrorist attack on Christmas doesn't it? Maybe it was a dry run? Who knows? I'm glad we have Homeland Security on this with their so-called "clockwork execution."

Weird Vehicle Spotted at the NASDAQ

It seems that the threat of terrorism has crept back into America. It seems that this was just a false alarm but maybe we need a little more Bush era scare tactics to prevent another tragedy.

The Nasdaq building in Times Square has been evacuated due to a suspicious vehicle parked outside, according to the New York Police Department. The whole area in Times Square area was cordoned off but the Nasdaq building was the only one evacuated, NYPD Detective Gina Sarubbi told MarketWatch.

Dave Barry is Still the King!

This has to be one of the funniest 2009 recaps I have ever read. This part was especially funny:

In other economic news, the CEO of GM resigns under pressure from the White House, which notes that it inherited the automobile crisis from the Bush administration. GM is now essentially a subsidiary of the federal government, which promises to use its legendary business and marketing savvy to get the crippled auto giant back on its feet, starting with an exciting new lineup of cars such as the Chevrolet Consensus, a ``green'' car featuring a compressed-soybean chassis, the world's first engine powered entirely by dew, and a 14,500-page owner's manual, accompanied by nearly 6,000 pages of amendments.

He forgot to write that the Chevy Consensus also costs $ 1 billion dollars and must be built entirely in Nebraska where it will be free to Nebraskans. That was all there just to get that all important Ben Nelson patronage vote.

Could Iran Go the Way of East Germany?

It sure seems that way according to this report.

Then there is the boycott of goods advertised on state-controlled television. People in line at markets whisper to other shoppers not to buy certain products that help to subsidise the Government’s broadcasting monopoly — and its version of events. The opposition has also called for boycotts on mobile phone companies that provide technology to the Government. It is impossible to assess the impact but it adds a critical economic component to the political confrontation.

They are even doing a pretty interesting twist on social networking by putting slogans on currency that denounces the regime. So anytime a person gets change you might get a cartoon picture of Ahmadinejoke or a "death to the dictator" scrawled on it in green pen. It is kind of like a friend request sent to everyone that receives a few bills in change for a purchase. That boycott thing needs to expand outwards as well.

If these kids can somehow turn the army then you will see the fall of the regime in just a short 30 years. It would be so nice to see the nuclear issue solved by the rise of a democratic Persian nation.

Top Climate Official Has some Questionable Ties

It seems that not even the UN's "top climate official" Dr Rajendra Pachauri is without some questionable ties to the whole "climate change industry."

He and Teri insist, however, that all the money he receives for his services, such as 100,000 euros from Deutsche Bank and $80,000 from Toyota Motors are paid not to him personally but to his institute (and that he receives no fee from the Chicago Climate Exchange). Teri denies that it does not publish its accounts simply by stating that its accounts are supplied to the relevant tax authorities.

I wonder how much this Teri group is paying this guy for his "services." I bet he would fire back the same thing that Gore did that he has some skin in the climate game. In other words if the world adopts the whole GDP smashing "climate change" agenda people like Pachauri and Al Gore might become quite rich.

The problem is that this whole set of data and UN people are now tainted. They look like guys who spin a bunch of scary stories about burglars in the neighborhood so that they can sell more alarm systems.

Losses at Freddie and Fannie Uncapped

I guess they have a direct lifeline to our wallets now. I would be willing to bet that the total amount sunk into these companies will never be known.

The Obama administration, which has been using the GSEs to stabilize the housing market by reducing their underwriting standards, upped the ante to $200 billion each. Now the administration has thrown in the towel completely, and dropped a large lump of coal in each taxpayer’s stocking—it won’t even try to estimate the total losses of Fannie and Freddie.

This is Not How You Talk to the Owner of Our Money: Obama Shouts at Wen Jiabao at Copenhagen

I'm not sure how correct this Die Welt article is but if true it shows that Obama really needs to get some sleep. The last thing in the world we want to do now is to be shouting at the Red Chinese. I mean they are holding the deed to our entire economy and could cripple us financially if they want to.

According to rumors in the Bella Center, US President Barack Obama at about 11 PM, had impatiently asked to speak with Wen Jiabao in order to advance the discussion. But Obama had to wait. Wen, who, it was rumored, had rarely left his hotel room, could not be found. Finally, the US delegation located him in a room set aside for negotiations. A visibly furious Obama, according to reports, stormed into the room. “Are you now ready to talk with me, Premier Wen?” he was reported to have shouted. “Are you now ready? Premier Wen, are you now ready to talk with me?” What a scene for a US president.

Wen was not alone in the room at the time when Obama quite literally burst into the room, according to participants. At the time, the Premier was in a conversation with India’s head of state, Mammohan Singh and South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma. Suddenly the group saw itself forced into a conversation with the US president.

At the insistence of the impatient Obama, this unplanned and coincidentally-assembled negotiating round and participants, agreed on a minimal compromise.

The first time I saw South Africa mentioned as a part of this wishy-washy accord I did a double take. You would figure it would be a statement given by the G8 nations with maybe Brazil thrown in for good measure. So South Africa was puzzling until I read this. I think President Zuma was just within shouting distance of Obama and got sucked into the accord as a seemingly innocent bystander.

I would be willing to bet that this meeting between India, China and South Africa was regarding mining or some other non-climate change matter and Obama just burst into room shouting "Where is Wen!!! Bring me Wen!!! When Wen? Wen now!!!" It's like a scene out of a movie.

Uh Oh, It Seems that Cosmic Rays and CFCs may Cause Global Warming and Not Carbon

This must be hell on earth for the whole Climate Change crowd. First the leaked emails showing that they have been cooking the data and now a paper saying that CFCs and Cosmic Rays might be the cause of warming and not CO2.

In his paper, Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy, shows how CFCs - compounds once widely used as refrigerants - and cosmic rays - energy particles originating in outer space - are mostly to blame for climate change, rather than carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. His paper, derived from observations of satellite, ground-based and balloon measurements as well as an innovative use of an established mechanism, was published online in the prestigious journal Physics Reports.

I wonder if the Climate Research scientists are going to ostracize Physics Reports because they dared to introduce this apostasy? I guess we have to blame the imminent death of polar bears on cosmic rays shooting toward the planet and from old refrigerators since carbon might not be the cause:

His conclusions are based on observations that from 1950 up to now, the climate in the Arctic and Antarctic atmospheres has been completely controlled by CFCs and cosmic rays, with no CO2 impact.

"Most remarkably, the total amount of CFCs, ozone-depleting molecules that are well-known greenhouse gases, has decreased around 2000," Lu said. "Correspondingly, the global surface temperature has also dropped. In striking contrast, the CO2 level has kept rising since 1850 and now is at its largest growth rate."

I think we should give trillions of dollars to the Third World right now so they can build a still to be invented cosmic ray blocker module at once. I mean think of the polar bears and those massive tidal waves swamping all coastal cities at the same time. What will Al Gore do with all those carbon offsets?

What the Hell is the CER Market?

This is probably the best primer I have ever read on the whole certificate of emission reduction (CER) market and how the money moves.

The Kyoto Protocol establishes a mechanism to certify these emission reductions called the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which establishes a bureaucratic process under the supervision of the UN to do this certification. The purpose of the CDM is to keep the process honest. Only certify emission reductions for projects that would have been built anyway and that would have had a greater carbon footprint if they had been built the way they would have been built.

Got that? You have a CER, with real cash value, as long as a UN organization will certify what you might have done, and the way you might have done it, if you had done it, and done it that way.

An interesting point brought up in the comments section is that this entire market is based off of the ability for the UN to certify these things. In other words they are the ones creating the demand and also taking care of the supply as well. They aren't backed with gold or the full faith and credit of the United States, or even a liar loan mortgage. They are backed with UN bureaucratic assumptions.

These UN assumptions are based on hypothetical dream world scenarios. For instance, if you wanted to build a steel mill in China you first think about how much carbon the thing would spew out if it were built on Narnia, Oz, Middle Earth, or Earth 1 and then you get a credit by reducing that amount in the real world.

So a Steel Mill built in Oz next to the Munchkinland staffed by the Lollipop Guild would spew out 1000 tons of CO2. Instead this Chinese businessman will build a steel mill in the real world that spews out 500 Tons of CO2 and get a credit for the difference. All he needs to do is bribe the right UN official and he can then sell 500 Tons of CO2 offsets for big cash.

Also Goldman Sachs or whomever will get a piece of both sides of the trade. Sounds like a good deal for everyone involved except for the tax payer that gets to pay a higher price for their government's participation in the scheme.

Build-A-Bear Joins the Global Warming Church: Aims Salvo Right at your Kids

It seems that Build-A-Bear Workshop is taking the climate change scare tactics and aims it directly at the tiny tots with their eyes all aglow.

Children of the world can look forward to priceless exchanges such as, “Oh my! Where will the polar bears live?” and my personal fave: “Where will the elves live?”

I suspect you’d like to think it can’t get any worse than that. Thus, it pains me to tell you that animated characters actually break into a discussion of satellite photos and that Mrs. Claus conducts a rather unscientific experiment involving ice cubes.

Needless-to-say, this constitutes brainwashing on the sleaziest and most sinister level. The good news is that this nonsense isn’t coming from our government this time and the rocky economy is our friend here. People, we have the means, if we have the will, to topple these charlatans who shamelessly prey on little children. So boycott Build-A-Bear. And, more importantly, tell the world why.

Yup, the warming scare mongers are aiming their propaganda directly at your kids. If these church of warming members want to get more Americans on board they need to talk up safe nuclear power like France and Japan have. Their goal should be to turn every coal power plant into a nuclear plant and lobby the EPA to change their permitting rules. Anything else is just advocating people to go back to living in the Middle Ages.

Instead they are trying the propaganda machine tactics by aiming it directly at kids. I can see little Jimmy saying "will all the elves drown?" The correct answer to that is "yes Jimmy, they will all drown because the Red Chinese hate pointy-eared people."

Law of Unintended Consequences: Health Care Edition

Now this would be an interesting thing to come to pass as a result of ObamaCare.

The insurance lobby is already so powerful that Democrats couldn't get the public option through now - what makes them think they'll be able to later, after they've given insurers 30 million additional customers, and required every last American to do business with them? The insurance companies are going to be to the 21st century what Standard Oil was to the 19th.

I can't think of a single thing in American History that 100% of Americans must buy or they will face a fine. Suddenly health insurance becomes one of those things. There will be a scramble to qualify so you don't get fined and end up going to jail for being a "non insurance buyer/tax evader."

I'm sure the insurance companies will make that point abundantly clear. I can picture the ad copy "Buy UnitedHealth's New Catastrophic Plus with optional Snowboarding rider or Uncle Sam will send you to Jail!" with a picture of a young guy in prison khaki's looking fearfully at a huge prison inmate intent on no-good.

The more I look at this ObamaCare bill the more I think Big Health Insurance will be the biggest beneficiary. That is why I have been long United Health since the public option was killed. It is a case of buying health insurance or ending up shanked in the prison library by an Aryan Nation member. (Well, more like trading tax advice with Bernie Maddoff but you never know.) Now that should be "accretive to earnings" to say the very least. The 2% bump and a 52 week high on UNH today just proves this point in spades.

I think Lots of People Will Stay Uninsured by Choice

Now this is not much of a choice for a young person just starting work.

Under the Senate bill, people who don't buy coverage would face a maximum penalty of $95 beginning in 2014. That would jump in 2016 to $750 or 2% of their annual income up to the cost of the cheapest health plan, whichever is greater. In the House bill, violators would pay as much as 2.5% of their annual income up to the cost of the cheapest plan beginning in 2013.

When people buy health insurance on their own rather than through employers, the average cost in 2016 is projected to be $5,500 for an individual policy and $13,100 for family coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

So the choice is whether to pay a $95 - $750 fine or $5,500 - $13,000 for insurance. I can see many young people choosing to pay the fine instead of shelling out the big money. The problem is that these young people paying into the plan are what is supposed to "bend the cost curve." Also what will happen if you don't pay the fine? Will you be sent to jail as a tax cheat?

Obama Dubs Copenhagen Pact "unprecedented breakthrough" (for Third World Kleptocrats)

I guess they had to salvage Copenhagen with some kind of pact even if it is unclear on the details and is not binding at all.

The deal reiterates a goal that eight leading industrialized nations set earlier this year on long-term emission cuts and provides a mechanism to help poor countries prepare for climate change, the official said.

But it falls far short of committing any nation to emissions reductions beyond a general acknowledgment that the effort should contain global temperatures along the lines agreed to by the leading economic nations in July.

In other words despite all that carbon was spewed from all those airplanes and limos and the world pretty much ran in place. They should have done this whole thing via teleconference and put it on CSPAN. I guess you can count the days until that "mechanism to help poor countries" is:

1. Stolen by sticky fingered UN diplomats like Oil For Food. I bet Kofi Annan's son has already applied for a job with this group.

2. Misappropriated by Third World kleptocrats. I wonder if the Sudan already has this money earmarked for for "cleansing the carbon signatures" of various ethnic groups in Darfur? I'm sure the money will be used for hundreds of "moving windmills." IE Mi-24 Hind Helicopter Gunships. The new Sudanese "Miniguns for the Earth" program.

3. Disappear into "The President for Life's Special Governmental Fund" located in a Swiss Bank. I mean what Third World dictator wouldn't want a few extra billion to reduce his countries carbon footprint by buying a Swiss Chalet instead of yet another massive palace? Well most dictators will probably buy both so luckily we we are giving them enough money so that they can reach those goals. You no longer need oil wealth to raise giant statues of yourself anymore. The UN "climate change" reparations will do that for you.

Green Jobs Might be a Rip-Off?

At least that seems to be the case according to this German study pointed out in this article.

In the end, Germany’s PV promotion has become a subsidization regime that, on a per-worker basis, has reached a level that far exceeds average wages, with per worker subsidies as high as 175,000 € (US $ 240,000). …

Although Germany’s promotion of renewable energies is commonly portrayed in the media as setting a “shining example in providing a harvest for the world” (The Guardian 2007), we would instead regard the country’s experience as a cautionary tale of massively expensive environmental and energy policy that is devoid of economic and environmental benefits.

You have to be kidding. $240,000 per job in subsidies? That sounds like one of those stimulus jobs "created or saved." The more I look into this the bigger this Climate Change thing is just a big mess. I was an early convert to this "green jobs" plan but only if it involves nuclear plants and lots of them. I hate oil plants and using oil because it enriches the people that want to kill us. I can care less about carbon footprints now.

Russians Claim that Their Climate Data Cherrypicked

It seems like ClimateGate just gets worse and worse.

The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.

Is any of this Climate data pure? It seems that these CRU guys just did whatever they wanted to with this data and just picked whatever data supported their thesis.

Super Water World Found

This could be a big discovery depending on what sort of atmosphere it has.

Its density suggests however it "is composed of about three-fourths water and other ices and one fourth-rock," it said. "There are also tantalising hints that the planet has a gaseous atmosphere."

Its temperature is estimated at between 280 and 120 degrees Celsius (536 and 248 degrees Fahrenheit) with its host star about one-fifth the size of the Sun, according to the scientists.

"Despite its hot temperature, this appears to be a waterworld," says Zachory Berta, a graduate student who first spotted hints of the planet's presence.

I wonder if that is the surface temperature or not? You figure if that was just the surface temperature you might find life deeper in its ocean where it would be colder.

Plus the gravity on the planet would be pretty high being so close to its sun so any creatures would be super strong. Could it be a world of giant, super-strong, water beasts? I'm talking sharks the size of apartment buildings and octopi the size of city blocks. I think it is time to send a probe since this planet is only 42 light years away.

The Banana War is Over: European Union Agrees to Terms

Well a 16 year old trade war between who will import bananas into Europe has finally come to an end.

The settlement, which national lawmakers are expected to ratify within four months, trade officials say, means less-expensive bananas for Europeans, more profit for U.S. fruit companies and lower revenue for some former EU colonies. It ends a 16-year-old trade dispute over access to the EU's $6.7 billion banana market, the world's largest.

Who knew the EU had the world's largest banana market? I hate bananas so I am akin to Switzerland in this whole Banana War. But this may interest investors in the reviled yellow fruit:

Banana imports from the former colonies will fall 14%, costing them $40 million a year, and imports from other countries will increase 17%, according to a study by the Geneva-based International Centre for Sustainable Trade and Development. Banana prices in Europe will fall 12%, the study added.

Ed Loyd, a Chiquita spokesman, said the agreement would save Chiquita about $12 million a year for every €10 reduction in the tariff. He said the ruling would benefit the Cincinnati company more than most of its competitors because it is the market leader in Europe and sources nearly all of the bananas it sells in Europe from Latin America.

Of course you would think that the so-called "Banana Industrial Complex" would make out at the expense of these African banana nations. In any case it boosted Chiquita stock (CQB) a cool 3.9% and might make it go higher depending on what percentage of the European market will be eating cheaper South American bananas rather than already fairly cheap African bananas.