So It's Official: IMF / Carry Trades

I hope everyone here in The United States takes a moment to understand what this means. Let me lay it out for you:

• When the global economy truly recovers oil will skyrocket up to or beyond the $150 where it was in late 2008. If the dollar is indeed still "overvalued" and going to 40 as many technicians predict, oil will likely reach $300 a barrel. This will in turn drive gasoline prices north of $6, heating oil will reach $7-8/gallon, and diesel will be commensurate with heating oil.

...

When? That's a big assumption. Part of the reason the economy is in such bad shape is the lack of cheap oil. This imposes its own limits on economic activity. One we can try to get around by creation of credit, but you can only play that game so long. The previous spike was the credit-fueled American economy running full speed into the wall of reality. It resolved itself by coming to a halt, reducing consumption and quality of life. After that, I don't think we'll see any economies come roaring back, much less the global economy. We'll see some try to start up again, but oil prices will go up just enough to slow them down again. It will be difficult to build the kind of momentum you'd need for a really big crash again.

Remember, oil peaked in the U.S. in the early '70s. Since then we've been running on credit. It took about thirty years to build up the speed needed to cause the spectacular housing and oil crash of 2007.

So rather than another big spike in prices, we'll just see a slowly increasing squeeze on consumers. Prices will go up, they may even reach $300 eventually. It just won't happen over night. That gives you time to prepare. Buy a fuel-efficient vehicle now, and arrange your life so you won't have to use it much.

Fort Hood gunman had told US military colleagues that infidels should have their throats cut

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the gunman who killed 13 at America's Fort Hood military base, once gave a lecture to other doctors in which he said non-believers should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats.

He also told colleagues at America's top military hospital that non-Muslims were infidels condemned to hell who should be set on fire. The outburst came during an hour-long talk Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, gave on the Koran in front of dozens of other doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington DC, where he worked for six years before arriving at Fort Hood in July.

Colleagues had expected a discussion on a medical issue but were instead given an extremist interpretation of the Koran, which Hasan appeared to believe.

It was the latest in a series of "red flags" about his state of mind that have emerged since the massacre at Fort Hood, America's largest military installation, on Thursday.

Hasan, armed with two handguns including a semi-automatic pistol, walked into a processing centre for soldiers deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan, where he killed 13 and injured more than 30.

Fellow doctors have recounted how they were repeatedly harangued by Hasan about religion and that he openly claimed to be a "Muslim first and American second."

One Army doctor who knew him said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim soldier had stopped fellow officers from filing formal complaints.

Unfortunately, I don't think that deference to Islam will change any time soon. The news media is already writing headline articles about how Muslims "fear backlash". Mind you, the only backlash we've had after 9/11 is the killing of a single Sikh by a guy who was too stupid to know the difference. In the meantime we've had what? Half a dozen Muslims go off on rampages? In this case, a highly-educated doctor. And don't forget that Muslims make up a tiny percentage of the population. If backlash was happening at anything like the same rate that Muslims were instigating violence, hundreds to thousands of Muslims would already be dead.

But they aren't. And that's not newsworthy. Fear—of something that steadfastly refuses to happen—is. Meanwhile, the rest of us aren't allowed to be afraid, or even cautious about something that happens over and over again. See, that would be discriminatory.

The Met opera broadcast season has been good so far, but even at the Met real magic only happens once in a while.

Yesterday's Turandot was magical. Normally, it's a tenor's opera. How could it not be when Puccini gives him a great aria like "Nessun Dorma"? Well, I'll tell you how. You put Maria Guleghina in the title role. "Yeah, yeah, you will win. Bring back the bitch."

Next weekend I'm flying to Denver to see the Pixies.

They're doing a 20th anniversary Doolittle tour. Playing the whole album plus b-sides. It's old, I'm old, so it seems appropriate. Unfortunately they're skipping Phoenix, but one of the great things about being a fan of an under-appreciated alternative band is that even after airfare and a rental car, it's no more expensive than going to see a bigger act at a local arena.

How does it make you feel when you start to walk into a business and see a "No Guns" sign prominently posted? Are you angry? Offended? Indifferent? How do you react? Do you just turn around and take your business elsewhere? Complain to the management? Just ignore it and go on with your business? The members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League take "No Guns" signs as personally offensive and they let their offense be known - to the business, to fellow VCDL members, and anyone else who'll listen - or read a web page.
[...]
Posting a "No Guns" sign is not a business decision about patron safety nor is disarming just a minor inconvenience. Such signs are a political statement and an insult and they should never go unanswered.

boffo thinks V is a sign that it's finally ok to criticize Obama, and the V cult does have a lot of similarities to the Obama cult, but that's mostly because they're... both cults. A show like this doesn't come out of nowhere. It had to be in production for quite a while, probably in planning before the election. So I don't think it's directed at Obama in particular, however striking the similarities.

I think it has more to do with another angular letter: X.

It's a faithful remake of a show from 1983. The formative years of Generation X. Watching it now I realize that our popular culture—the stuff everybody talked about at school the next day—was teaching us that appearances were deceiving and that visitors bearing gifts really just wanted to eat your pet hamster. It wasn't a political message, it was just the spirit of the age. And now it's back. Over a quarter century later, it's really quite bracing. I'd forgotten what it was like to see basic skepticism portrayed in a positive light. The effects are cheesy, the acting is wooden... and I'm loving every minute of it.

I hope lots of kids are watching.

That Showtime reality show about the gun store? Turns out to be ok. Just a bunch of ordinary people shooting guns and talking about guns. I've seen some bad gun handling, and a few people who are so lost - both in shooting and selecting guns - that I just wish I could be there to help them out. But in that respect it's more real than a lot of other reality shows.

And the last episode, where the host took a couple of kids to the range, was great. Almost made up of the Penn & Teller episode where they did the same thing. The kids got safety instruction and proper shooting instruction, and ended up with big smiles on their faces, not tears. And some nice looking targets.

Whatever else I may see on the show, that makes it all worthwhile. Good job, Showtime.

Father runs over and kills his daughter for leaving his fundamentalist faith

Speaking as someone who left a fundamentalist faith, a faith that also featured many restrictions on lifestyle and behavior, I have to give credit where credit is due. While some of my relatives may shun me and gossip about me, I never had to fear getting run over with a Jeep.

So, yes, Virginia, it is Islam that is to blame. Not fundamentalism or extremism in general.

In fact, it may be that the more extreme fundamentalists are more peaceful. They trust God enough to leave the judgment of apostates to Him.

Thanks to malathion for sharing this. It's easily the most comprehensible and comprehensive description of how Goldman Sachs ripped off their customers and the taxpayer I've seen yet.

How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash

WASHINGTON — In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.

Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.

Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.

Goldman Sachs may be the exception to my previous rule. The people who work there actually are smart, and they take full advantage of all the other people who aren't as smart as they are. By itself, that would earn my admiration. That's the way a free market is supposed to work. Reward the smart and insightful, punish the stupid and dim. And that would easily be enough to earn them plenty of profits and preeminence in their field.

But that's not enough for them. They also had to go and be evil.

SIG Academy bullets and vehicles course

For the last part of the range exercise, they had us engage the vehicle with various calibers to see how effective/ineffective each round was. We tried .22, 9mm, .40S&W, .45ACP, .357Mag, .44Mag, .223, .308, .338Lapua and finally .50cal. The results were such that someone reasonably armed for CCW, 9mm appeared to be the most well rounded for usage around a vehicle. The interesting to note, the .40S&W (what I shoot) and .45ACP were poor at traveling through the windshield, they tended to fragment catastrophically. They also tended not to travel through the vehicle, when shot door to door. The lack of over travel may or may not be something you may want depending on whether the threat is inside/outside of the vehicle.

A smaller profile does tend to penetrate better, but there's also something to be said for momentum. It's hard to predict which of those factors will weigh more heavily in the end. That's why you have to just do it. Speaking as someone who prefers 9mm, I'm rather pleased with the results.

From boingboing this morning...

• "Hey Obama administration: nice job outlawing the social media and civic participation tools that got you elected!"
• "If this goes through, I promise you this: you will not get my vote in 2012 and I will do everything I can to do the opposite of what I did in 08: get you in office."
• "I am majorly pissed at this moment. Majorly. I feel like I've just been screwed over by a mentor I trusted. Thanks, Obama. I cried tears of joy on November 4th. And now you do this. Why do you violate our trust like this? Why?"
• "Add me to the list of people who won't be voting for Obama again if any of this goes through. Even W didn't go this far."
• "Obama... one termer. What a shame."
• "Truly the Jimmy Carter of our time."

And this is from a blog with an exceedingly liberal slant.