A parliament of scarecrows

Working for the American people

The stock market has dropped 5% in the last 3 days, confounding expectations that Tuesday's GOP win in Massachusetts would send stocks up. I'm unfazed at the down move anyway as a species of 'buy the rumour, sell the confirmation', but the drop is generally blamed on Obama's Wednesday announcement of a hot war on Wall Street banks. The specifics aren't there yet, but the general drift is to prevent proprietary trading by banks and to spend time between now and election day in November demonizing bankers. I'll pass over Obama's economic illiteracy, but here's one take in the FT:

Worse, most people do not think Mr Obama can even command unity within his own administration on the Wall Street proposals amid growing speculation about whether Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, can survive in his job. Mr Geithner was conspicuously sidelined during Thursday’s announcement by the presence of Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, who lent his name to the push to rein in Wall Street banks.

The speculation about Mr Geithner is only likely to grow. “The Obama proposals were clearly politically motivated and came from the White House not the Treasury,” says a Democratic adviser to the administration, who withheld his name.

My favourite speculator:

Morning rant #8, Friday news dump - Cancel Peak Oil!

The US Geological Survey has re-assessed Venezuela's recoverable oil reserves in the Orinoco Belt. Apparently they're twice as high as we thought and total more than Saudi Arabia. This is heavy oil that's expensive to produce and treat, but so what? Orinoco oil has much better recovery rates than Canadian heavy oil which is flowing profitably, it's shallow, it's onshore and the USGS review uses current technology and geo-knowledge. At the present price of $75/barrel it's highly economic. If prices drop to make it uneconomic, then by definition we have plenty of oil anyway and the lower prices tend to incentivise cheaper processes. Such vast reserves in America's backyard can be added to Canada, Brazil and the terrific potential for deep drilling in the Gulf of Mexico + other dramatic oil and gas discoveries in recent years. You could cut the USGS figure by 2/3 and still have ABUNDANCE.

So what could go wrong? There's Chavez, there's Latin-American disfunctional nationalism like Mexico's woeful underperformance since nationalising it's oil industry in 1938, or the Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming might proscribe heavy oil or just oil in general, above all there's the stupidity and cowardice of the Harvard Faculty Club junta in America.

Meanwhile Iran's nukes are imminent and Venezuela would be the ideal first stop to proliferate and test American will. While Obama is preening about his base's right to 'health care' and abjectly begging China and Russia for sanctions on Iran and N.Korea as a fig leaf for an actual defence policy, the world's political tectonic plates are shifting. There's an earthquake coming and America's unpreparedness and lack of spine will kill a lot of people. What will happen when Chavez announces he has a nuke and Obama had better shape up? Will the Director of National Intelligence go 'Duh!' and smack his forehead? 'We'll do better next time.' Odd's bodikins, what a shower of fuckwits!

Anyway price and politics will determine feasibility of extraction...just like on the Alaskan North Slope....and remember, 'peak oil = peak technology'.

RIP Marine Sgt Chris Hrbek

Yesterday we all went into town to wave flags at the procession bringing home Chris Hrbek, killed in Afghanistan.

Fallen Marine gets hero's welcome in his hometown

Massachusetts a day later

The GOP win in Massachusetts is worth a 'wow!' now, but in 2 weeks it'll be worth a 'wow,wow,wow!' Scott Brown can be the representative of the 'independent', ie decisive, American voter. The big drama isn't even 'health care', it's that Obama's authority is shot. Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Virginia, New Jersey, Masssachusetts. At this point he's an electoral liability. Moreover he can't get his nominees and he can't get his legislation and he's almost universally seen as weak on security. His mannerisms are all he's got and they look old. Even the MSM is edging away from him or contrasting his legislative nous with GW Bush who got plenty done without Obama's supermajority. Obama's past his shelf life after 1 year. Can he pivot like Clinton? Unlikely as he lacks Clinton's executive experience, comeback experience, common touch and raw intelligence. The best scenario is that he abdicates leadership to a much more conservative Congress post November 2010 and sits in the corner like an elderly relative who's lost his clout. More probably he'll wreak havoc with America's friends and embolden America's enemies over the next 3 years like Carter.

Oh well, at least let's enjoy these scoundrels twisting in the wind:

Wherein I clear my spindle

I know what 'clearing my spindle' means as a metaphor, but I haven't found its literal meaning. It sounds healthy tho, so let's go:

• I won a Daily Telegraph photo competition with this picture:

• I won 3rd honourable mention in the 1st Al Gore Poetry Prize with this haiku:

Fake data buries
Science settled like the snow
Outside my window.

I was beaten to 2nd honourable mention by a haiku that will grace anthologies:
      

Fox's Glacier Mints
Don't contain real glaciers.
Tossers.

While I've been hibernating in New Jersey a seal has been cavorting near my apartment in London, 20 miles up the Thames from the sea. This is a big deal and emphasizes how relatively healthy this once toxic river is these days. As Britain's become richer, the environment's got cleaner. Who'd a thunk it? Well apart from thee and me, who'd a thunk it?

I really liked the action sequences and photography in The Hurt Locker,  a film about a bomb disposal team in Iraq, and the leading character (Jeremy Renner) is sometimes terrific, but this review in Variety pinpoints its weakness:

War may be hell, but watching war movies can also be hell, especially when they don't get to the point. Often gripping at a straight thriller level, but increasingly weakened by its fuzzy (and hardly original) psychology.

• We're a day away from the Massachusetts election for US Senate and there's good hopes for a Republican win. My forecast is Brown (R) +12, higher than the polls which are sample skewed and don't purport to project momentum. The more one sees and learns of Coakley (D), the worse she looks, and the converse for Brown (aka Hottie McAwesome).

• Since there hasn't been a Republican senator for Mass since 1972 and since Obama won Mass +26 and since Coakley was showing +30 in November and since this is a referendum on Obama Year 1 and Obamacare, the Democrats have already lost, even if they win by single low single digits. Such a shift in Mass portends a political earthquake such that ObamaReidPelosi won't be able to cram their unpolished legislative turds down the throats of their terrified troops in Congress. The least worst thing that can happen to Obama is to lose in Mass and re-tool Obamacare with whatever RINO's he can bribe. It may too late tho, his authority is so compromised. 
• I read somewhere that this has been 'the coldest winter since Global Warming began.' The whole house of cards of this Scientistic superstition is trembling now, but it's been a damn close run thing as Wellington said of Waterloo. You could say the same about Obamacare, Obama's Waterloo....1 senate vote.
• Dont forget, Massachusettsians, Martin Luther King was Republican. I'm not, but he was, and today is his day, so all you inessential government workers who unaccountably are allowed to vote to tax the rest of us, stay home today and stay home tomorrow. It's cold out there.

A tea party for the well-connected and me

A few shots from the Reclaim American Liberty conference I attended in NYC recently: the speaker in this shot is Andy McCarthy - unanswerable on the upcoming off-Broadway Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Show; far left is General Richard Myers, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - I found his speech and demeanour bureaucratic; second left is Colonel Allen West, congressional candidate - outstanding, succinct, historically literate, an anti-Obama.

The speaker below is Michael Mukasey, former Attorney General - sharp mind, dry wit, impressive; far left is Claudia Rosett who spoke hilariously about the long-running off-Broadway black comedy called 'The United Nations'; Mark Steyn is second left.

I trust that John Bolton's moustache will be secretary of state in the next Republican administration:

Mark Steyn is so familiar to me that his tropes might wear thin, but he just gets funnier. The Henry VIII look suits him:

A good time was had by all. There was a palpable sense of camaraderie and shared purpose. Finally I'll stress that Col Allen West may be the real deal. If so, watch out:

Reclaim America Conference - lunchbreak

More later, but I want to give an instant reaction. Col.Allen West was terrific just now on a range of Nat.Sec. issues. He's the star so far and I predict that we've seen a major political figure of the future. Oh and I'm a couple of chairs away from Steyn!

Reclaim America Conference

It's 8.30am in chilly NYC. I'm sitting in the tony Union League Club on E 37th. Being warned about the dress code, I bought a tie late last night! I wheedled a coveted invite from The Hudson Institute for this conference where the speakers include Mark Steyn, Andrew McCarthy, Michael Mukasey (ex AG), Gen Richard Myers (ex Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff) and other luminaries. As a Briton I'd thought this was about a movement to reclaim our western territories and replace Obama with Elizabeth II. Now, reading the program, I'm not so sure. More later.

No-fly profile?

Would you board a plane with this man?

Subject is:

• Male
• Well-educated
• Islamic name
• Close association with US domestic terrorist
• Suppresses basic biographical documents
• Refuses to wear US flag accessory after 9/11
• 20 years attending services by radical preacher, motif - 'God Damn America.'
• Representative quotes:
• "We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation" *
• "If you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world." *
• "Part of my responsibility .. is to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."

Review subject's motives and background.


* From a 2008 American Religious Identification Survey 76% of Americans self-identify as Christian and 0.6% (1.35 million) as Muslim.

Idiot's guide to universal bodyscanning at airports

1. No terrorist will be caught or deterred.

2. Air travel will plummet.