BabbleFest

“There is a providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America” – no really good attribution for this, but it does seem to reflect reality at times.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/chilling_toll_of_times_sq_bomb_400MLFIYrBDELDqzmiq0EM

Some fun links for a Wednesday.

Hey, those Americans who still have jobs are halfway through the week, right?

Green Island Goes Dark

Northern Lights Over Erupting Volcano

Fish Have Good Memories and Can Be Sneaky

Cloud of New Stars Forming

 Bizarre New Creatures Discovered at the Bottom of Atlantic Ocean

Both BBC and I read the allegedly career ending Rolling Stone article about Gen. Stanley McCrystal and came to the conclusion that there HAD to be something more to the story of McCrystal’s resignation than what was presented in that article. Could this bit be the “something else”? Possibly.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-last-post-mcchrystals-bleak-outlook-2011730.html

Several things don’t ring quite true of course. General Petraeus will apparently be undertaking the same strategy (COIN) that was being implemented by McChrystal (possibly with some changes in the much hated Rules of Engagement), so why would the results be any different? Having Petraeus in charge but implementing the same COIN strategy still doesn’t necessarily get Obama the “out” that he wants before the 2012 elections. Further, why would Petraeus, any more than McChrystal, present the facts on the ground in a positive light just to get Obama out of political jam? He doesn’t seem like that kind of guy and more than McChrystal is.

So anyway, read the article and see what you think.

A rather poignant article from one of my favorites, Mark Steyn. And isn’t he right? If an entire population of Native Americans, or Amazon tribesmen or Laplanders was down to 1% of the population it had a mere half century or so ago wouldn’t the “world community” wonder what was going on? Wouldn’t the U.N. be involved, passing some strongly worded resolutions at least? How many communities just disappear like the Jews of Tangiers or the Jews of Baghdad and no one even pauses to wonder why?

http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/06/17/the-lesson-of-a-jewish-cemetery/print/

Watch as the coasts are drained of population while places like Dallas and Houston grow and grow and grow.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/04/migration-moving-wealthy-interactive-counties-map.html?preload=39099

My first reaction is that, at some point, we may be dependent on yet another unstable country with unstable leadership for resources we need.  But maybe I'm missing the positive aspect of this?

There is a new book making the talk show rounds called Pandora's Seed by Spencer Wells — an Explorer in Residence (really??) at the National Geographic Society.  Here is a blip from Publishers Weekly's summary of this gem of a book:

Nowadays, Wells contends, we are both stultified and overstimulated, cut off from the land and alienated from one other, resulting in mental illness and violent fundamentalism. Wells gives readers an engaging rundown of the science that reconstructs the prehistoric past, but he loses focus in trying to connect that past to every contemporary issue from obesity to global warming, and his solution is unconvincingly simple.

Seems like another elitist nut who wants us to go back to the Stone Age where people were really connected and times were so much better — that is until you starved to death or died from natural causes at the ripe old age of 30.  And I say using the Gulf oil spill to help you plug your book is a tad opportunistic.

The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, your doctor, your insurance company and your employer were storing your personal records on their copier, maybe without even knowing it, which is now for sale for a few hundred bucks at a warehouse in New Jersey…

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/19/eveningnews/main6412439.shtml

Government concerns over the habitat of an endangered Mojave Desert squirrel threaten to scrap plans for Berkeley-based Solar Millennium’s biggest utility scale project in the California desert.

In a report released March 26, advisers to the California Energy Commission recommended an alternative “superior to the proposed project,” which would put a solar thermal plant of 250 megawatts on a California Desert Conservation Area.

That “superior” alternative? Not building the project at all.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2010/04/12/story7.html?b=1271044800^3167691

Taxpayers earning less than $200,000 a year will pay roughly $3.9 billion more in taxes — in 2019 alone — because of healthcare reform, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’ official scorekeeper for legislation.

The new law raises $15.2 billion over 10 years by limiting the medical expense deduction, a provision widely used by taxpayers who either have a serious illness or are older.

Taxpayers can currently deduct medical expenses in excess of 7.5 percent of their adjusted gross income. Starting in 2013, most taxpayers will only be allowed to deducted expenses greater than 10 percent of AGI. Older taxpayers are hit by this threshold increase in 2017.

Once the law is fully implemented in 2019, the JCT estimates the deduction limitation will affect 14.8 million taxpayers — 14.7 million of them will earn less than $200,000 a year. These taxpayers are single and joint filers, as well as heads of households.

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/domestic-taxes/91669-healthcare-law-socks-middle-class-with-a-39-billion-tax-increase

That’s what Nancy Pelosi said, right?

Congressional idiots are discovering  just how true that is … and finding out that they may have unintentionally legislated themselves out of their current coverage, in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, and into the vast unknown of Obamacare, along with the peasantry.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of morons.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/us/politics/13health.html?hpw

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