SAR #11136

Hitler was sure God was on his side, too.

What Goes Around... Police pulled Dominique Strauss-Kahn , head of the IMF, from his first class seat on an Air France flight to Paris just as it was leaving the gats. He has been charged with doing to a hotel maid what the IMF has been doing to its client states for years.

Tous Pour Un, Un Pour Tous: Various experts present arguments for this or that “solution” to the problems reflected in PIGS fiscal/economic problems – and uniformly they ignore the best and most unlikely solutions. Instead of some complex mechanism to manipulate wages and budgets and deficits, what is needed is to either (a) go through the necessary dislocations and harrumphing to form a truly United Europe, or (b) dissolve the Eurozone and give the euro a decent burial. I'd vote for 'a' - but bet on 'b'.

Right On: Ron Paul, in explaining his libertarian beliefs, says that property rights come before civil rights. It's a case of two rights making a wrong.

Facts Not In Evidence: Bernanke claims that quantitative easing and zero interest rates and all the rest have revived the economy. As proof he points to stock market levels, the unemployment rate, and Treasury interest rates, claiming that the low levels show the faith the public has in the process. However, the main consumer of Treasury issues is the Fed, which is rather circular. If it were possible to print one's way to prosperity, Gutenberg would be remembered as an economist.

Chained Reactions: TEPCO officials acknowledged that faulty water gauges had delayed recognition of the core meltdown in Reactor 1. If the gauges in reactors 2 and 3 are also faulty, it seems likely they, too, have undergone at least partial meltdown. A worker at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant fell unconscious at work and later died. Over 900 tons of radioactive sludge from Fukushima has been sold for cement. A joint US-Japan survey has revealed high radiation levels beyond the evacuation zone. Some 90,000 tons of radioactive water has leaked into the sea.

Band Aids: In a hollow, grandstanding political play, the President announced his new 'Drill, Baby, Drill' program – having gotten Sara Palin's permission, one hopes. Opening various parts of the Atlantic Coast, Gulf of Mexico, and the naval petroleum reserve in Alaska for preliminary exploration is not going to have any effect on US production - or world oil prices - in any meaningful time-frame, but it may help in the popularity contests.

Short Course: New Jersey's Governor Christie says that in order to save education funds, the state will fire all science teachers, and make the answer to all science questions a uniform “God did it”, and use science labs to manufacture methamphetamine, which will be sold door to door by sophomores, to raise funds for Christie's re-election.

Angels & Pinheads: Yes, Osama bin Laden was evil. He also managed – with no army, navy or air force – to trap the best-trained, best-equipped military in history in an endless and self-defeating war. That he killed several thousand Americans does not justify the hundreds of thousands of innocents killed and maimed in our struggle to “get” him. His sins do not justify ours.

It's A Wrap: Tokyo Electric Power Company is going to erect giant polyester covers over their smoldering nuclear plants – to keep radioactive dust and particles from wafting off in the wind. Sure it's rip-proof, isn't it?

Calm Down: This weekend the media were full of stories about how Medicare would run out of money in 2024 and Social Security “funds will be exhausted by 2036.” Lies. After 2024 Medicare will only have enough money to pay 90% of its obligations, and Social Security will not be “exhausted” in 2036, that's just when under current laws its funding will no longer cover 100% of the promised payments. Big difference between running out of money and running a little short. A little short we can cure with a tax increase on the better off folks and by finally taking the insurance company profits out of medicine.

Antiques: Overturning a citizen's right established 800 years ago in the Magna Carta, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes. How you are supposed to immediately know that it is an unlawful police entry and not some raving mad killer, the court did not say. It did say that those wrongly invaded - or their heirs – could sue later on.

Porn O'Graph: Oh my, Government spending is gobbling up our GDP. Not.