SAR #12260

None of this will end well: not for any of us, not even the rich,.

A Sense of Proportion: Afghan officials also said an alliance airstrike killed eight women who were gathering firewood in a remote eastern village before dawn Sunday. The US regrets the inconvenience...

Voo Doodoo Econmics: Bernanke, in his role as chief shaman, claims the Fed's new (sic) stimulus (sic) was meant to help Main Street. He is, at best, mistaken. Main street needs a job. It doesn't need a new housing bubble. With the consumer broke and unemployed and indebted and underwater, there is little appetite out there for credit, much less a new, bigger mortgage. Corporations don't need lower interest rates – they're already sitting on billions they can't usefully invest. And not even the auto industry really needs all the sub-prime loans they're making. The only beneficiary will be Wall Street, and that only if enough people believe that The Bernank really can, some day, make it rain. The fact we are reduced to respectfully listen to the promise that promises will heal the economy confesses that the economy is substantially weaker than previously thought. Even more clearly, it shows that the Fed is helpless in the face of it.

Mouths of Babes: Rick Santorum, former senator (R-PA) and Republican presidential wannabe, admits that "We will never have the elite, smart people on our side."

Is It Time For Desert? With all the financial leaders and gurus proclaiming that the Euro has been saved, perhaps it is time to take a quick survey of the Portugese, Spanish and Italians and see if they will stand by quietly while the elite impose more austerity on them. And at the same time, it might be nice to have a decent survey reporting on how the citizens of various northern European countries would react to a treaty making them subservient to the ECB. Democracy is a fine thing, but I doubt the leaders of Europe intend to let it interfere with their plans - and for some reason the Greek Colonels, Franco, Salazar and Mussolini come to mind...

A Fracking Good Story: On hearing that US CO2 emissions were at their lowest level in 20 yers, the fracking industry was quick to take a bow - ignoring the rotten economy and all the emissions the US has shipped to Asia in the last 20 years along with our jobs.

Piling On: Scientists who set out to confirm earlier findings concerning methane bubbling up along the edges of the Arctic Ocean have found 'methane fields' in excess of a kilometer in extent bubbling up... from a depth of 2.2 thousand meters, the first known stream rising from such a depth. Large concentrations of gas hydrates (methane) were also discovered in the Sea of Japan, with at least 43 plumes of methane bubbles rising from the sea-bed. Scientists fear that releases from sub-sea methane sources "could have catastrophic consequences for the climate of our planet." Senator Inohfe disagrees.

Their Fate is SEALed: The US moves ever closer to making things much worse in the Middle East... Yes, it was most likely that the uprisings were al Qaeda-inspired and only tangentially had anything to do with a bad movie. But is pretty much guaranteed that the ominous preparations the US is undertaking to avenge its supposed honor will perpetuate the cycle of violence.

A Famous Victory: Remember the great victory, 25 years ago, when the nations of the world agreed to stop killing life on earth by saving the ozone layer? Well, the good news is that this year the ozone hole is much smaller than last year. The bad news is that it will still take 40 years or so to get back to pre-1980 conditions. And that's if the- quite profitable - illegal manufacture and sale of ozone-destroying compounds can be stopped.

Porn O'Graph: Fork in the road.

The Parting Shot:

Back at it.