SAR #13244 - a vacation edition

Mother Nature is indifferent to our fate; we should not be.

The Fog Of War: Surveys show that a majorty of the American people do not want their nation to attack Syria. A vast majority say that President Droner should have congressional approval before commencing yet another war. There's not a snowball's chance in Damascus that these citizens will have any impact at all on the determined march to war the Washington lemmings are on. (I'm on vacation and don't gonna comment on this idiocy again until it is underway.)

Rinsed & Repeated: The Dodd-Frank Actrequired banks keep at least 5% of any loan they secuirtized – so they would have some money in the game and not be quite so cavalier about the dreck they were peddling. Now federal regulators have re-defined that to require the banks keep 5% of at least 2% of the crap they are palming off on the public. Hey, anybody here remember 2007?

Rank Ranking: Put the following in their proper order of odorliness: Attorneys, Banksters, Congresscritters.

Keeping Score: The investigations underway by Justice and the SEC into some 200 instances of bribery by JPMorgan in its Asian businesses have been helped by an internal JPMorgan spreadsheet which contained the dates and businesses and so on for... well, for nearly 200 instances of bribery. It's what the pros call “a clue”.

Reality Check: Does welfare really pay better than working? No, of course not. Can you fiddle with statistics to argue that it does? Well, sure. Would those on the right do such a thing? Well, sure. Will these falsifications be quoted as a reason to cut social spending? Of course, that's why the did it. That's always why they do it. They being the Cato Institute, this time.

Union Drones: Olny 99.5% of those greedy, lazy, over-paid, self-centered teachers use their own money to buy classroom supplies for their students. What's wrong with these people, don't they know they're no good? Why, they even stuff food in the backpacks of many of their poorest kids so they'll have something to eat over the weekend. 

 

Experience: Former Rep. Joe Walsh, (Reprobate, TX) who owes $117,437 in overdue child support, says African-Americnas lack good parenting skills.

Priorities: Mayor Bloomberg's city – that stop-and-frisk everyone who choses not the be white kind of city which paid $700 million to its abused citizens last year – won't spend $1 million to equip the cops with wearable cameras (small enough to fit on their lapels) that would record what the cop was actually doing. Why? Because it would ruin the cops privacy to do what ever the hell they want to.

Overheard: Korea's Beloved Leader (Junior Edition) Kin Jong-Un’s former girlfriend, singer Hyon Song-wol “and others”, were apparently publicly executed by machine gun “for violating laws against pornography”. 

 

Register Votes, Not Guns: In at least 33 of these United States “you can buy an assault weapon without ID, versus zero states where you can vote without providing some kind of ID”, and a few where you can't vote even if you manage to get registered.

Big Frogs In Small Ponds: The 'revised' GDP growth rate for 2Q13 is 2.5%, giving the firsst half of the wear a stunning 1.8% growth rate on top of the 4-quarter's 1.6% growth. Don't go getting all excited, the early stats for the third quarter aren't all that good either.

The Times They Are A'Changing: On Saturday, August 31, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg officiated at a same-sex marriage ceremony. Way to go, Ruthie!

He Said: “The people who congratulated themselves for saving the world in 1999 were actually setting the world up for a far worse crisis, just a few years later.”

Just Like The Good Old Days: India's debt bubble has burst; none of the experts saw it coming. Nope, get in there and invest in those emerging economies. It's called a business cycle for a reason, and they are called bubbles for a reason. Why they are called experts is anybody's guess.

Porn O'Graph: The Other Side of the Mountian.

The Parting Shot:

 Monarchs