COULD THE SICKEST MAN OF EUROPE BE GERMANY?
France may look like the sick of man of Europe, but Germany's woes run deeper, rooted in mercantilist dogma, the glorification of saving for its own sake, and the corrosive psychology of ageing. "Germany considers itself the model for the world, but pride comes before the fall," says Olaf Gersemann, Die Welt's economics chief, in a new book, The Germany Bubble: the Last Hurrah of a Great Economic Nation. (Released last month in a German edition, hopefully an English edition will soon follow.) Mr. Gersemann says the Second Wirtschaftswunder - or economic miracle - from 2005 onwards has "gone to Germany's head". The country has mistaken a confluence of exceptional events for permanent ascendancy. It cannot continue to live off exports of capital goods to China and the BRICS as they hit the buffers, or by stealing a march on southern Europe through wage compression, a zero-sum game. Marcel Fratzscher, head of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), makes a parallel critique in his new book, Die Deutschland Illusion, no translation needed. It is the self-deception of a country "resting on its laurels," prisoner of the "household fallacy" that economies are like family budgets, and falsely reassured by the misplaced flattery of foreigners who rarely look under the bonnet at the German engine below.
ALL IT TAKES TO KILL OFF ISIS IS TO LET OUR MILITARY DO IT
Americans should brace themselves for a long and difficult struggle, Barack Hussein Obama said when he announced air strikes on the headquarters of the Islamic State in Syria Sept. 23. We can't defeat Islamic radicals with military force, say others among the self-styled cognoscenti in our political and media elites, because they are motivated by an idea, and "you can't kill an idea." The overall struggle against Islamism will take a long time, because there are so many Islamists, in so many places, in different flavors. That's why when my friend Bill Roggio started the blog that's the best source of news about developments in the struggle, he called it the "Long War Journal." But if we actually tried to win, it wouldn't be difficult, or take very long to reduce the threat posed by the Islamic State from potentially catastrophic to something more like a nuisance. Here's how and why.
HOW BITCOIN TECHNOLOGY COULD CREATE A FAR FREER WORLD
Amid the current maelstrom of war, disease and politics, you might have not been paying much attention to bitcoin, the electronic form of money favored by radical libertarians and drug dealers. Yet it is possible that when the history of these days comes to be written, bitcoin's story will loom large. Unnoticed except by the tech-obsessed, the technology behind bitcoin may be slowly giving birth to a brave new world, with eventual implications well beyond money. So argues Bitcoin: The Future of Money?, a new book by Dominic Frisby, a columnist for MoneyWeek magazine published in Britain. Frisby makes the case that it is just possible that bitcoin and its rivals - known as altcoins - and the "blockchain" technology that lies behind them have the potential to spark a radical decentralization of society itself. They could change the way governments finance themselves, make banks redundant and transform the ways companies are run. If he is right, then the founder of bitcoin will take his place alongside the great inventors. So who is he?
HALF-FULL REPORT 10/10/14
Yesterday the New York Times condemned Republicans for conducting a "grim" and "dismal" campaign that blames "Obama and the Democratic Party (who) run a government that is so fundamentally broken it cannot offer its people the most basic protection from harm." The New York Times can't stand it when Republicans tell the truth... On the bright side, there's a wonderfully cheery story in the New York Times on Tuesday (10/07) - cheery for us, doom and gloom for the libtards at the Times: The State-by-State Revival of the Right... No wonder his popularity is in the pits and everyone who loves America hates his guts. Headline from the London Daily Mail on Wednesday (10/08): Obama slams GOP as party of billionaires then attends $32k-a-head fundraiser hosted by billionaire property tycoon named Rich Richman... Now is the time to say J'Accuse! to Chief Justice John Roberts. The suspicion that he was blackmailed (over illegally adopting his children) emerged after switching his vote at the last minute to rationalize the faux-constitutionality of Obamacare (June 2012). This week, that suspicion was confirmed... The Conservative Treehouse really nails this story: Fifth Child Dies to Support President Obama's Illegal Immigration Goals... Is Patrick Howley the HFR Hero of the Week?
TURKEY IS ON THE SIDE OF THE ISIS TERRORISTS
Muhammad Hamzah Khan, 19, planned to fly to Turkey, then cross the border into Syria to join the terrorists of the Islamic State. But the FBI arrested him at O'Hare airport Oct. 4. Ankara has "allowed its Syria border to become a two-way ‘jihadist highway,'" said Turkish journalist Kadri Gursel. Most of up to 12,000 foreign fighters got to IS via Turkey, where some wounded jihadis have received free medical care. "Turkey's support was vital for the jihadists in getting in and out of the country," wrote Orhan Kemal Cengiz in the newspaper Zaman. "Turkey paved the way for us," an IS fighter, in Ankara for medical treatment, told the newspaper Aydinlik. The Turks also "provided the bulk of ISIS' funds, logistics, training and arms," said Middle East expert Daniel Pipes. Turkey supported Jabhat al-Nusra, (the al Qaida affiliate President Barack Obama called "the Khorasan Group"), said Francis Ricciardone, our ambassador there until June. By "Ankara," "Turkey," and "the Turks," they mean the Islamist government of Recep Erdogan, prime minister since 2003, president since July, whose policies are as controversial within Turkey as are Mr. Obama's in ours.
LIBERALS NEED TO BE AS AFRAID OF CONSERVATIVES AS THEY ARE OF MOSLEMS
Josey Wales made the issue very clear:
THE TRAGIC AND INDEFENSIBLE SUPREME COURT
The Supreme Court's decision on Monday (10/06) to let rulings by lower court judges stand that redefine marriage is both tragic and indefensible. By refusing to rule if the States can define marriage, the Supreme Court is abdicating its duty to uphold the Constitution. The fact that the Supreme Court Justices, without providing any explanation whatsoever, have permitted lower courts to strike down so many state marriage laws is astonishing. This is judicial activism at its worst. The Constitution entrusts state legislatures, elected by the People, to define marriage consistent with the values and mores of their citizens. Unelected judges should not be imposing their policy preferences to subvert the considered judgments of democratically elected legislatures. The Supreme Court is, de facto, applying an extremely broad interpretation to the 14th Amendment without saying a word - an action that is likely to have far-reaching consequences. It is beyond dispute that when the 14th Amendment was adopted 146 years ago, as a necessary post-Civil War era reform, it was not imagined to also mandate same-sex marriage -- but that is what the Supreme Court is implying. The Court is making the preposterous assumption that the People of the United States somehow silently redefined marriage in 1868 when they ratified the 14th Amendment.
IS THE CDC EPITOMIZING ONE OF THE THREE GREAT LIES?
Thomas Eric Duncan, 42, flew to Dallas Sept. 20, five days after he helped an Ebola-stricken woman get to a local hospital in Monrovia, Liberia. He died of Ebola this morning (10/08) in a Texas hospital after potentially infecting over 100 people. Many countries have restricted air travel from Ebola-ravaged countries. The Obama administration won't. The only way epidemics have ever been contained is by quarantine. Restricting entry of those who've been exposed to Ebola is a must, said Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons. Yet Thomas Frieden says a travel ban would "backfire." He's Obama's director of the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control. That's ridiculous, said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who before entering elective politics headed the Louisiana Dept. of Health and Hospitals, been an assistant secretary in HHS. "How, exactly, would stopping the entry of people potentially carrying the Ebola virus be counterproductive?" he asks.
FOUND! SOMEONE MORE NARCISSISTIC THAN OBAMA
They thought it couldn't be done. It was humanly impossible, declared a global consensus of psychologists and psychiatrists, to be more narcissistic than His Ultimate Excellency, the American Messiah Himself, Barack Hussein Obama. It took an Englishwoman - what else? - to prove the experts wrong. She has taken self-love to its ultimate extreme by marrying herself in an "incredibly empowering" ceremony attended by almost 50 of her friends. Grace Gelder married Grace Gelder at an "idyllic farmhouse in rural Devon." Her parents were not present - "mainly for logistical reasons" - but, according to an interview this week (10/04) in the Guardian, they did send "supportive texts throughout the day." Here's the bride/groom tossing her wedding corsage to her admirers:
HOW DO WE END THE GOVERNMENT’S EXTORTION RACKETS?
When the government "fines" you for not buying health insurance, is it, in fact, a fine, a tax or government extortion? The biggest U.S. banks have been "fined" something in the neighborhood of $125 billion (yes, billion) over the past five years, without anyone in the banks or the banks themselves charged or convicted of criminal wrongdoing. How can that be? Countless individuals have had their property (automobiles, cash and bank accounts) seized by state, local and federal law enforcement officials, including the IRS, without being convicted of wrongdoing. How can that be? The distinction between a tax, a fine and government extortion is not trivial, particularly when fines are running into the tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue for the government. The basic and clear provisions of the Constitution's Article I and the 4th and 5th Amendments are violated on a daily basis by all too many ignorant or corrupt law enforcement officials, and upheld all too often by judges who think their own opinions trump the Constitution. How can we put an end to this?