US Illegals sneaking into Canada

This is a spoof, right?   Illegal lefty immigrants crossing the Manitoba border, fleeing the Republican onslaught.

"I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry. He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies".

The lovely spoof dates from the re-election of George Bush but seems written for today.

Robot Yoga ?

This robot standing on one foot with hands gracefully extended appears to be doing Yoga, performing an asana midway between the Tree and Warrior poses.   This is one of the simpler forms and perhaps I shouldn't read too much into it.   Is there a Turing Test for Yogis and Yoginas?  If you can't tell the difference between a posing human and a posing robot, are robots entering into nirvana?

Source

Russian news from the Russian spigot. It all makes sense in a weird kind of way.

Katsenelson grew up hating America, but became an American.  He immersed himself in a week of Russian news to see the way Russians get it delivered.  Read all about it. You won't find Russians agreeing with your opinion any time soon unless the collapse in oil prices cuts back their living standard.  It's unsettling, a wall-to-wall mixture of emotion, lies and omissions with a small dose of truth.  Russians wouldn't consider relying on other news. Vitaliy's wife couldn't wait for him to finish the project and be cheerful again..

The link to Vitaliy Katsenelson's report at Institutional Investor:

"Ukraine was destabilized by the U.S., which spent $5 billion on this project.  As proof, TV news showed a video of Senator John McCain giving a speech to anti-government protesters in Kiev's Maidan Square.  It was followed by a video of Vice President Joe Biden visiting Ukraine during the tumult.  I wasn't sure what his role was, but it was implied that he had something to do with the unrest.  Speaking of Joe Biden, I learned that his son just joined the board of Ukraine's largest natural gas company, which will benefit significantly from a destabilized Ukraine".  

And so on and then on some more.

Predict my vote from my name.

Verdant Labs sorted hundreds of first names by voter registration lists to produce this chart.   Look way, way left to find "Abigail", "Naomi" and "Willie" and scroll far, far to the right to see "Dwayne", "Brent" and "Billy".   Many names are not predictive but it's a cluster of girls names that are predictive to the left and a cluster of mostly boys names clustered to the right.  How did our parents know?

ht Ace of Spades.

Click the link

Democracy doesn't depend on informed voters, it depends on voters.  If our parents pointed us towards being little Libs, Dippers, Tories and Greens, so be it.   Power in quantity always corrupts and any mechanism that creates regular turnover in the leadership is a good  mechanism.

Chopping heads off may save us from ourselves.

Revulsion to the ISIS Muslim butchery may cure us of believing that making nice will end war. Fretting about committing microagressions or saying "negro" or wearing shirts with bare naked ladies is looking a little fluffy.  It's one thing to crowd onto the Victim Train to gain money and attention in America and something quite else to be a victim, fleeing for your life from barbarians with knives, barbarians who cheer in the streets when you die.

As Samuel Johnson said, "When a man knows he is to be hanged.. it concentrates his mind wonderfully."   When we get bloody proof that all religions are not the same and only one, Islam, is producing a strain of beheaders who revel in their butchery, it concentrates the mind. It will change who gets elected.   Politicians will see advantage pandering to shock-concentrated citizens instead of to Occupy types.


Before leaving the topic, remember with sorrow that Americans live under a president who says after Muslim assassins murder praying Jews in Jerusalem:

"Islamic State’s “actions represent no faith, least of all the Muslim faith which Abdul-Rahman adopted as his own”"  

Lucky break in the weather - Cold snap just when we need it.

It's getting easy to laugh at climate alarmists despite their money-raising skills.  This is because the weather has taken some cold spells in places near you.  If weather was a tad nicer or we were having a couple hot years instead of 18 years without warming, the big-NGO people would be insufferable. The politicians would shamelessly be stripping us of choice and wealth to fund climate programs with them in charge.  It's happening anyway but slowingly.   Hallelujah cold snap!

US including Hawaii, overnight forecast in Fahrenheit for Nov. 17th.

Remember when "32" meant frost?

Some of the other voices:
“Over the years, the IPCC has changed from a scientific institution that tries to be policy relevant to a political institution that pretends to be scientific. I regret that. There are already more than enough climate activists, while there are too few solid and neutral bodies that make down-to-earth and well-founded statements about climate change and climate policy.” Economist Richard Tol, in a prepared statement for the Dutch parliament.

“I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” John Theon wrote to the Minority Office at theEnvironment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. “I was, in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results,” Theon is former Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA

“We’re not scientifically there yet. Despite what you may have heard in the media, there is nothing like a consensus of scientific opinion that this is a problem. Because there is natural variability in the weather, you cannot statistically know for another 150 years.” — UN IPCC’s Tom Tripp, a member of the UN IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] since 2004.

And a Canadian viewpoint: “I am a skeptic on climate change. I know the climate is changing, and it always has been. I've studied this intensively over many years. I started what I call the Carbon Project here in British Columbia back in 1989 in order to bring everybody together to discuss this subject and figure out the facts behind it. Since then, I have watched as hysteria has grown, as if the whole world is going to come to an end and civilization is going to die because of humans causing this climate change. I don't buy that, and I certainly know we don't have any proof of it. I'm not denying that we might be playing some role, but the natural factors that have always caused climate change have not suddenly disappeared. I'm very skeptical of the alarmist nature of climate campaigning.” – Patrick Moore, co-founder of
Greenpeace.

And for perspective, the long view.  The rise to 400 ppm CO2 observed recently is a tiny blip at the bottom right corner of the graph.  Give me a gigantic break.  Don't tell me the world will drown with doubled C02. Notice the average world temperature seems to have natural upper and lower limits (25C and 10C), some kind of internal governor, and it DOES NOT vary in step with CO2.

Blue Narrative Falling Apart But It's Not Going Away.

The Mid-Terms are over but the train wreck continues.   Gruber is driving the Democrat brand down as this architect of Obamacare says misdirection and the stupidity of voters was key to getting the law passed.    Post-election Obama, instead of presiding, has threatened both houses of Congress he'll make up his own laws on immigration, laws opposed by 70% of the electorate.   The Blue cities in America are the ones in the biggest trouble for debt and crime.   And W.R. Mead, the Philosopher of Blue, shows the Blue social model is breaking down, the idea that an ever increasing social dividend can be diverted from an increasingly prosperous electorate through the hands of big government to the underdog.  Look at the Democrat back bench for talent and the light shines on an aging Hillary, while there's a striking number of younger voices and some women and blacks vying in Republican land.  Until that back bench looks fresher, the Republican brand is going up.  Governorships, the presidency, the House of Representatives and perhaps even the Senate are going to turn redder in 2016.

Blue is not going away.  The idea that someone should do something about something, the inclination to help the less fortunate from our plenty, envy of the rich, the tendency to suppress risk and change with rules about rules are all natural expressions of human nature.  To boot, the richest like politicians who buy the votes of the poor with food stamps.    Neither the Republican nor the future Libertarian party will be forever.

 (If you haven't seen it or the five following videos, cynicism and manipulation is policy.)

Gruber:

"Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage, and basically, you know, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass," Jonathan Gruber said at the Annual Health Economics Conference.

World Leader Harper to Putin: Get out of Ukraine. (Americans envious).

Quoted from Bloomberg and CBC 

At the G20 meeting, Putin reached out to shake the prime minister’s hand.   Harper acknowledged his Russian counterpart, saying: “I guess I’ll shake your hand, but I only have one thing to say to you: you need to get out of Ukraine. “Putin did not respond positively,” MacDonald told Canadian reporters. “Indeed Harper told Putin that Russia should leave Ukraine,” Peskov said by phone today in Brisbane. “Putin told him that this is impossible because they are not there.”  Asked about the tone of the meeting between the two leaders, Peskov said “it was within the bounds of decency.”   

Picked up in the US by Instapundit:  "Smart diplomacy, the Real Thing".

A sampling of the comments there:

"I remember when the US president was the leader of the Free World. Good times."
"Anybody know off the top of their head what one must do to legally emigrate to      Canada?"
"BIG ones. No mom-jeans to poop in. I'll bet he has a pin-up girl Hawaiian shirt, too."

The picture is from the last G20 summit in St Petersburg.

The little guy on the left is making a lot of noise lately, including sending
a column of tanks into Ukraine and sending his warships  just off Australia to
the G20 meeting after he was dumped from the G8.

President One Note: Amnesty or Bust

President Obama is in love with defeat, trumpeting in advance where he will attack.  Sun Tzu's advice is to do the exact opposite.  Make nice to the enemy (Republicans and rubes) while making plans in secret. Obama's secret plan to amnesty millions of illegal visitors is about as secret as Kim Kardashian's wardrobe.   He's going to be shot down or diminished and appears to have no Plan B.

If he and his camp followers are correct that borders should be no barrier, then disband the IRS and send your taxes to the UN.

Pretty much the first responsibility of a government is to protect the border. From the US constitution, defense is listed right after paying back public debt and before general public welfare in the first statement of duties of Congress:

"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States. (Section 8)"

President Scott Walker?: "Does he sit upon a throne made of the skulls of his enemies"?

From The Federalist:

Does Walker sizzle? Not exactly. Is he a particularly charismatic speaker? No, he isn’t. But does he sit upon a throne made of the skulls of his enemies? Yes, yes he does.

Rick Cromwell's article makes a good case for President Walker.  It's an alternate to my view that America wants a time-out with a decent competent guy like Matt Romney.

DOE funds temperature fakery

Temperatures from DOE-funded USHCN are 30% made up and 100% twisted to make them hotter.  The GIF from Stephen Goddard's blog is unforgettable. Analysis at the link.  (DOE funding mentioned here.)

This reminds me of the joke about accountants.  The truth is whatever they want it to be:

A businessman was interviewing applicants for the position of divisional manager. He devised a simple test to select the most suitable person for the job. He asked each applicant the question, "What is two and two?" The first interviewee was a journalist. His answer was "Twenty-two." The second was a social worker. She said, "I don't know the answer but I'm glad we had time to discuss this important question." The third applicant was an engineer. He pulled out a slide rule and showed the answer to be between 3.999 and 4.001. The next person was a lawyer. He stated that in the case of Jenkins v. Commr of Stamp Duties (Qld), two and two was proven to be four. The last applicant was an accountant. The business man asked him, "How much is two and two?" The accountant got up from his chair, went over to the door and closed it, then came back and sat down. He leaned across the desk and said in a low voice, "How much do you want it to be?" He got the job.

h/t smalldeadanimals

Climate craziness best predictor of your vote.

From WUWT this exit poll of republicans and democrats who were asked:  "Do you think climate change, also known as 'global warming' , is a serious problem?"

John Hinkeraker comments: "Why is global warming such a partisan issue? I think because there is hardly any evidence to support the alarmists’ case, so the whole thing is a matter of faith and politics, not science."

The voter split is bigger than the political party split and that goes for Canada too.   Even conservatives with a microphone give a lot of lip service to doing something about climate.

I'll know I'm rich when...

1984 version:
I don't have to go to work right away but can enjoy a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, a fresh-baked croissant and read the Financial Post.

2014 version:
Semi-retired, and self-employed, I don't have to go to work right away.
(60% complete)
A glass of Not-From-Concentrate orange juice goes down well.  (70%)
I buy a gross of frozen Costco croissant starters, let a couple rise overnight and give them 15 minutes in the toaster oven before breakfast.   (90%)
And instead of the Financial Post, with PC or smartphone I skim the surface of the whole earth reading what is deemed news and wisdom.  (100%)

So, I'm rich.
The price of wealth came down.
Thanks to markets.

Obama: "Did I do that?"

Obama and Urkel:  "Did I do that?"
Remember, his policies are "on the ballot".
As the cartoonist says,  Obama is offering amnesty to millions because they are willing to do the jobs Americans aren't willing to do: Vote Democrat.

What would you take in a time machine to the Stone Age? Update: Software

If I brought a smartphone, it would probably be torn down and reprocessed as blade edges.  In one hand I'd carry a piece of scrap steel and in the other some mirrors and patterned silk.  Stuffed in my pocket would be plasticized Google satellite maps.

The men and women of thirty thousand years ago would be quick learners.  You can think of lots more if your goal is to kickstart the industrial revolution.  I'm thinking of what the people would be ready to accept:   Sharp edges for battle and things to make women look stunning to men.

Added:  Probably the stuff you bring would be taken by force. If you don't want to try for the Number One position, perhaps a retreat to the forest with a personal survival kit would be wiser.

Update:  Bring software not hardware.  Language is software and it seems to have been upgraded maybe six thousand years ago to have a word for everything we see and do and to let us tell stories.  No one can steal my language.

All Politics Is Old Politics When Smartphones Are Lie-detectors.

Cheap smartphones on the net are upending party politics.  There is no longer a memory hole to throw stuff down.  The sound bits and video clips are starting to resurface at election time. Those who run for high office have to match their walk and talk better.  Now there's news of effective lie-detector apps to add to your phone.   (What happens when your friend’s smartphone can tell that you’re lying?)  Do you think the voters won't be checking it out?    

The average person has a random chance of spotting a lie while good poker players and trained interrogators can get above 70%.  We all give out tells when we lie, a little glance, finger fidget, change of pitch, "let me be clear".    Voters are about as smart as politicians but they have been handicapped for lack of information.  That is changing and not because of policy, just because that's what people do with cheap smartphones and internet access.

Chance of spotting a lie.
Remember, 50% isn't a pass, it's the baseline, strictly random

  Another four or five elections will pass before it's obvious.  We're only a dozen years into the eWorld where Everyman has a phone.  Politicians will put policy brakes on it but it will spread anyway because they want it too.  Cheap quick information is addictive.

The ultimate compliment

"Mustafa, now you may die".

Source

Some years back in a Palestinian camp in Jordan,  a Western optimist tried to interest the camp leaders in digging a well for their own supply of fresh water.  They thought it was a hopeless project.  He ended up recruiting the kids.  They dug down over thirty feet, shoring up the sides as they went and truly did find water.  The community came to see and a cup of water was drawn up for the eldest to sip.   He turned solemnly to the volunteer and said, "Mustafa, now you may die".

This one act made his whole life worthwhile to the community.  The ultimate compliment.

I read this in a book about thirty years ago and haven't found it on the Internet or in Google Books. If anyone knows the source, I'll add it.

Christmas Math

Grandpa and Grandma are sending $150 to buy all the kids presents this Christmas.  At our end, we don't know what G&G need and have decided to send them $100 to get something they really like.  You see where I am going.

Source

 
All the love can be handled in a single clearing entry.    Make a phone call.  The high bidder does a $50 transfer on their smartphone. Not only is this cheaper, it's greener.  No cars drive around burning gas and no Christmas card paper is consumed.

On the receiving end, I used to bank the cheque.  Next time we talked, I'd mention the nicest thing I'd bought since then and give them the credit.

US Voters have favourite brands.

Amazon, Craftsman, Johnson & Johnson make everybody's list.  They serve and don't lecture.  But Google is mistrusted, by Republicans and Independents and PBS only matters to Democrats.   (So much for "public" radio.)  

This is the Google that styles their logo to celebrate thug Chavez' birthday on Easter Sunday 2013.  It cooperated with China to censor search results, but later relented.  It cooperated with NSA to spy on Americans.  It's pretty much the biggest snoop into our lives, more even than the government and uses data about how we live our lives in way we never quite get to see.  A clue should be that you don't get the same search results as your neighbour because they've been edited by what they know about you.

Source of list at yougov.com.

A modest proposal for November 5th

Stunned democrat voters won't have the option November 5th of moving to Canada to get away.  That was the Republican refuge.   Venezuela does photo ops with the American left but it's not a great place to set up house.  There is a better way:   The tens of thousands hired to peddle Obamacare and get folks signed up can be repositioned as Grief Counsellors.  They weren't busy anyway.

Waiting to take your call.

"Hit the refresh button every ten minutes".  A former worker at Serco's processing facility in Wentzville, Mo., Lavonne Takatz, said she and other workers played games or slept because there was nothing for them to do. She and other workers said company and government supervisors knew they were being paid to do little or no work at all.