Via BCF
Terry Does Tehran
It’s at times like this that I miss Raskolnikov.
If You’re So Much Smarter Than Your Grandparents
The Tolerant Left
I’m as shocked as you are: Pew Research reveals liberals most intolerant online.
(Via.)
The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire
It’s Probably Nothing
Via John Mauldin;
“As manageable as Spain’s public debt would appear to be at face value, her private debt is an altogether different story – standing at a staggering 227% of GDP and, according to McKinsey, Spanish corporations hold twice as much debt relative to their output as US companies and, in comparison to Germany, that number goes up to six times….
“As Spain reduced its deficit in accordance with the EU’s Growth & Stability Pact, it meant an increasing reliance on private debt was needed in order to prolong the enormous construction boom that had been ongoing in Spain since the 1970s but which really picked up steam in the 90s and 00s. The outcome of that reliance? A tripling of average household debt.”
Throw in the part about the Spanish unemployment rate skyrocketing toward the 25% mark this year (and twice that for those under 25) and the bit where the new Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, draws a line in the sand by unexpectedly announcing that his government’s budget deficit would be 5.8% of GDP in 2012, more than 30 percent higher than the 4.4% agreed on with his supposed masters in Brussels, and we have all the makings for quite a spicy little paella.
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O, Sweet Saint Of San Andreas
Y2Kyoto: The Final Solution
h/t Lionel
Game Change
“Hey, wait, I thought those dumb Republicans had thrown away their chances last week.”
Reader Tips
In tonight’s Tippity amusement, filmed live at the the Steppe Inn, a private bar located at the back of the British Embassy in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolian trio Shanz-Elsen Tsul helps the clientele knock back their Gin and Tonics with a drum machine-assisted performance of the traditional Mongolian song I’m Momentarily Out Of Ideas For Tips Music.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Those Moderate Muslims!
Nigeria’s nightmare bloodbath finding more Christian targets;
In Nigeria, thousands of people have been killed in recent months, and tens of thousands in the last decade. It is a fissiparous country whose conflicts have been exacerbated by the increased influence of radical Islam—beginning with attempts to apply Islamic law, then the growth of militias, and now the depredations of the vicious al Qaeda-linked Boko Haram movement.
The Left vs. Your Privacy – You Lose!
Out of California, yet another step “forward” with “progressivism”. What’s next, mandatory sexual organ measurements?
The Sound Of Settled Science
Last week I conducted an extensive interview with Max Allen of the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. [,,,] Well, after pondering this, I emailed Max Allen some talking points for our interview, which forms the basis of the essay below related to the interview, and also includes responses to some questions I was asked during the interview.
Read it all, and then tune into IDEAS this evening for Head Explosions, Part 1.
What We Really Need Is Democracy
With a totalitarian party to vote for.
It’s a sea change from the ousted regime of President Hosni Mubarak, when women were guaranteed 64 parliamentary seats. In the latest post-revolutionary elections, the quota was eliminated and women won only five seats. “The other seats went to the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists,” said El Soud, co-founder of the Revolutionary Women’s Coalition, which has 4,000 members on Facebook.
“We are going backward, backward and backward,” she added.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
What’s The Opposite Of Diversity?
Dear Governor Perry,
The time has come for these three simple words: “Or else, what?“
YNoKyoto!
The European Union’s ambitious low carbon plan collapsed yesterday when Poland vetoed plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically after 2020. The move is the latest stage in the ignominious failure of EU carbon policy that has seen a grandiose carbon trading system bog down in a quagmire of scandal and price collapse. Europe will meet its current carbon reduction goals less because of any serious action than because the continent’s economic crisis brought on by the poorly constructed euro experiment has stalled economic growth.
A Diet High In Ibex
“These discoveries put a lot of what we see today medically in a broader context,” said Bustamante. “For example, this man, who died when he was about 45 years old, was likely very fit. He got lots of exercise and ate a true paleo diet. And yet he had begun to develop heart disease. This shows that the selective forces we’re familiar with today just weren’t in the picture then. These types of disease were probably common, but they didn’t kill people. People died instead of an arrow in the back or in hunting accidents. There is still so much more to learn.”