{"id":5166,"date":"2012-03-26T22:50:23","date_gmt":"2012-03-27T02:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=5166"},"modified":"2012-03-26T22:51:07","modified_gmt":"2012-03-27T02:51:07","slug":"the-daily-gouge-tuesday-march-27th-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=5166","title":{"rendered":"The Daily Gouge, Tuesday, March 27th, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>It&#8217;s Tuesday, March 27th, 2012&#8230;.and before we begin, a few brief comments on the Trayvon Martin &#8220;case&#8221;.\u00a0 First, the law which had nothing to do with Trayvon&#8217;s death:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/sk032512dAPR20120323114555.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5177\" title=\"sk032512dAPR20120323114555\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/sk032512dAPR20120323114555.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"462\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/sk032512dAPR20120323114555.jpg 462w, https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/sk032512dAPR20120323114555-300x227.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 462px) 100vw, 462px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Second, the same, tired, divisive tripe from a President elected to serve and protect ALL Americans, not just citizens of one, particular&#8230;.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/GM120325CLR-Obama_an20120326041236.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5192\" title=\"GM120325CLR-Obama_an20120326041236\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/GM120325CLR-Obama_an20120326041236.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"462\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/GM120325CLR-Obama_an20120326041236.jpg 462w, https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/GM120325CLR-Obama_an20120326041236-300x227.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 462px) 100vw, 462px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8230;.color.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Obamao knows as much about this investigation as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Father Pfleger, you and we do&#8230;.which is not one helluva lot.\u00a0 The demonstrations and protestations of the professionally sensitive aside, the Sanford police department conducted an investigation and concluded Zimmerman&#8217;s actions were within the law.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>We for one are willing to wait for the wheels of justice to finish turning before presuming anything; <strong>for all we know, Zimmerman may have been a disturbed individual looking for someone to shoot.<\/strong>\u00a0 But from what we&#8217;ve heard of the testimony of the only eyewitness to the incident, reasonable doubt exists as to the criminality of Trayvon&#8217;s shooting.\u00a0 And one thing&#8217;s for certain: a Florida gun law did NOT shoot Trayvon Martin.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Unfortunately, the facts don&#8217;t fit with the timing and political aspirations of those who would turn this into a racially-inspired act of hatred.\u00a0 Funny the NAACP, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the Urban League, ACLU, Ray Lewis and Santonio Holmes were too busy to appear on behalf of the WHITE Kansas City high school student was set on fire by two BLACK teens&#8230;.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/I_xG2dIX6n4\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Note the reporter didn&#8217;t see fit to mention what the Black teens ACTUALLY said: &#8220;You get what you deserve, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>WHITE BOY<\/em><\/span>!&#8221;\u00a0 Which is only in keeping with Kansas City authorities refusal to classify the attack as a hate crime.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>After all, being White, the kid was just getting what he deserved!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Now, here&#8217;s The Gouge!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>First up, Round 1 of ObamaScare On Trial; so far, so good:<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #800080;\">ObamaCare Opening Day<\/span><\/h1>\n<h2 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\">&#8216;I would not argue that this statute is a perfect model of clarity.&#8217;<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The Supreme Court&#8217;s epic oral arguments on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act began Monday with a kind of tease. The 90-minute exchange explored a technical side issue about taxes, but even so it suggested that the Justices will rule on the merits and are skeptical of some of the Obama Administration&#8217;s claims.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The issue involves the Anti-Injunction Act, an 1867 law that says taxpayers can&#8217;t challenge a tax until it&#8217;s collected. ObamaCare&#8217;s individual mandate says everyone must buy health insurance or pay a penalty, but it doesn&#8217;t kick in until 2014, so the Court could use this law to defer a final decision on the mandate&#8217;s constitutionality.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #800080;\"><strong>The Obama Administration argued that the mandate is not a tax under the Anti-Injunction Act, because like the 26 state plaintiffs it wants the Court to rule on the merits. <span style=\"color: #008080;\">The irony is that Tuesday the Administration will turn around and claim the mandate is a legal exercise of Congress&#8217;s taxing power.<\/span> Monday&#8217;s proceedings indicate the government may have some trouble making that case, even among the High Court&#8217;s liberals.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\"><strong>&#8220;Now, here, Congress has nowhere used the word &#8216;tax,'&#8221; noted Justice Stephen Breyer. <span style=\"color: #800080;\">&#8220;<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>And so why is this a tax<\/em><\/span>?&#8221;<\/span><\/strong><\/span><span style=\"color: #800080;\"><strong> he asked the Court-appointed attorney Robert Long.<\/strong><\/span> <span style=\"color: #008080;\"><strong>The Justice later added that &#8220;they called it a penalty and not a tax for a reason. <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>They wanted it to fall outside that<\/em><\/span>.&#8221;<\/strong><\/span> Justice Breyer may be referring to ObamaCare&#8217;s statutory language, though he could also cite the drafters&#8217; many public professions that the individual mandate is not a tax. The Obama Democrats structured the mandate under the Commerce Clause in a bid to escape political accountability for raising taxes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #800080;\"><strong>Justice Elena Kagan asked Mr. Long, &#8220;aren&#8217;t you trying to rewrite the statute, in a way? . . . Congress, it must be supposed, you know, made a decision that that shouldn&#8217;t be the way the statute reads, that it should instead be a regulatory command and a penalty attached to that command.&#8221; <span style=\"color: #008080;\">Mr. Long deadpanned, in the understatement of the decade, &#8220;<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>Well, I would not argue that this statute is a perfect model of clarity<\/em><\/span>.&#8221; <span style=\"color: #008000;\">(After all, who could expect clarity in a 2,200-page piece of legislative sleight-of-hand?!?)<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also doubted that the mandate is a tax, which is particularly notable because most everyone on the legal left thinks the law is more than vindicated by the taxing power, open and shut. <span style=\"color: #800080;\"><strong>Well, not so fast. <span style=\"color: #008080;\">We&#8217;ll learn more when the Court tackles the individual mandate today.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Stay tuned for Round 2; this one ain&#8217;t gonna be over &#8217;til it&#8217;s over!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Speaking of the policies of a man devoted to the destruction of the nation and Constitution he&#8217;s sworn to protect and defend&#8230;. <\/strong><\/p>\n<h1 id=\"article-title\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">During missile defense talk, Obama tells Medvedev he&#8217;ll have &#8216;more flexibility&#8217; after election<\/span><\/h1>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4JpPU-SwcbE\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><em>Just give me &#8217;til after November&#8230;.then no one will be able to prevent my surrendering America&#8217;s missile secrets! <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">President Obama assured Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Monday that he&#8217;d have &#8220;more flexibility&#8221; after the November election, during a conversation that appeared to focus on the touchy issue of missile defense. Obama, during a sit-down with Medvedev in Seoul, urged Moscow to give him &#8220;space&#8221; until after November. The conversation was relayed by a TV pool producer who listened to the recording from a Russian journalist.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>&#8220;<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility<\/em><\/span>,&#8221; Obama told Medvedev.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Obama appeared to be asking Medvedev to relay this point to Vladimir Putin, who recently won election to return to the Russian presidency. &#8220;On all these issues, but particularly missile defense &#8230; this can be solved but it&#8217;s important for him to give me space,&#8221; Obama said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Medvedev told the president he understood the &#8220;message about space. Space for you &#8230;&#8221; <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>After Obama noted he&#8217;d have more flexibility in the future, Medvedev told him: &#8220;I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.&#8221;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>It&#8217;s a Marxist thing&#8230;.you wouldn&#8217;t understand!\u00a0 Bottomline: even The Obamao, at least for the time being, requires Senate consent to any missile treaty with the Russians.\u00a0 Which is why we believe what Tick-Tock&#8217;s talking about has nothing to do with treaties, but rather his pulling a page from the old Clinton playbook and giving the Russians highly-classified missile technology.\u00a0 The Clintons committed treason for mere pottage, i.e., campaign contributions; but The Obamao, like Neville Chamberlain before him, sees selling out his country as the price for&#8230;.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/images12.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5193\" title=\"images\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/images12.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"233\" height=\"216\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8230;.&#8221;peace&#8221; in his time. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Next up, in a forward from Speed Mach, Mark Steyn, writing in <em>National Review Online<\/em>, forecasts America&#8217;s imminent fall:<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">The Sun Also Sets<\/span><\/h1>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/sunset032310.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5170\" title=\"sunset032310\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/sunset032310.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/sunset032310.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/sunset032310-300x187.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong>I was in Australia earlier this month and there, as elsewhere on my recent travels, the consensus among the politicians I met (at least in private) was that Washington lacked the will for meaningful course correction, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>and that, therefore, the trick was to ensure that, when the behemoth goes over the cliff, you\u2019re not dragged down with it<\/em><\/span>. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">It is faintly surreal to be sitting in paneled offices lined by formal portraits listening to eminent persons who assume the collapse of the dominant global power is a fait accompli. \u201cI don\u2019t feel America is quite a First World country anymore,\u201d a robustly pro-American Aussie told me, with a sigh of regret.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Well, what does some rinky-dink \u2019roo-infested didgeridoo mill on the other side of the planet know about anything? Fair enough. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">But Australia was the only major Western nation not to go into recession after 2008.<\/span> And in the last decade the U.S. dollar has fallen by half against the Oz buck: That\u2019s to say, in 2002, one greenback bought you a buck-ninety Down Under; now it buys you 95 cents.<\/strong><\/span> More of that a bit later.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I have now returned from Oz to the Emerald City, where everything is built with borrowed green. <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong>President Obama has run up more debt in three years than President Bush did in eight, and he plans to run up more still \u2014 <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">from ten trillion in 2008 to fifteen and a half trillion now to 20 trillion and beyond.<\/span> <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Onward and upward!<\/span> The president doesn\u2019t see this as a problem, nor do his party, and nor do at least forty-something percent of the American people. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">The Democrats\u2019 plan is to have no plan, and their budget is not to budget at all.<\/span> \u201cWe don\u2019t need to bring a budget,\u201d said Harry Reid. Why tie yourself down?<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"> \u201cWe\u2019re not coming before you to say we have a definitive solution,\u201d the treasury secretary told House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan.<\/span><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"> \u201c<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>What we do know is we don\u2019t like yours<\/em><\/span>.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong>Nor do some of Ryan\u2019s fellow conservatives. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Texas congressman Louie Gohmert, for whom I have a high regard, was among those representatives who appeared at the Heritage Foundation to express misgivings regarding the Ryan plan\u2019s timidity.<\/span><\/strong><\/span> They\u2019re not wrong on that: The alleged terrorizer of widows and orphans does not propose to balance the budget of the government of the United States until the year 2040. That would be 27 years after Congressman Ryan\u2019s current term of office expires. Who knows what could throw a wrench in those numbers? Suppose Beijing decides to seize Taiwan. The U.S. is obligated to defend it militarily. But U.S. taxpayers would be funding both sides of the war \u2014 the home team, via the Pentagon budget, and the Chinese military, through the interest payments on the debt. (We\u2019ll be bankrolling the entire People\u2019s Liberation Army by some point this decade.) A Beijing\u2013Taipei conflict would be, in budget terms, a U.S. civil war relocated to the Straits of Taiwan. Which is why plans for mid-century are of limited value. When the most notorious extreme callous budget-slasher of the age cannot foresee the government living within its means within the next three decades, you begin to appreciate why foreign observers doubt whether there\u2019ll be a 2040, not for anything recognizable as \u201cthe United States.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Yet it\u2019s widely agreed that Ryan\u2019s plan is about as far as you can push it while retaining minimal political viability.<\/strong><\/span> <strong><span style=\"color: #008000;\">(Pigs get fat; hogs get slaughtered!)<\/span><\/strong> A second-term Obama would roar full throttle to the cliff edge, while a President Romney would be unlikely to do much more than ease off to third gear. At this point, it\u2019s traditional for pundits to warn that if we don\u2019t change course we\u2019re going to wind up like Greece. <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong>Presumably they mean that, right now, our national debt, which crossed the Rubicon of 100 percent of GDP just before Christmas, is not as bad as that of Athens, <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>although it\u2019s worse than Britain, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, and every other European nation except Portugal, Ireland, and Italy<\/em><\/span>.<\/span> <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Or perhaps they mean that America\u2019s current deficit-to-GDP ratio is not quite as bad as Greece\u2019s, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #ff0000;\"><em>although it\u2019s worse than that of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and every other European nation except Ireland<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong>But these comparisons tend to understate the insolvency of America, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>failing as they do to take into account state and municipal debts and public pension liabilities<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span> When Morgan Stanley ran those numbers in 2009, the debt-to-revenue ratio in Greece was 312 percent; in the United States it was 358 percent. If Greece has been knocking back the ouzo, we\u2019re face down in the vat. <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute calculates that, if you take into account unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare versus their European equivalents, <em>Greece owes 875 percent of GDP<\/em>; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>the United States owes 911 percent<\/em><\/span> \u2014 <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">or getting on for twice as much as the second-most-insolvent Continental: France at 549 percent.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong>And if you\u2019re thinking, Wow, all these percentages are making my head hurt, forget \u2019em: <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>When you\u2019re spending on the scale Washington does, what matters is the hard dollar numbers<\/em><\/span>. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Greece\u2019s total debt is a few rinky-dink billions, a rounding error in the average Obama budget. <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Only America is spending trillions.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span> The 2011 budget deficit, for example, is about the size of the entire Russian economy. By 2010, the Obama administration was issuing about a hundred billion dollars of treasury bonds every month \u2014 or, to put it another way, Washington is <span style=\"color: #000000;\">dependent <\/span>on the bond markets being willing to absorb an increase of U.S. debt equivalent to the GDP of Canada or India \u2014 every year. <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong>And those numbers don\u2019t take into account the huge levels of personal debt run up by Americans. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>College-debt alone is over a trillion dollars, or the equivalent of the entire South Korean economy<\/em><\/span> \u2014 <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">tied up just in one small boutique niche market of debt which barely exists in most other developed nations<\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong>\u201cWe are headed for the most predictable economic crisis in history,\u201d says Paul Ryan. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">And he\u2019s right.<\/span> But precisely because it\u2019s so predictable the political class has already discounted it. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Which is why a plan for pie now and spinach later, maybe even two decades later, is the only real menu on the table.<\/span><\/strong> <strong>There\u2019s a famous exchange in Hemingway\u2019s <em>The Sun Also Rises<\/em>. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Someone asks Mike Campbell, \u201cHow did you go bankrupt?\u201d<\/span> <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">\u201c<em>Two ways<\/em>,\u201d he replies. \u201c<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>Gradually, then suddenly<\/em><\/span>.\u201d<\/span> We\u2019ve been going through the gradual phase so long, we\u2019re kinda used to it. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">But it\u2019s coming to an end, and what happens next will be the second way: <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>sudden, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">and very bad<\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">By the way, that decline in the U.S.\/Australian exchange isn\u2019t the only one. Ten years ago the U.S. dollar was worth 1.6 Canadian; now it\u2019s at par. A decade ago, the dollar was worth over ten Swedish Kroner, now 6.7; 1.8 Singapore dollars, now 1.2. I get asked with distressing frequency by Americans where I would recommend fleeing to.<span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong> The reality is, given the dollar\u2019s decline over the last decade, that most Americans can no longer afford to flee to any place worth fleeing to. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">What\u2019s left is the non-flee option: taking a stand here, stopping the spendaholism, closing federal agencies, privatizing departments, block-granting to the states \u2014 <em>not in 2040, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">but now<\/span><\/em>.<\/span> <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">\u201c<em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Suddenly\u201d is about to show up<\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>And since we&#8217;re on the subject of this President&#8217;s inexplicable enthrallment of the insolvent and infeasible, it&#8217;s the subject of the latest from Mark Helprin in the <em>WSJ<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Obama&#8217;s Europa Complex<\/span><\/h1>\n<h2 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Why emulate countries with high budget deficits, high unemployment, low birthrates, and weak defense?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Both in his re-election campaign and as the core principle of his presidency, Barack Obama asks America to cast off reliance on the free market\u2014because, in his characterization, the free market &#8220;doesn&#8217;t work&#8221;\u2014in favor of the European model of ever-tightening, ever-regulating, ever-expanding governance. <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">This he does, astonishingly, at the very moment of the European model&#8217;s long-predictable crisis, collapse, bankruptcy, and devolution.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>With his trademark certainty he proposes\u2014indeed, at times commands\u2014that we follow him over the Niagara to which his back is turned.<\/strong><\/span> The writer Henry James cautioned that, &#8220;It&#8217;s a complex fate, being an American, &amp; one of the responsibilities it entails is fighting against a superstitious valuation of Europe.&#8221; <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Promiscuous endorsement of things European, inveterate in the president&#8217;s academic coterie, has long been characteristic of American snobs.<\/span> As Harvard once dispatched missionaries to better the savages, it now sends students abroad so they might better us. <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">To be wrong on both counts requires congenital blindness to the facts, which suggest that despite our own grievous failings Europe is hardly worthy of imitation.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">As a museum of culture, it has few competitors. Europeans make better movies; their cuisine is better (except in Eastern Europe, Central Europe, Scandinavia, England, Ireland, the Low Countries, Germany and Switzerland); and they do a better job of suppressing modern architecture, for which they are to be commended.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>But in suppressing and over-engineering their economies they court national bankruptcies. <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Just as reckless are their efforts to ameliorate economic stagnation via the all-guzzling welfare state.<\/span> Shall we create more jobs by aping Europe, which since 1990 has averaged 9.16% unemployment while ours was 5.95%?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">European structural unemployment is supposedly tolerable in the context of less income inequality and greater social analgesia, but although income equality may be the socialist ideal, isn&#8217;t the more civilized object to provide as abundantly as possible rather than to annihilate the potential for envy? <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><strong>Incomes are perfectly level in the Gulag, whereas in Boston and Singapore they are not.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>More to the point, giant social welfare systems cannot but strangle economies the progressive failure of which they are intended to relieve.<\/strong><\/span> <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><strong>Differences within Europe itself illustrate the route out of its troubles that it may yet take just as American progressives jump into the hole it is trying to exit. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">France now has in proportion to its working population 44% more public employees than Germany, and devotes 52.3% rather than Germany&#8217;s 43.7% of gross domestic product to public expenditure.<\/span> Do the French, not to mention the Greeks, wonder by what magic Germany achieves its solvency?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Remarkably like the leaders of the bankrupt states of Europe, President Obama believes that the key to prosperity is to regulate, engineer, and direct the economy; to raise taxes; to augment the powers of government; to substitute collective largess for family cohesion; to spend money that does not exist; <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>and, to paraphrase Macbeth, to borrow, to borrow, and to borrow<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/ED-AP057A_Helpr_D_20120326155612.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5194\" title=\"ED-AP057A_Helpr_D_20120326155612\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/ED-AP057A_Helpr_D_20120326155612.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"262\" height=\"174\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">In supposedly enlightened Europe, political polarization still finds expression in fascism and communism, as illustrated by the French elections of 2002, when, before the economic crisis, parties of the extreme right and left took nearly one vote in five. <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><strong>Should we emulate this, or the devolution of the United Kingdom, Spain and Belgium? <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">The wars in Northern Ireland and the Balkans?<\/span> The burning cities of France and Greece?<\/strong><\/span> Lacking the balance of our federal system, the European Union brutally overrides local preferences, and should Europe unite it will be so dirigiste and brittle a concoction it will disintegrate as surely as any empire. Shall we emulate that?<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">If our elites think European low birth rates, family disruption, and nihilism are hip, fine, and dandy, they should read Thomas Mann&#8217;s &#8220;Disorder and Early Sorrow&#8221; and contemplate the Weimar Republic. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Having abandoned the Constitution, American universities now decide representation by race and sex, and embrace speech codes as in much of Europe, where, for example, Holocaust denial is a crime. <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Though it is a crime against the truth, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>it should not be a crime against the law<\/em><\/span>, which could as easily prohibit predication of the Holocaust as it prohibits denial.<\/span> Should this be our model?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Even with indispensable American aid, Europe took seven months to topple a lunatic at not quite the head of a small, corrupt, inexperienced Libyan army equipped with outdated weapons. <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Britain now has no fixed-wing aircraft carriers, only 25 principal surface warships (half those of South Korea), and fewer than 200 tanks and 200 combat aircraft with which barely to defend itself.<\/span><\/strong><\/span> That it once morally despaired of self-defense was understandable in light of the pointless carnage of the Great War. But now in light of what? Fluctuating supplies of ganja? Occasional ebbs of upper-class self-flagellation?<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Save those of Russia, Germany has the most powerful land forces in Europe, but only one-sixth the tanks and artillery of Iran.<\/strong><\/span> <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>No European air force except Russia&#8217;s is superior to Saudi Arabia&#8217;s<\/em><\/span>. <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>Such weakness, almost unimaginable only a short time ago, should not be our aspiration, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">although it has become so<\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span> Europe&#8217;s disarmament renders it virtually unable to contribute to stability abroad (once, the power of Britain alone kept the lid on the Middle East), or to deter war even on its own soil, such as in the Balkans in the 1990s. Europe is now more vulnerable than during the Cold War, and its vulnerability will only increase, stimulating the appetites of a Russia that wants above all to rebound.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">If this seems far-fetched, so at one time did the world-shuddering awakenings of the Wehrmacht, the Red Army, and the forces of Imperial Japan. <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>By abdicating its role in a stable military equilibrium, Europe is not for the first time in its long and bloody history careless of tragedy and fate, and in our own imitative disarmament we are following suit.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">In short, the president and his progressives are chasing after a specter.<\/span> <em>Because the president is apparently repelled by the principles of the American Founding and lacks an alternative other than the European model, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">nothing else is in his quiver<\/span> as he is driven by the dread of a future absent his omnipresent intervention<\/em>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">For if he were no longer able to direct an endlessly augmented list of actions, to suffocate fortune and chance in the infinitely growing pillow of regulation and thus settle everything into silence, to sand down every bump, straighten every drawer, comfort every cry, iron every shirt, and protect every frog, what would America come to? <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><strong>We would be even less like Europe, <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>and as anyone can see, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">in Europe they do everything right<\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Meanwhile, back at the ranch with The Gang That Still Can&#8217;t Shoot Straight, Rick Santorum seeks to make lemonade from lemons:<\/strong><\/p>\n<h1 id=\"article-title\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Santorum: &#8216;Of course&#8217; I&#8217;d consider being Romney&#8217;s running mate<\/span><\/h1>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Based on St. Santorum&#8217;s past electoral successes, that should get Romney at least 40% of the votes in the Keystone State.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Then there&#8217;s this survey whose results we find highly suspect:<\/strong><\/p>\n<h1 id=\"article-title\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #800080;\">America\u2019s Most Corrupt States<\/span><\/h1>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Let&#8217;s see&#8230;.considering 4 of the last 6 governors of the illustrious state of Illinois served or are serving time in prison, we&#8217;d think the Land of Lincoln topped the list, followed closely by those bastions of union cronyism Maryland, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York and California.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>But no!\u00a0 Topping the list of this singularly suspect survey were Georgia, the Dakotas, South Carolina, Virginia, Wyoming and Maine&#8230;.states which, though certainly less sophisticated than there far more Liberal counterparts, were deemed corrupt not because of what they&#8217;re politicians and officials have DONE, but what their statutes MIGHT possibly permit.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>In other words&#8230;.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zRFI-Xrg1XI\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Next up, <\/strong><strong>in the <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Environmental Moment<span style=\"color: #000000;\">, as William Happer observes in the <em>WSJ<\/em>&#8230;.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Global Warming Models Are Wrong Again<\/span><\/h1>\n<h2 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #808000;\">The observed response of the climate to more CO2 is not in good agreement with predictions.<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">During a fundraiser in Atlanta earlier this month, President Obama is reported to have said: &#8220;It gets you a little nervous about what is happening to global temperatures. When it is 75 degrees in Chicago in the beginning of March, you start thinking. On the other hand, I really have enjoyed nice weather.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>What is happening to global temperatures in reality? <span style=\"color: #808000;\">The answer is: <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>almost nothing for more than 10 years<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span> Monthly values of the global temperature anomaly of the lower atmosphere, complied at the University of Alabama from NASA satellite data, can be found at the website <span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #0000ff;\"><strong>http:\/\/www.drroyspencer.com\/latest-global-temperatures\/<\/strong><\/span>. <span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>The latest (February 2012) monthly global temperature anomaly for the lower atmosphere was minus 0.12 degrees Celsius, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>slightly less than the average since the satellite record of temperatures began in 1979<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The lack of any statistically significant warming for over a decade has made it more difficult for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its supporters to demonize the atmospheric gas CO2 which is released when fossil fuels are burned. The burning of fossil fuels has been one reason for an increase of CO2 levels in the atmosphere to around 395 ppm (or parts per million), up from preindustrial levels of about 280 ppm.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #808000;\"><strong>CO2 is not a pollutant. <span style=\"color: #008000;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>Life on earth flourished for hundreds of millions of years at much higher CO2 levels than we see today<\/em><\/span>.<\/span> Increasing CO2 levels will be a net benefit because cultivated plants grow better and are more resistant to drought at higher CO2 levels, and because warming and other supposedly harmful effects of CO2 have been greatly exaggerated. <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>Nations with affordable energy from fossil fuels are more prosperous and healthy than those without<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The direct warming due to doubling CO2 levels in the atmosphere can be calculated to cause a warming of about one degree Celsius. The IPCC computer models predict a much larger warming, three degrees Celsius or even more, because they assume changes in water vapor or clouds that supposedly amplify the direct warming from CO2. Many lines of observational evidence suggest that this &#8220;positive feedback&#8221; also has been greatly exaggerated.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>There has indeed been some warming, perhaps about 0.8 degrees Celsius, since the end of the so-called Little Ice Age in the early 1800s. <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><span style=\"color: #808000;\">Some of that warming has probably come from increased amounts of CO2, but the timing of the warming\u2014much of it before CO2 levels had increased appreciably\u2014<\/span><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>suggests that a substantial fraction of the warming is from natural causes that have nothing to do with mankind<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>Frustrated by the lack of computer-predicted warming over the past decade, some IPCC supporters have been claiming that &#8220;extreme weather&#8221; has become more common because of more CO2. <span style=\"color: #808000;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>But there is no hard evidence this is true<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong> <strong>After an unusually cold winter in 2011 (December 2010-February 2011) the winter of 2012 was unusually warm in the continental United States. <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>But the winter of 2012 was bitter in Europe, Asia and Alaska<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Weather conditions similar to 2012 occurred in the winter of 1942, when the U.S. Midwest was unusually warm, and when the Wehrmacht encountered the formidable forces of &#8220;General Frost&#8221; in a Russian winter not unlike the one Russians just had.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Large fluctuations from warm to cold winters have been the rule for the U.S., as one can see from records kept by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA. For example, the winters of 1932 and 1934 were as warm as or warmer than the 2011-2012 one and the winter of 1936 was much colder.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Nightly television pictures of the tragic destruction from tornadoes over the past months might make one wonder if the frequency of tornadoes is increasing, perhaps due to the increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. <span style=\"color: #808000;\"><strong>But as one can read at Andrew Revkin&#8217;s New York Times blog, dotearth, &#8220;There is no evidence of any trend in the number of potent tornadoes (category F2 and up) over the past 50 years in the United States, even as global temperatures have risen markedly.&#8221; <span style=\"color: #008000;\">(Even though they haven&#8217;t!)<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Like winter temperatures, the numbers, severity and geographical locations of tornadoes fluctuate from year-to-year in ways that are correlated with the complicated fluid flow patterns of the oceans and atmosphere, the location of the jet stream, El Ni\u00f1o or La Ni\u00f1a conditions of the tropical Pacific Oceans, etc.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>As long as the laws of nature exist, we will have tornadoes. <span style=\"color: #808000;\">But we can save many more lives by addressing the threat of tornadoes directly\u2014for example, with improved and more widely dispersed weather radars, and with better means for warning the people of endangered areas\u2014than by credulous support of schemes to reduce &#8220;carbon footprints,&#8221; or by funding even more computer centers to predict global warming.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">It is easy to be confused about climate, because we are constantly being warned about the horrible things that will happen or are already happening as a result of mankind&#8217;s use of fossil fuels. But these ominous predictions are based on computer models. It is important to distinguish between what the climate is actually doing and what computer models predict. The observed response of the climate to more CO2 is not in good agreement with model predictions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>We need high-quality climate science because of the importance of climate to mankind. But we should also remember the description of how science works by the late, great physicist, Richard Feynman:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">&#8220;<em>In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience; compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong.<\/strong><\/span><\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The most important component of climate science is careful, long-term observations of climate-related phenomena, from space, from land, and in the oceans. <span style=\"color: #808000;\"><strong>If observations do not support code predictions\u2014like more extreme weather, or rapidly rising global temperatures\u2014<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>Feynman has told us what conclusions to draw about the theory<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>But what does Happer know; he&#8217;s only a professor of physics at Princeton.\u00a0 Al Gore got a &#8220;D&#8221; and a &#8220;C+&#8221; in his science courses&#8230;.but that was at HARVARD!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>On the Lighter Side&#8230;.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/holb9778120120326020000.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5187\" title=\"holb9778120120326020000\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/holb9778120120326020000.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"462\" height=\"301\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/holb9778120120326020000.jpg 462w, https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/holb9778120120326020000-300x195.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 462px) 100vw, 462px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/mrz032512dAPR20120325074527.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5188\" title=\"gm12032620120326071203\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/gm12032620120326071203.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"462\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/gm12032620120326071203.jpg 462w, https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/gm12032620120326071203-300x227.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 462px) 100vw, 462px\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5172\" title=\"mrz032512dAPR20120325074527\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/mrz032512dAPR20120325074527.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"462\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/mrz032512dAPR20120325074527.jpg 462w, https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/mrz032512dAPR20120325074527-300x227.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 462px) 100vw, 462px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/120325beelertoon_c20120325071437.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5173\" title=\"120325beelertoon_c20120325071437\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/120325beelertoon_c20120325071437.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"462\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/120325beelertoon_c20120325071437.jpg 462w, https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/120325beelertoon_c20120325071437-300x227.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 462px) 100vw, 462px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/mrz032412dAPR20120324124517.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5174\" title=\"mrz032412dAPR20120324124517\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/mrz032412dAPR20120324124517.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"462\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/mrz032412dAPR20120324124517.jpg 462w, https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/mrz032412dAPR20120324124517-300x227.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 462px) 100vw, 462px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/demotivational-posters-soon5.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5175\" title=\"demotivational-posters-soon5\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/demotivational-posters-soon5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"492\" height=\"416\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/demotivational-posters-soon5.jpg 492w, https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/demotivational-posters-soon5-300x253.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 492px) 100vw, 492px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/demotivational-posters-and-now-young-jedi.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5185\" title=\"demotivational-posters-and-now-young-jedi\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/demotivational-posters-and-now-young-jedi.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"492\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/demotivational-posters-and-now-young-jedi.jpg 492w, https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/demotivational-posters-and-now-young-jedi-300x256.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 492px) 100vw, 492px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/demotivational-posters-son-today-is-the-day1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5186\" title=\"demotivational-posters-son-today-is-the-day\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/demotivational-posters-son-today-is-the-day1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"492\" height=\"438\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/demotivational-posters-son-today-is-the-day1.jpg 492w, https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/demotivational-posters-son-today-is-the-day1-300x267.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 492px) 100vw, 492px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>And in News of Bizarre, courtesy today of Carl Polizzi, we learn&#8230;.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div>\n<h1 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\">Hippies head for Noah\u2019s Ark: Queue here for rescue aboard alien spaceship<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\">Thousands of New-Agers descend on mountain they see as haven from December&#8217;s apocalypse<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/38-spaceship-getty.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5167\" title=\"38-spaceship-getty\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/38-spaceship-getty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"380\" height=\"285\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/38-spaceship-getty.jpg 380w, https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/38-spaceship-getty-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 380px) 100vw, 380px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">A mountain looming over a French commune with a population of just 200 is being touted as a modern Noah&#8217;s Ark when doomsday arrives \u2013 supposedly less than nine months from now.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong>A rapidly increasing stream of New Age believers \u2013 or esoterics, as locals call them \u2013 have descended in their camper van-loads on the usually picturesque and tranquil Pyrenean village of Bugarach. <span style=\"color: #008080;\">They believe that when apocalypse strikes on 21 December this year, the aliens waiting in their spacecraft inside Pic de Bugarach will save all the humans near by and beam them off to the next age.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">As the cataclysmic date \u2013 which, according to eschatological beliefs and predicted astrological alignments, concludes a 5,125-year cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar \u2013 nears, the goings-on around the peak have become more bizarre and ritualistic.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">For decades, there has been a belief that Pic de Bugarach, which, at 1,230 metres, is the highest in the Corbi\u00e8res mountain range, possesses an eery power. Often called the &#8220;upside-down mountain&#8221; \u2013 geologists think that it exploded after its formation and the top landed the wrong way up \u2013 it is thought to have inspired Jules Verne&#8217;s Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Steven Spielberg&#8217;s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. <span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong>Since the 1960s, it has attracted New Agers, who insist that it emits special magnetic waves.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Further, rumours persist that the country&#8217;s late president Fran\u00e7ois Mitterrand was transported by helicopter on to the peak, while the Nazis, and, later, Israel&#8217;s Mossad, performed mysterious digs there. <span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #008080;\">Now the nearby village is awash with New Agers, who have boosted the local economy, though their naked group climbs up to the peak have raised concerns as well as eyebrows.<\/span> Among other oddities, some hikers have been spotted scaling the mountain carrying a ball with a golden ring, strung together by a single thread.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">A grizzled man wearing a white linen smock, who calls himself Jean, set up a yurt in the forest a couple of years ago to prepare for the earth&#8217;s demise. &#8220;The apocalypse we believe in is the end of a certain world and the beginning of another,&#8221; he offers. &#8220;A new spiritual world. The year 2012 is the end of a cycle of suffering. Bugarach is one of the major chakras of the earth, a place devoted to welcoming the energies of tomorrow.&#8221; <span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>(Yeah&#8230;.whatever.)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Upwards of 100,000 people are thought to be planning a trip to the mountain, 30 miles west of Perpignan, in time for 21 December, and opportunistic entrepreneurs are shamelessly cashing in on the phenomenon. While American travel agents have been offering special, one-way deals to witness the end of the world, a neighbouring village, Saint-Paul de Fenouillet, has produced a wine to celebrate the occasion.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Jean-Pierre Delord, the perplexed mayor of Bugarach, has flagged up the situation to the French authorities, requesting they scramble the army to the tiny village for fear of a mass suicide. It has also caught the attention of France&#8217;s sect watchdog, Miviludes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Though we&#8217;re seriously concerned America as we know it may cease to exist November 6th, we&#8217;re not least bit worried about the world ending December 21st&#8230;.though we wouldn&#8217;t mind aliens taking every New-Ager on the planet to a solar system or galaxy far, far away&#8230;.along with any and every stray Liberal they might wish to abduct&#8230;.and then subject to gang probing!<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Finally, we&#8217;ll call it a day with the &#8220;Life Imitates Art&#8221; segment, courtesy of Jim Taranto and Borat:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/800_borat_ap_file_120324.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5183\" title=\"800_borat_ap_file_120324\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/800_borat_ap_file_120324-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/800_borat_ap_file_120324-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/800_borat_ap_file_120324.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The Associated Press has one of the funniest stories we&#8217;ve read in a long time:<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><p><em>Kazakhstan wants a probe of how a parody of its national anthem instead of the genuine song was played at an international sports competition.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><p><em>Kazakhstan&#8217;s Maria Dmitrienko won a gold medal Thursday at the Arab Shooting Championships in Kuwait. <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong>But during the medal ceremony the public address system played the spoof anthem from the comedy movie &#8220;Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,&#8221; a film that offended many Kazakhs by portraying the country as backward and racist.<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><p><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><strong><em>&#8220;It is, of course, a scandal and demands a thorough investigation, which we intend to conduct,&#8221; foreign ministry spokesman Ilyas Omarov told the ITAR-Tass news agency.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Umm, hello? &#8220;Borat&#8221; was great, but it was only a movie. Apparently the guys at the AP think Kazakhstan is a real country.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Magoo<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s Tuesday, March 27th, 2012&#8230;.and before we begin, a few brief comments on the Trayvon Martin &#8220;case&#8221;.\u00a0 First, the law which had nothing to do with Trayvon&#8217;s death: Second, the same, tired, divisive tripe from a President elected to serve and protect ALL Americans, not just citizens of one, particular&#8230;. &#8230;.color. The Obamao knows as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1988,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1988"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5166"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5202,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5166\/revisions\/5202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}