Happy Friday.

Folks that don't like the platinum coin trick because it's silly, though not illegal or unconstitutional, have proposed a new idea that, though it is less obviously silly, is definitely illegal. An IOU is just another form of debt, something Treasury is not allowed to take on beyond the debt limit. Not to mention, IOUs are not a solution to the problem, just another way to delay it and, unlike the platinum coin trick, not even delay it that long.

Sex-selective abortions are already occurring in the UK.

Politico finally figure out something that we've been saying for three years: if you make health insurance more expensive, which is what Obamacare did, health insurance will cost more. OTOH, the writer clearly doesn't realize that placing a new tax health on insurers isn't going to mitigate their additional costs of mandatory new benefits. She seems to think a tax on a business doesn't cost the business anything.

The 8.5 billion foreclosure settlement with banks is just a way to paper over yet another Obama Administration blunder in its failed mortgage reform efforts.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:51 AM | Comments (338)
Post contains 191 words, total size 2 kb.

Whoever Controls the Past (Weather) Controls the Future

There are lots of stories appearing declaring 2012 to be the hottest year ever in the US. But is this really true?

Possibly - but we simply don't know for sure:

But was 2012 really the warmest year on record in the U.S.? It may have been, but the truth is that we don't know. There are two reasons for this. First, the historical data sets published by NCDC and NOAA lack integrity. Those organizations, which receive many millions of government dollars to promote global warming theory, do not publish raw data. Rather, as we explained here, they first adjust the data.

Now you might think that the actual measurements from weather station in the past would be rock-solid and reliable data that you could count on. But you'd be wrong. The Party consensus of climate scientists has been at work 'adjusting' it:

Below is a copy of the national weather data summary for February 1934. If we look at, say Arizona, for the month we see that the state average temperature for that month was 52.0°F. [Ed.: This is the paper version that was published at the time.]

However, if we look at the current NCDC temperature analysis (which runs from 1895-present) we see that for Arizona in February 1934 they have a state average of 48.9°F, not the 52.0°F that was originally published.

And even if the historical weather station raw data hasn't been fiddled with, there's still reason to be skeptical of whether current data really reflects global climate change.

Here's a temperature monitoring station (circled in red) in Marysville, CA. As an untrained, not-accredited, non-climate scientist see if you can spot possible reasons for why it might show a slight increase in annual temperature other than AGW.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:23 PM | Comments (603)
Post contains 712 words, total size 11 kb.

As JohnE. says of the Lohan article, it's long but interesting, in a "Will it never end" sort of way.

If you want the short version: She's late a whole heck of a lot and often calls in sick for no good reason, except that she's hungover and exhausted from partying all night with Lady Gaga. Or, as she calls it, "an ear infection."

The writer (whose presence on-set was objected to by Lohan, because she... uh, Lohan knew she'd wind up writing the story for the writer by behaving badly) goes out of her way to keep saying things along the lines of "Well this is the upside of Lindsey Lohan -- she's just a tremendous actress when she nails it."

Really? When has this been, since The Parent Trap? (The hottest movie of 1992, I always say.)

One anecdote is about them attempting to film, without a license, at a mall. Filming without a license is cheap -- you don't have to pay anyone for the right -- but if security sees you doing it they will demand you stop and call the cops if you don't. So this entire scene, shot on the sly, required a low profile.

Over at the mall, Schrader paced nervously. “We need to get three shots, and we’re not going to get a second chance.” He was worried about attracting the attention of mall security. An hour later [late -- ace], Lohan arrived in her black Porsche trailed by four or five paparazzi. Schrader threw up his hands and said, “That’s it.”

Lohan told him, politely, to shut up.

“Paul, we can do this.”

She climbed out of her car and turned to the photographers.

“I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll give you a good shot, but then you have to go.” Lohan turned to her good side and hiked her floor-length skirt up to show a little leg.

“O.K., five, four, three, two, one. Now you have to go.”

The photographers backed away. Lohan walked into the mall, and Schrader started shooting. But they were quickly apprehended by the matronly head of mall security.

“You have to stop.”

Lohan flashed an innocent smile.

“He’s just taking stills. I promise.”

The matron snorted.

“You were wearing the same outfit when you were filming upstairs at Sonoma Wine Garden last week. You have to stop.”

It was over. Defeated, Schrader headed back to the hotel. Lohan walked to her Porsche. G

...

“I lost a bunch in traffic on the way over to Loews. Then when I got to the Loews, there were more, and it was completely different cars, it was X17 and Splash,” Lohan said, speaking rapidly. The paparazzi chase had animated her in a way I hadn’t seen before. “They were already waiting at the hotel, they were already there.”

I asked why she didnÂ’t try a less conspicuous vehicle.

“I’ve tried everything, I would wear wigs . . . we’ve had Wranglers, old Cadillacs — I’ve tried everything.”

"I've tried everything," she says, while driving around in a Porsche. "I'm just too famous to be unrecognized!" sounds suspiciously like "I am very afraid I am growing less famous and more unrecognized by the day so I'm going to do everything humanly possible to draw attention to myself." The Sally Fields character in Soapdish did this too... also at malls, actually.

What could possibly explain this behavior, apart from the obvious?

A new analysis of the American Freshman Survey, which has accumulated data for the past 47 years from 9 million young adults, reveals that college students are more likely than ever to call themselves gifted and driven to succeed, even though their test scores and time spent studying are decreasing.

Psychologist Jean Twenge, the lead author of the analysis, is also the author of a study showing that the tendency toward narcissism in students is up 30 percent in the last thirty-odd years.

This data is not unexpected. I have been writing a great deal over the past few years about the toxic psychological impact of media and technology on children, adolescents and young adults, particularly as it regards turning them into faux celebrities—the equivalent of lead actors in their own fictionalized life stories.

...

[A burst bubble is] really the unavoidable end, by the way. False pride can never be sustained. The bubble of narcissism is always at risk of bursting. ThatÂ’s why young people are higher on drugs than ever, drunker than ever, smoking more, tattooed more, pierced more and having more and more and more sex, earlier and earlier and earlier, raising babies before they can do it well, because it makes them feel special, for a while. TheyÂ’re doing anything to distract themselves from the fact that they feel empty inside and unworthy.

He goes on to say the country had better be prepared for this generational bubble-bursting, as we'll have even further psychological problems when self-created fictions can no longer be sustained (depression, etc.).

It's an odd thing but the most truly narcissistic people are also the most dangerously insecure. I think they know their self-estimation cannot possibly withstand a blow from reality so are incredibly alert in detecting any kind of incoming threat from reality, and reacting angrily and strangely to it.

Thanks to @johnekdahl and @rdbrewer4.

Update [JohnE.]: I might as well put up the trailer (below the fold). It looks, um, what's the word? Abysmal.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:11 PM | Comments (438)
Post contains 945 words, total size 6 kb.

Via Hot Air, well-conceived prank well executed.

A guy dresses up in a "Car Seat Costume," so that he appears to not be in the vehicle at all, and then drives up to the receiving window at the drive through to await his fast food.

People are understandably curious and/or freaked out by the car that drives without a driver.

Update: He needs to start a Kickstarter account to buy a black eighties Trans-Am, rig the Cylon Eye in the front, and pretend he's KITT.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:04 PM | Comments (127)
Post contains 97 words, total size 1 kb.

They appreciate daring, edgy films that challenge assumptions and ask uncomfortable questions, but only if we're talking about challenging other people's assumptions and asking other people uncomfortable questions.

Their own assumptions, they need relentlessly reaffirmed and their preferred answers relentlessly restated.

Apparently the Bradley Cooper movie, Silver Linings Playbook, is pretty good. It got a bunch of nominations, in all the major categories. I saw him play one clip on Leno and it was pretty funny. I'd link it but I can't find it. I'd explain the joke but it would ruin it.

And Les Mis I guess is good. And Lincoln, though the subject matter sounds pretty dry. (Apparently it's not about the life of Lincoln or the Civil War, but only the behind-the-scenes politicking over the 13th Amendment.)

The rest of the nominations are here. No, you officially do not have to care. I really don't care myself. But I guess it's news.

Oscar Loves a Comeback!

... is a sentence I have never in my life spoken and do not plan on doing so in the future.

Funny Review of Les Mis: Recommended by a commenter.

The Oscars' Poor Performance In Selecting the Best Film of the Year: A commenter writes:

These same yahoos were saying "The Last Emporer" was the best picture in 1988 (we walked out of that stupid film after about 13 minutes) and that "Shakespeare In Love" was best picture over "Saving Private Ryan."

It's a pretty well-known bit of lore that, at least since the early eighties, the best film in any particular year is almost certainly not the one which won Best Picture at the Oscars. As they do with documentaries (you can tell the Academy hasn't bothered seeing the documentaries, and just vote based on which subject they find the most worthy), the Academy doesn't even see all the nominated movies, and tends to pick which movie they think they should like, and which seems "weightiest" or "most important."

Thus a lot of movies which no one in the world even remembers, let alone re-views like "Out of Africa" take home the prize. The Academy's choice for Best Picture is almost completely unrelated to actual merit, influenced by things like "Have I heard of this guy? Which movies did I actually see?" and "Which film seems like the sort of film a college Intro to Film Studies professor would approve of?" than artistic and audience impact.

I think it would be an interesting experiment for someone to start naming the best films of past years, retrospectively. I mean, people do this in articles, but I mean actually have some body of critics review movies from fifteen years or twenty years ago and now nominate those movies that really persisted in the memory and impacted the imagination. Not the duds like Out of Africa.

Posted by: Ace at 02:16 PM | Comments (206)
Post contains 503 words, total size 3 kb.

Infidelity is horrifying to the person betrayed -- and even more horrifying to a child who doesn't understand why Daddy's looking for a new Mommy, or why Mommy's always crying.

And yet he's now cited by the "National Fathers Day Council" -- whatever the hell that is -- as one of the fathers of the year.

If the right agrees that Bill Clinton's serial infidelities don't make him an awful president, can the left agree they also don't make him a hero or saint?

via @benk84's link dump.

Posted by: Ace at 01:51 PM | Comments (149)
Post contains 136 words, total size 1 kb.

Not having it.

“Our goal is to get to 5 million before this debate is over,” a member of the organization tells Playbook this morning.

It's both good and bad that people are more connected to politics: It's good to see people actually doing their civic duty and expressing their opinions in tangible ways.

It's bad because it's only in bad times that Americans seem to care about politics -- our habit of being apolitical, and not even bothering to vote, seems to have come during the fat, contented years of the fifties and sixties. Now that times have turned officially interesting again (per the old aphorism, "may you be cursed to live in interesting times"), people are rediscovering that these things matter.

Meanwhile, Powerline notes how the left keeps shooting the same old blanks on gun control (click through Instapundit's link).

[Update - Andy]: Statement From the National Rifle Association of America Regarding Today's White House Task Force Meeting:

The National Rifle Association of America is made up of over 4 million moms and dads, daughters and sons, who are involved in the national conversation about how to prevent a tragedy like Newtown from ever happening again. We attended today's White House meeting to discuss how to keep our children safe and were prepared to have a meaningful conversation about school safety, mental health issues, the marketing of violence to our kids and the collapse of federal prosecutions of violent criminals.

We were disappointed with how little this meeting had to do with keeping our children safe and how much it had to do with an agenda to attack the Second Amendment. While claiming that no policy proposals would be “prejudged,” this Task Force spent most of its time on proposed restrictions on lawful firearms owners - honest, taxpaying, hardworking Americans. It is unfortunate that this Administration continues to insist on pushing failed solutions to our nation's most pressing problems. We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to be blamed for the acts of criminals and madmen. Instead, we will now take our commitment and meaningful contributions to members of congress of both parties who are interested in having an honest conversation about what works - and what does not.

Posted by: Ace at 01:09 PM | Comments (259)
Post contains 385 words, total size 3 kb.

As you probably read, Brent Mussburger had to pre-emptively apologize for noting that an attractive woman was in fact attractive. Apparently this is some kind of offense, now, even though the woman herself was not insulted at all and doesn't understand why anyone would have to apologize to her for complimenting her.

Speaking of words we don't have in English: The Japanese, I know due to previous study (that is, from watching Gung Ho and Rising Sun a whole heck of a lot), have elaborate apology and deference rituals. It all seems very foreign and strange to an outsider-- and barbaric as well.

But we seem to be well along the pathway of that sort of thing ourselves, in which some people pretend to take ritual offense, and then some people demand a ritual apology, and some people even go so far to offer the ritual apology without it even being asked, figuring one might as well shame oneself pre-emptively just to maintain the habit.

Along the way, we lose honesty. Communication ceases being primarily about expressing belief and fact and more about empty rituals demanded to appease feigned offense.

And unfortunately, this is one of those situations where few take a stand, because it seems so much easier to just offer the tatemae apology rather than the honne refusal. And because the tatamae is the path of least resistance, it gets further and further accepted that it's just what you do, whether you mean it or not, whether the person claiming to be offended is being an attention-seeking drama queen or not, and actual honesty seems more and more like crudeness or impoliteness.

Obviously, we have a lot of this going on in discourse about sensitive topics, usually involving race, gender, or sexual orientation. Members of classes of "Historical Discrimination" have been granted the powerful social weapon of demanding that others acknowledge their inherited guilt.

The odd thing is: These rituals become adopted as a mark of civilization and therefore distinction against the example of the barbarian. That is, by engaging in such rituals one shows oneself to be civilized and cultured, contrasted against the rude and crude tongue of the barbarian.

But as such rituals become more common and more empty, they become less civilized and more primitive, becoming, essentially, a human analogue of an ape's Aggression Display or a dog rolling over on its back and showing the belly and throat (the Submission Display).

The ritualized demands for appeasement and ritualized offerings of such -- and the social code as to who is entitled to demand the appeasement, and who is obligated to offer it -- become very quickly signals of who is where in the Pecking Order, the anlmalistic (and primitive) order of who is more dominant and who is lower in the order.

The demands for appeasement are a way of demanding those lower in the hierarchy formally re-acknowledge their lower position in the hierarchy. Brent Mussberger, a white male, is lower in the hierarchy (at least for purposes of being obligated to offer submission signals to a potentially-aggrieved party further up in the Apology Hierarchy) and so is required, by ritual and custom, to formally acknowledge his lower status upon such being demanded of him. Or even, as here, when it's not demanded of him.

Take civilization and sophistication, ritual and custom, far enough and you wind up moving further and further from honest and free expression, and further and further from equality, towards primativism and barbarism and animal-like displays of dominance and submission.

It's all very similar to the idea that one must not look a Social Superior directly in the eye-- that would imply social equality, which is a breach. One must keep one's eyes low, signalling one's acceptance of one's lesser place in the hierarchy. If this rule is breached, the offending party must prostate himself with apology to signal his acceptance of the order.

And we've got that a lot of that going on in supposedly advanced and civilized America 2013. If you treat persons afforded a higher Social Status as equals -- not bothering with ritualized shows of deference (politically correct language, etc.), you're required to immediately apologize for your impudence.

A lot of sci-fi adventures feature the idea of a "cultured" society which has become so formalized and ossified in ritual that it's dishonest, corrupt, and barbaric in its purported civility, and it takes the Barbaric Outsider's rude truth to puncture the Sham Civility and show it to be, in reality, just an elaborate form of simian primativism. That it happens in books doesn't make it false, though: It's a real thing. Sometimes -- often -- it takes either an outsider or at least a stubborn contrarian to point out we've moved past "polite manners" and into the realm of barbaric habit.

Posted by: Ace at 11:59 AM | Comments (308)
Post contains 817 words, total size 5 kb.

Hot on the heels of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's proposal to replace his state's gasoline tax with a higher sales tax, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is proposing to replace his state's income and corporate taxes with a higher sales tax.

The precise details, as is so often the case, haven't been worked out yet:

"The bottom line is that for too long, Louisiana's workers and small businesses have suffered from having a state tax structure that is too complex and that holds back economic prosperity," Jindal said in a statement released by his office. "It's time to change that so people can keep more of their own money and foster an environment where businesses want to invest and create good-paying jobs."

Jindal said the plan would be revenue-neutral and that the goal would be to keep sales taxes "as low and flat as possible."

The immediate, unavoidable response will be protestations from Democrats that the income tax is the primary tool by which they can redistribute wealth from successful people to layabouts.

Gov. Jindal's response to that should be a smug smile and a single admission: "I know."

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 11:25 AM | Comments (176)
Post contains 196 words, total size 1 kb.

So, we're talking Trillion Dollar Coins, today.

Which, I can get into. I love bullion coins. Especially the ones you drop into a mug of hot water and they come out all chicken brothy.

Did you guys know that the U.S. Mint already sells Platinum bullion coins? It's true. I looked it up and everything.

The American Eagle Platinum bullion coins are uncirculated and come in one troy ounce (31 grams or so), one-half ounce, one-quarter ounce and one-tenth ounce weights. They are denominated in $100 (ounce), $50 (half-oz), $25 (guarter-oz) and $10 (one-tenth oz). They are not sold directly by the Mint to the public, but are instead sold to "Authorized Purchasers" (i.e. coin dealers and the like) who then market them for sale.

On the other hand, a Numismatic proof version of the platinum coin is offered to the public and can be purchased directly from the Mint. The current price of a $100 denominated one-ounce platinum Eagle is $1892.00.

The current spot price of platinum is $1627.00 an oz (as I type this...the price is set in a 24 hour market and is constantly in flux). The Gov't has a handy chart which they use to set the retail price of the gold and platinum proof coins they offer. For platinum, it basically guarantees a $250-350 profit/price over spot for the Mint on every proof coin they sell directly to the public.

So, want to know more? Too bad, I'm putting ya some more knowledge anyway. It's under the fold. more...

Posted by: Jack M. at 10:37 AM | Comments (141)
Post contains 748 words, total size 5 kb.