Your Daily Pensacola Slice of the Smartest, Coolest, Most COMPETENT Administration Eh-VAH: They Had to Close the Pass Last Night

…because of an incoming 6 SQUARE MILE patch of tar mats.

And thank YOU, Captain Kickass.

Now back to jury duty.

“Accept Our Munificent Wisdom…”

Only Really Smart Cool Kids* can comment on policies and decisions that affect all of us

Like a mad aunt, the Fed is slowly losing its marbles.

Kartik Athreya, senior economist for the Richmond Fed, has written a paper condemning economic bloggers as chronically stupid and a threat to public order.

Matters of economic policy should be reserved to a priesthood with the correct post-doctoral credentials, which would of course have excluded David Hume, Adam Smith, and arguably John Maynard Keynes (a mathematics graduate, with a tripos foray in moral sciences).

“Writers who have not taken a year of PhD coursework in a decent economics department (and passed their PhD qualifying exams), cannot meaningfully advance the discussion on economic policy.”

Don’t you just love that throw-away line “decent”? Dr Athreya hails from the University of Iowa.

“The response of the untrained to the crisis has been startling. The real issue is that there is an extremely low likelihood that the speculations of the untrained, on a topic almost pathologically riddled by dynamic considerations and feedback effects, will offer anything new. Moreover, there is a substantial likelihood that it will instead offer something incoherent or misleading.”

So the Fed gurus, who have helped to completely floog the economy, are decreeing that we are too damn stupid to even begin to understand their brilliance.

They can kiss my ass in Macy’s window.

*this obviously includes none of us.

Let’s Have An “Energy Meeting”

BUT there’s one topic that’s taboo baby

In the wake of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama today summoned a bipartisan group of over 20 senators to the White House to push for energy and climate change legislation.

But one thing the President did not want to talk about at the meeting was the BP disaster, a Republican source told ABC News. And that, the source said, led to a pointed exchange with GOP senator Lamar Alexander from Tennessee.

It’s all some Potemkin show.

Spam Quote Of The Day

I have to outgoing Secretary of State, to support your office landlord. Your talent is far from capable.

I really can’t argue with that.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Here’s some very scary news

RBS tells clients to prepare for ‘monster’ money-printing by the Federal Reserve
As recovery starts to stall in the US and Europe with echoes of mid-1931, bond experts are once again dusting off a speech by Ben Bernanke given eight years ago as a freshman governor at the Federal Reserve.

Entitled “Deflation: Making Sure It Doesn’t Happen Here”, it is a warfare manual for defeating economic slumps by use of extreme monetary stimulus once interest rates have dropped to zero, and implicitly once governments have spent themselves to near bankruptcy.

The speech is best known for its irreverent one-liner: “The US government has a technology, called a printing press, that allows it to produce as many US dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”

This worked so well in the past.

Robert Byrd Has Died

He was 378 or some such, apparently.

Some implications here.

Update: ok, I can’t say that I’m surprised by this but it still frankly makes me want to barf. In NO WAY do I support a lot of what Strom Thurmond did or stood for, but here’s his obituary in the NYT

Strom Thurmond, Foe of Integration, Dies at 100
By ADAM CLYMER
Published: June 27, 2003

Now let’s see how the NYT remembers Byrd

Robert Byrd, Respected Voice of the Senate, Dies at 92
By ADAM CLYMER
Published: June 28, 2010

Pop quiz: which of the two belonged to the KKK?

This Wins The Interwebs

(h/t as always to Ace)

As We Approach Our Nation’s Birthday

Amidst all the various troubles that seem to plague us at the moment, Dear Readers please know that in our darkest hours the Spirit of America is there to sustain us

We need but reach for it.

Deer Must Die

So my Bride walks out this morning to water the impatiens that she spent A MILLION HOURS planting a few weeks ago and what greets her?

Total destruction. Every single flower eaten off by Satan’s own cloven-hooved minions.

we hates them we hates them we hates them.

Venison will soon be on the menu.

Rome Burns While Nero Putts…

or perhaps that should be “putz”

When US President Barack Obama stepped off his helicopter in Huntsville on Friday, the first thing he said was, “You’ve got a lot of golf courses here, don’t you?” Industry Minister Tony Clement told the National Post in an exclusive interview.

Feel the smart power, the reset…the nuance.

This is the moment the oceans stop rising.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

You put your left foot in, you pull your left foot out…

“It May Be Great for His Campaign…

“…but it’s terrible for Florida.”

THAT’S my boy! Go get ’em, Marco!

Was He Looking For…

…the Extra Virgin?

TRACY, Calif. –A man fell 15 feet into a tank at an olive oil plant in Tracy on Thursday, officials said.

We’ve Heard This Before…

“No one will know until this is actually in place how it works.”

What could possibly go wrong? But of course they are voting on this 2000+ page bill without having read all of it.

There May Be Some Ass Kicking…

and it ain’t gonna be done by The Won

1. A BROAD AREA OF LOW PRESSURE IS CENTERED ABOUT 150 MILES
EAST-NORTHEAST OF CABO GRACIAS A DIOS ON THE HONDURAS-NICARAGUA BORDER. THIS SYSTEM HAS CHANGED LITTLE IN ORGANIZATION DURING THE PAST SEVERAL HOURS. HOWEVER…UPPER-LEVEL WINDS ARE GRADUALLY
BECOMING MORE CONDUCIVE FOR DEVELOPMENT AS THE LOW DRIFTS SLOWLY NORTHWESTWARD…AND THE SYSTEM COULD BECOME A TROPICAL DEPRESSION BEFORE IT REACHES THE YUCATAN PENINSULA IN A COUPLE OF DAYS. THERE
IS A HIGH CHANCE…60 PERCENT…OF THIS SYSTEM BECOMING A TROPICAL CYCLONE DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS.

This is the absolute last thing we need right now.

“They Stole My Sister’s Heart…”

“…and my legs”

A Paralympian whose false legs were stolen days before his sister’s wedding has appealed to thieves to return them so he can walk her down the aisle.

Anthony Booth, 33, has been practising for four months to walk without sticks to give away his sister Angela at her wedding on Saturday.

His artificial legs and wheelchair were in his car, which was stolen from outside his Manchester home on 12 June.

“The Coolest You’ll Ever Look…

“…Pooping Your Pants”

Huggies’ new slogan. Saw it while watching Police Women of Memphis tonight.

Snappy, eh?

Isner Wins 70-68

No, it’s not a basketball score.

The Most Disgusting Headline You Will Ever Read

I’m serious:

Al Gore A “Crazed Sex Poodle?”

I am going to be sick…

“They Were Imprudent”

Um, yeah, that’s one way to put it

(CNN) — At least 12 people were killed and several others injured when they were run over by a train in a town south of Barcelona, Spain, a spokesman for Catalonia Emergency Center said Thursday.

At least 14 more were hurt, and three remained in critical condition, the spokesman said.

The accident occurred Wednesday between 11:30 p.m. and midnight local time as a group tried to cross the tracks after getting off a local train that had stopped at the town of Castelldefels, authorities said.

Just horrible. Horrific.

And completely avoidable.

Watch Out For That Bus Nanny Boy

Mike’s gonna get tossed under it

In case you had any doubt what Bloomberg thinks about the private sector’s ability to drive growth, here’s what he said about Obama’s growth program, the stimulus bill:

“I’ve never been a big believer of spending your ways out of problems. There is some argument for stimulus. I don’t know that you could make a good case — and there’ll be plenty of PhD theses written on whether the stimulus program that we’ve had has really made a difference, or whether it has caused more problems.”

Funny, he didn’t mention that a few weeks ago when he stood with Joe Biden to herald $30 million in stimulus money to fix the Brooklyn bridge.

I find his lack of Faith in The Won…disturbing.

Yet Another Sign Gaia’s Not Amused

A 5.0 earthquake…in Ottawa

The June 23, 2010 Ontario-Quebec border region earthquake occurred at 1:42 pm local (eastern) time about 60 km (38 miles) north of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada’s capital city. The preliminary estimate of magnitude (M) is 5.0, at a depth of roughly 19 km (12 miles). These estimates may change as more data becomes available.

This earthquake occurred near the southern edge of the Western Quebec Seismic Zone. Earthquakes within this zone are mostly small. They tend to cluster in a wide area that is slightly elongated northwest-southeast. Historically, earthquakes in the Western Quebec Seismic Zone have caused damage roughly once a decade. Three or four smaller events each year are felt in the region but are generally too small to cause damage.

Send in the locusts!

HEY, CAPTAIN KICKASS!!!

PLUG THE F*&%ING HOLE!!!!

….While the ban has impacted majority of oyster harvesting areas, some beds remain open but virtually ignored because of the economics of the oil spill.

“Oystermen are earning more helping with the clean up,“

…says Jeffers. As a result, some of Ameripure’s suppliers appear to be pursuing more lucrative spill clean up work rather than harvesting oysters in the beds that remain open.

Possibly impacting po’boy availability down the road?!?!?!

Oh, y’a’ll really pissing me off now.

UPDATE: Along that same line, remember our Democratic governor’s rousing endorsement of Captain’s Kickass coupla days ago?

Well, damn if we didn’t make World News Tonight, MSNBC…

Globs of oil on Pensacola’s pristine white sand beaches

PENSACOLA, Fla. – This morning residents and tourists in Pensacola Beach awoke to the day they long feared.

The high tide, plus southeast winds overnight, brought globs of oil onto the pristine white sand beaches here. The oil is now fouling those beaches for as one official said, “as far as the eye can see.”

…NewsHour and only every OTHER damn major newscast from coast to effin’ coast AND world wide, thank you very much. AND the only folks on those nasty beaches they showed ~ besides the fat lady in the Hawaiian shirt crying ~ were BP people lazily sliding globs into Hefty bags. I mean, there’s only so mcuh sh*t you can shovel when MILES of beach are stretching away from the little group of twelve of you. What’s the rush, right? Break in ten minutes!!!

How’s your hug buddy doing NOW, Charlie? Like you really give a sh*t off camera.

Shocking News From The World Of Science

In a major development, scientists today were pissed to learn that people dare to change their minds

“Many people ‘decide’ to do things, but then don’t do them,” Matthew Lieberman, a professor of psychology who led the study, added in a statement.

This sort of behavior must be eradicated.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal

…has submitted his resignation, according to Joe Klein.

I Found Something Kind of Interesting in the Decision

…to lift the drilling moratorium.

[Page 3/22]…In the Executive Summary to the Report, the Secretary recommends “a six-month moratorium on permits for new wells being drilled using floating rigs.” He also recommends
“an immediate halt to drilling operations on the 33 permitted wells, not including relief wells currently being drilled by BP, that are currently being drilled using floating rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.” Much to the government’s discomfort and this Court’s uneasiness, the Summary also states that “the recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the
National Academy of Engineering.” As the plaintiffs, and the experts themselves, pointedly observe, this statement was misleading. The experts charge it was a “misrepresentation.”
It was factually incorrect. Although the experts agreed with the safety recommendations contained in the body of the main Report, five of the National Academy experts and three of the other experts have publicly stated that they “do not agree with the six month blanket moratorium” on floating drilling. They envisioned a more limited kind of moratorium, but a blanket moratorium was added after their final review, they complain, and was never agreed to by them.

A factor that might cause some apprehension about the probity of the process that led to the Report.

“Probity” of the process? Probity as in “adherence to the highest principles and ideals/honesty = probity”?

Maybe somebody stretched and manipulated to suit an agenda? (And from the little I’ve read already, Hizzoner shreds “The Secretary”.)

This is JUICY.