It Worked So Well Last Time…

What could possibly go wrong?

Fed Undaunted by Uncertain Prospects for Money Printing

The U.S. Federal Reserve runs the risk of diminishing returns from its next round of money printing to amplify the subdued economic recovery, but that won’t stop it from trying.

Minutes due Tuesday from the Fed’s most recent policy-setting meeting may reflect some divisions among officials over whether to launch another round of asset purchases, known as quantitative easing.

Let’s see, last time each job “created or saved” cost, what, $2 million each?

Are they shooting for $10 million each now?

I Know How She Feels ~ Sometimes Even Life Has Too Much…

…wicker.

Spam Du Jour

From my dear friend “pc monitor”

You got a surely useful blog I be experiencing been here reading exchange for upon an hour. I am a newbie and your ascendancy is profoundly much an ardour for me.

Happy Columbus Day!

In fourteen hundred and ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue…

If You Catch Them Spying On You It’s Your Fault

via Sharp As A Marble here’s some cheery news

A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do.

It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted its expensive device back, the student told Wired.com in an interview Wednesday.

In a friendly, non-threatening, non-Big Brothery way the agent told him

“We’re going to make this much more difficult for you if you don’t cooperate.”

Thank you, Ninth Circuit.

“Have the People at ABC…”

“…lost their minds?”

(Via The Right Scoop)

Your Daily “Unexpected”

What they Hoped to see

U.S. non-farm payrolls data, scheduled for release at 8:30 a.m. EDT, is forecast to show the U.S. economy added no jobs in September as shrinking government payrolls offset modest gains in private hiring. If the forecast proves true, it could cement expectations of further Fed monetary action.

“It’s already baked in the sand. We know the jobs market is going to remain tight for a while. The question is how negative is the report today,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners in New York.

“If it is a real negative, that steps up the prospect on quantitative easing two happening sooner than later.”

The private sector was expected to have added 75,000 jobs in September, while the unemployment rate was seen ticking up to 9.7 percent from 9.6 percent in August.

The headline I see shows that in fact

Economy loses 95,000 jobs in Sept, jobless rate at 9.6 pct

Not good.

Oddly (And Luckily) Enough, the One Card Not in My Wallet

…or I’d be sick.

…What was so disturbing was the email listed someone we all know- LTC(r) Allen West, and how the VFW, of all people, THE VEE-EFF-FRICKING-W, was ENDORSING HIS OPPONENT.

You read that right.

His opponent? Democrat Ron Klein. WHO HAS NEVER SERVED IN UNIFORM.

You read THAT right, too.

…Now, it seems, the time has come to rip, burn, and toss my Lifetime Membership for the VFW. I feel like they have completely left us at the station here. Over at the Farm Team, Jonn Lilyea lays out just who the VFW has announced they are supporting:

Barbara Boxer, Alcee Hastings, Barbara Lee, Steny Hoyer, Barbara Mikulsky, Chris VanHollen, John Dingell, Chuckie Schumer, Pat Leahy and Patty Murray

Call the VFW at 1-202-544-5868. Email them at: vfwpac@vfw.org.

Heard the phones are busy. If you belong to a local chapter, don’t let them off them hook ~ it’s YOUR dues allowing the national organization to sell you out. Raise hell!

(Via Instapundit)

Obama’s New Strategy To Shore Up Dems

It’s bold. It’s innovative. It shows his brilliance in his usual humble, self-effacing style

“If we turn out in strong numbers, then we will do fine. If we do not, if we are depressed and decide, well, you know, Barack’s not running right now, so I’m just going to stay home, then I’m going to have my hands full up here on Capitol Hill.”

Days before the release of a key jobs report, Obama said most of the job losses his administration gets blamed for occurred before “any of my economic plans were put into place,” and that the country is still “experiencing the hangover from the misguided policies” of the last decade.

Oh, and remember Kids: it’s the Rethuglicans Tea Baggulators who are injecting images of graphic violence into our politics and creating a climate of fear

“They are fired up. They are mobilized. They see an opportunity to take back the House, maybe take back the Senate,” he said. “If they’re successful in doing that, they’ve already said they’re going to go back to the same policies that were in place during the Bush administration. That means that we are going to have just hand-to-hand combat up here on Capitol Hill.”

Will no one rid me of this troublesome Fox News?

What Admirable Artistic Sentiments

…”Should we as artists, or any free-thinking people, have to be subjected to fear of violent attacks for expressing our sincere concerns? I made a collage with a comic book and an illustration of a religious icon to express the corruption of something precious and spiritual,” Chagoya told FoxNews.com. “There is no nudity, or genitals, or explicit sexual contact shown in the image. There is a dressed woman, a religious icon’s head, a man showing his tongue, and a skull of a Pope in the upper right corner of the controversial page. I did not make a picture of Christ. I used symbols as one would use words in a sentence to critique corruption of the sacred by religious institutions.”

…and his depiction of Jesus, well,…let’s just say it’s covered under “freedom of expression”.

I’ll also note that ~ yet again ~ another BRAVE CRUSADER (Stanford University Professor Enrique Chagoya – WHAT’S that tuition at Stanford costing parents who subsidize this MORON?), in the name of tweaking the religious powers that be, used the ALWAYS POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS and ORIGINAL AS ALL SHIT Catholic symbology to “convey corrupt religious institutions”. Bold, BOLD fellow and an academic, no less! Don’t have to worry about Friar Fatwa, Cardinal Koran or Abbot Abdullah sending someone to slice your ass up that way, do you? Way to go, Professor!

Fucking fraud. How about, for once, from one of these higher education boy-in-a-tuition-bubbles, we get a canvas that has…okay wait. I’ll just change his paragraph and show you what balls on a Stanford professor’s ~ or ANY LIBERAL ART PROFESSOR’S art SHOULD have looked like, if they LIVED what they PROTESTED and TAUGHT.

“There is no nudity, or genitals, or explicit sexual contact shown in the image. There is a blue burqa draped woman, a religious goat’s head with sliced off ears and nose, a man missing his hand, and a flaming skull of a Ayatollah in the upper right corner of the controversial page, and two 16 year old homosexuals hanging from a scaffold. I did not make a picture of Mohammed. I used symbols as one would use words in a sentence to critique the cruelest and most inhumane oppression of the powerless and scared by the manic religious interpretations of a misogynistic band of neolithic goat herders, who wear suits on occasion.“

But, no. He went with “a pope”.

Douche.

What a BEE-YOO-Tiful Sentence

…I just heard on the TV!

“The bases are full of Yankees here in the 7th!”

Smartest, Most Professionalest Congress

Evuh

Lack of congressional action on 2011 income taxes may force the Treasury Department to make unprecedented moves to prevent U.S. workers from seeing large tax increases in their January paychecks.

The issue: 2011 tax-withholding tables. Treasury officials usually release the tables, which determine the take-home pay of millions of wage-earners, by mid-November because it takes payroll processors weeks to adjust their systems before Jan. 1.

But congressional leaders recently postponed voting on taxes until after the election and lawmakers don’t reconvene until Nov. 15. The Senate is scheduled to take up several nontax issues when it returns and is expected to leave for Thanksgiving soon after, possibly pushing a vote on taxes into December.

“Things get very dicey after the first of December” because of employers’ need to know the 2011 rates, said Michael Graetz of Columbia University Law School, a former Treasury official.

They didn’t pass a budget.

They didn’t even propose a budget.

They took no action on expiring tax issues.

They all must be fired.

Lawmakers’ recent track record on dealing with tax matters doesn’t inspire confidence that they will act with dispatch. Congress has yet to resolve the estate tax, which expired at the end of last year and is set to snap back to high rates come January. Nor has it tackled the alternative minimum tax for 2010, a levy that is set to hit 32 million taxpayers this year, compared with five million last year.

Remember, we’re the ones who are too stupid to understand their wonderful plans for our em-betterment.

They’re the ones too stupid to write bills they take credit for.

Or even read before they vote on them.

They Have A Cunning Plan

You just knew this was coming. The only way these idiots can hope to “grow” the economy is to inflate it

The Federal Reserve spent the past three decades getting inflation low and keeping it there. But as the U.S. economy struggles and flirts with the prospect of deflation, some central bank officials are publicly broaching a controversial idea: lifting inflation above the Fed’s informal target.

The rationale is that getting inflation up even temporarily would push “real” interest rates—nominal rates minus inflation—down, encouraging consumers and businesses to save less and to spend or invest more.

We saw this coming, didn’t we?

Folks, this November is very very important. We have to vote these people out and vigilantly hold the new ones to their campaign promises.

Inbox Delight of the Day

…was the Item Number Three link in The DC Morning email from the Daily Caller today…

3.) Bawney Fwank wegwets being such a wotten, awwogant mowon — There was a time when Mass. Rep. Barney Frank (D-ickhead) could get away with being an astonishing jackass to his own constituents because he was in no danger of being drummed out of office…

Imagine that ~ they’re talking like ME now in their emails! (Of course, Frank IS up against a MARINE…) Can’t ya just FEEL tha hate, ’cause they’re pickin’ on Barney? Good grief ~ prepare for the hue and cry when this gets out, ’cause Lord knows the emPATHETIC Left would NE-VAH be so cruelzens.

Mass. Rep. Barney Frank (D-ickhead)

I’m sorry ~ that’s just genius and what’s to argue?

The Beautiful Blue Purple Danube

It’s putting a lot of Strauss on the environment

KOLONTAR, Hungary – The toxic red sludge that burst out of a metals plant reservoir and inundated three villages reached the mighty Danube on Thursday, but an Hungarian emergency official said no immediate damage was evident on Europe’s second-longest river.

What an awful awful mess. I read somewhere that the volume of sludge actually exceeded the BP spill

The huge reservoir, more than 1,000 feet (300 meters) [did they run these figures by Rick Sanchez?] long and 1,500 feet (450 meters) wide, was no longer leaking and a triple-tiered protective wall was being built around its damaged section.

I’d guess it’s “no longer leaking” because, um, all the stuff leaked out already, but that’s just me being negative.

It Was Bush! It Was Cellphones!

It was BP! It was those Tea Baggers! Yes, yes, especially them. All those cute little happy bees that sadly no longer buzzed around, happily, joyously pollinating flowers and honeysuckle and wheat and apple trees and lilac, ah sweet fragrant lilac…all sadly, horrifically eliminated because of Bush and his Rovian roamings amongst the evil, cunning yet oddly insanely schtupid Right Wing Death Beast crowd of AGW deniers.

Or not.

DENVER — It has been one of the great murder mysteries of the garden: what is killing off the honeybees?

Since 2006, 20 to 40 percent of the bee colonies in the United States alone have suffered “colony collapse.” Suspected culprits ranged from pesticides to genetically modified food.

Now, a unique partnership — of military scientists and entomologists — appears to have achieved a major breakthrough: identifying a new suspect, or two.

A fungus tag-teaming with a virus have apparently interacted to cause the problem, according to a paper by Army scientists in Maryland and bee experts in Montana in the online science journal PLoS One.

Damn you Gaia to a fiery Hell, you Rethuglican harlot!

A Lost Devil Dog Finds His Home

…in a home that lost it’s Devil Dog.

…”To us it’s like Jason died yesterday,” says Dan. “To Gunner, whatever happened to him—it’s probably like that happened yesterday. We get up each day and find a new way to get through the day realizing that Jason’s not here. We have to pass that on to Gunner.”

Speaking Of Jobs

Where’s that word…

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stock index futures rose on Wednesday, building on the previous session’s rally, ahead of data expected to show a return to job growth in the private sector.

Investors are expecting private employers to add 24,000 jobs in September, according to the ADP Employer Services report, which is scheduled for release at 8:15 a.m.. In August, private employers unexpectedly cut 10,000 jobs.

And the envelope please…

Oops. They “unexpectedly” dropped 39,000.

Recovery Summer rocks on.

Update: Here’s the stinky linky

Companies in the U.S. unexpectedly cut workers in September, data from a private report based on payrolls showed.

Employment decreased by 39,000, according to figures today from ADP Employer Services. The median estimate of 37 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for a gain of 20,000. Forecasts ranged from a decline of 44,000 to a 75,000 increase.

Incoming!

An amazing shot of an awful shot

Yes, that white blur is what you think it is. Click on the link above to embiggen and get the whole story.

How Are Those “Green Jobs” Working Out?

Oh, “pretty crappily” I’d say if you work at Sun Chips

Frito-Lay, the snack giant owned by PepsiCo Inc., says it is pulling most of the biodegradable packaging it uses for its Sun Chips snacks, following an outcry from consumers who complained the new bags were too noisy.

Touted by Frito-Lay as 100% compostable, the packaging, made from biodegradable plant material, began hitting store shelves in January. Sales of the multigrain snack have since tumbled.

Frito-Lay is returning to its old, nondegradable Gaia-desecrating and bird-murdering packaging, for five of the six Sun Chips flavors.

Now, Our Betters in DC are always telling us that really it’s not their ideas that suck the big one but rather how they are communicated to our damaged clingy minds that causes them to be so unpopular, right? And we in our religio-gun-clingy-h8tr ways rightly scoff at such drivel.

But in this instance, Dear Reader, in the ever ongoing Pursuit of Truth and Probity that is My Life I must admit they may have a point:

Behold the Sun Chip bag of Sales Doom

I can vouch, as a consumer in New Jersey, that nothing to me says “buy me and eat me” like a label that screams “100% Compost.”

Yum yum.

A Song For Delaware

Here’s my song for today (I think you know the tune):

That chestnut ruffled hair
That “no self-abuse” glare
It sums up Delaware
It’s witchcraft

And pundits can’t make sense of it
Castle’s churlish defensive bit
With “Cap and Trade” his chances were doomed

‘Cos it’s witchcraft
Christine’s witchcraft
And although we know she still might lose

When folks get riled by lots of Tea
And Ace gets kinky Ewok-y
We see votes based on issues

Progressives raise their fists
At claims he’s a marxist
But there’s no lefter leftist
Than Coons…

Lambsicles in Hobbitland

…and a record LOW last night in Pensacola?

RECORD REPORT: Statement as of 01:45 am CDT on October 05, 2010

… Record low temperature set at Pensacola…

a record low temperature of 49 degrees was set at Pensacola
yesterday. This ties the old record of 49 set in 1961.

Is Gorezilla lurking offshore? Perhaps scouting Pensacola beachfront in light of our now vastly reduced Gulf property values, thanks to a lethal combination of economic slowdown and condo bubble, topped by an oily BP coup de grace?

These questions and more are answered next time.

Tough Times In New Zealand

First the Prime Minister has to mediate a Hobbit dispute of gigantic proportion.

Now they get Gaia remaking the “Silence of the Lambs”

Following a reasonably benign winter, the Southland region of New Zealand (NZ) has in the past week been hit by “the worst spring storm in living memory” according to the NZ Herald.

Six days of blizzards have caused deaths among new lambs numbering in the hundreds of thousands, and raised concern over the welfare of ewes yet to lamb.

Those darn Ewes are always getting messed up in things, ain’t they?

In a related note, thousands of charcoal grills ignited over the weekend to make good use of the fresh Spring lamb on the market…

Weird, No? You’d Think It’d Be

…the other way around.

Rahm Emanuel hits the ground running

…After finishing his opening round of casual meet-and-greets, Emanuel hopped into a Dodge Caravan, in which he could be seen vigorously sanitizing his hands in plain view of television cameras and reporters.

I mean, really.

ICK?

Menendez Cooks Some Lame Duck

And serves it in his special weasel sauce

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said Sunday that he introduced an immigration bill just before Congress’ midterm elections break so he could get “lame-duck movement” on the legislation after Nov. 2.

“A lot of senators are retiring and might be willing to look at the issue,” Menendez said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We need something to jump off from if we’re going to go into it in the early part of the next Congress.”

I believe that “retiring” is Menendez-ese for “getting their asses handed to them at the polls so they are desirous of sticking it to their constituents in one last fit of bile-filled spite”

But I could be wrong about that.