Astroturf?

Submitted by Roanman on Wed, 03/30/2016 - 06:35

Astroturf?

Sharyl Attkisson is an investigative journalist based in Washington D.C. and a correspondent for CBS News. In 2013, she received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for her reporting on “The Business of Congress,”  Attkisson also received a 2013 Daytime Emmy Award as part of the CBS Sunday Morning team’s entry for Outstanding Morning Program for her report: “Washington Lobbying: K-Street Behind Closed Doors.”

In September 2012, Attkisson also received an Emmy for Oustanding Investigative Journalism for the “Gunwalker: Fast and Furious” story. She received the RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Investigative Reporting for the same story.

Attkisson received an Investigative Emmy Award in 2009 for her exclusive investigations into TARP and the bank bailout. She received an Investigative Emmy Award in 2002 for her series of exclusive reports about mismanagement at the Red Cross.

Here is her 10 minute presentation given at a TED event where she blows up much about what you believe to be true about maybe everything you read and think to be research, everywhere.

 

I knew it!!!!!

 

To quote Aristotle for real this time,

Submitted by Roanman on Tue, 03/29/2016 - 06:19

Anonymous ... once again

Submitted by Roanman on Sun, 03/27/2016 - 08:51

 

Say what you will about the 2016 presidential campaign, you can't deny that so far it's been absolutely wonderful theater ..... possibly theatre.

All depends on one's level of personal pretense.

But I digress.

So anyway, here's Anonymous lighting up Ted Cruz.

 

 

I admit it cheerfully, I love Anonymous. I especially love their theme song.

Actually, most of the minions around here do as well, some more than others of course.

You know who you are.

Anyway, I find them to be delightfully fun loving, and frequently effective. Particularly when they are doing what they do best, which is of course hacking into other peoples computers.

Which is, as we all know ..... you know ..... illegal.

But ..... WTF.

And of course somewhat less effective when actively attempting to organize something. 

But never mind about that, we all have our gifts.

 

Squeeze

Submitted by Roanman on Sat, 03/26/2016 - 18:38

Saturday night, it's time to Rock.

There must be something about Goodbye Girl, Squeeze's first single that inspires them to tinker. They've recorded it four times in the studio, three times in a matter of months with slightly different versions of the tune for release as a UK single, a US single and an albom cut on Cool For Cats.

They've fooled with it I don't even know how many different ways in their live show. But the version you want ..... IMHO ..... is the live version recorded for the vinyl only EP, Six Squeeze Songs Crammed Into One 10" Record. Here's a very close live performance of that version.

This is Glenn Tillbrook on lead guitar and vocals along with his songwriting partner Chris Difford on rhythm guitar and backup vocals  The credits on this vid say that's Don Snow on the keyboards, but it sure looks like Paul Carrack to me. John Bentley is playing bass and Gilson Lavis is on the drums.

Squeeze

Goodbye Girl ..... the fast version.

Reading on a Saturday Morning ..... finally

Submitted by Roanman on Sat, 03/26/2016 - 09:35

 

I haven't been able to sit and read on a Saturday for a long time.

Turns out that my first Saturday back offers just a treasure trove of stuff.

But where to begin?

Well, the children attending Emory University in Georgia, not having learned their lessons at the scorn heaped on the children at the University of Missouri and Yale over prior episodes, recoiled in pain and tears from chalk grafitti writings of the word "Trump" appearing on their campus.

The following is the headline and some of the bullet points taken from the Daily Mail's piece on the incident.

Click on the photo to the right or the headline below for the entire piece.

 

Students freak out because someone chalked Trump slogans on campus: Emory University president says students are scared and 'in pain'

 

 

Here's just a small sample of the blowback from the "Crybully" fad that is currently sweeping the nation's universities.

 

   

 

Not entirely sure just exactly what the hell is going on here.

 

Anyway, This one below in particular had me laughing for a couple hours this morning.

I'm thinking the the silly young boy below is drop dead certain that the category "Liberal Intelligencia" includes him.

 

As I feel very comfortable in asserting that your garden variety, professional economist falls comfortably into the category "Liberal Intelligencia", I'm also thinkin' he might want to rethink his little pigeon hole.

So, here are just a couple headlines from discussions on just exactly how well the "Liberal Intelligencia" is doing, at least where it comes to economics. There were multiples of dozens of examples to chose from, I selected the easy reads for you today.  Feel free to delve further.

You can click on any headline for the entire piece.

 

Why  are  economic  forecasts  wrong  so  often?

An astonishing record – of complete failure

Economists' Biggest Failure

And, since we are on the sublect of failure by the "Liberal Intelligencia", to quote President Barack Obama on the cost of Obamacare, 

"Now, I just want to repeat this because there's so much misinformation about the cost issue here.  You talk to every health care economist out there and they will tell you that whatever ideas are -- whatever ideas exist in terms of bending the cost curve and starting to reduce costs for families, businesses, and government, those elements are in this bill."

 

OOPSIES!!!

 

BEA = Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Apologists for the President on this issue will argue that because The Affordable Health Care Act, aka Obamacare provides health care for an addition 33 million people, he gets it half right.

Except that the number is now closer to 17 million ..... rounding up ..... maybe.

That's all for today, I've been summoned from on high to appear elsewhere. Maybe we'll chase these numbers around some next time. 

 

On This Day In History, The Exxon Valdez Runs Aground

Submitted by Roanman on Thu, 03/24/2016 - 18:42

 

One of the worst oil spills in U.S. history occurred on this date in 1989 when the supertanker Exxon Valdez, owned and operated by the Exxon Corporation, ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound in southern Alaska.  An estimated 11 million gallons of oil were spilled into the water.  Wind and currents spread the oil more than 100 miles from its source, eventually polluting more than 1,100 miles of coastline.

Click on the photo above for an outstanding account of the accident, the cleanup and the consequences of this tragedy from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Council.  Way recommended.

It took more than four summers of cleanup efforts before the effort to clean the beaches was called off. Not all beaches were cleaned and some beaches remain oiled to this day.  At its peak the cleanup effort included 10,000 workers, about 1,000 boats and roughly 100 airplanes and helicopters, known as Exxon's army, navy, and air force.  It is widely believed that wave action from winter storms accomplished more cleaning of the beaches than four years of human efforts.

 

The Chapwood Index

Submitted by Roanman on Sun, 03/20/2016 - 19:01

I've been going on for sometime about what I view to be the cynically dishonest calculation for the headline unemployment number, otherwise known as U3. Which number only the most blatant of our government's paid shills in the press and the most willfully ignorant of both left and right wing partisans are able to tout without cringing.

This morning we'll look into what I view to be the equally dishonest inflation numbers being offered up as factual by the Federal Government's Bureau of Labor Statics or BLS and worse yet supposedly beiing used to drive monetary policy at the Federal Reserve.

Ed Butowsky, managing partner for Chapwood Equities has developed his own method for calculating the rate of inflation and has compiled it into "The Chapwood Index".

That's Ed over there on the right.

Click on the image below for a trip to the Chapwood Index.

Here's a short history of the CPI as seen by Mr. Butowsky.

"In 1983, the government CPI rose roughly 12% and the government modified the CPI calculation to save money. In order to save money on salary increases and entitlement benefits, which are tied to CPI, the government changed their calculation of the CPI to reflect a much lower number.

The statistic underwent another reconfiguration in 1995/96 with the Boskin Commission. These changes made the CPI an even worse indication of the real cost of living increase.

It is estimated that between 1996 and 2006, this reconfiguration of the CPI saved the US government over $680 billion.

Since then, the government has been artificially deflating the CPI to keep figures as low as possible. The readings you see published today no longer represent the real out of pocket expenditures incurred by most Americans.

The government’s baseline CPI measure excludes items such as taxes, energy, and food; which are not only necessities, but also often a majority of our daily expenditures.

The CPI increase from 2008-2012 was a total of 10.2%, but our research has found that for many cities, the cost of living increase was more than that in 2012 alone.  The increase was slightly more in 2013."

... and furthermore ...

"While the CPI was originally a measure to evaluate a pre-defined, consistently weighted basket of goods, over time, the basket of goods grew to an unreasonable 80,000+ items, muting dramatic price changes in common goods and services.By adding too many layers of complexity and algorithms you lose the organic, real results in a muddled mix of diluted data.

Perhaps more dangerous have been the changes in the way the CPI is calculated and consistent manipulated to keep government expenditures down and mislead the public with misinformation."

I'm not entirely sure about the bolded sentence above. Among the reasons I am not entirely sure about the bolded sentence above is that having actually gone over to the Bureau of Labor Statistics site in an effort to figure out just exactly what the hell they are doing to come up with their rate of inflation, I run into a lot of stuff like this,  or this.  Then there's this,  and of course, that. 

Actually I read most of what BLS offers on the subject and came away from the experience with the distinct impression that on this particular subject, there is a sincere desire on the part of the Bureau of Labor Stastics to baffle with bullshit.

Just sayin'.

Anyway, I give creedence to Mr. Butowsky's method on the basis that it makes sense to me when he explains it in plain English.

The Chapwood Index reflects the true cost-of-living increase in America. Updated and released twice a year, it reports the unadjusted actual cost and price fluctuation of the top 500 items on which Americans spend their after-tax dollars in the 50 largest cities in the nation.

It exposes why middle-class Americans — salaried workers who are given routine pay hikes and retirees who depend on annual increases in their corporate pension and Social Security payments — can’t maintain their standard of living. Plainly and simply, the Index shows that their income can’t keep up with their expenses, and it explains why they increasingly have to turn to the government for entitlements to bail them out.

It’s because salary and benefit increases are pegged to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which for more than a century has purported to reflect the fluctuation in prices for a typical “basket of goods” in American cities — but which actually hasn’t done that for more than 30 years.

The middle class has seen its purchasing power decline dramatically in the last three decades, forcing more and more people to seek entitlements when their savings are gone. And as long as pay raises and benefit increases are tied to a false CPI, this trend will continue.

The myth that the CPI represents the increase in our cost of living is why the Chapwood Index was created. What differentiates it from the CPI is simple, but critically important. The Chapwood Index:

Reports the actual price increase of the 500 items on which most Americans spend their after-tax money. No gimmicks, no alterations, no seasonal adjustments; just real prices.

Shines a spotlight on the inaccuracy of the CPI, which is destroying the economic and emotional fiber of our country.

Shows how our dependence on the CPI is killing our middle class and why citizens increasingly are depending upon government entitlement programs to bail them out.

Claims to persuade Americans to become better-educated consumers and to take control of their spending habits and personal finances.

 

Again, click on the spreadsheet above for some plain English regarding the increase in the cost of living across 50 or so American cities.

 

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