The gyrations of a pole dancer may be difficult to execute, but that does not make them art, a New York state tax appeals board has concluded in rejecting an administrative law judge's finding that the exotic dancing qualifies for a sales tax exemption.
The two-member Tax Appeals Tribunal held that the routines performed nude or nearly nude by dancers at the Nite Moves club near Albany were largely learned from other dancers or on YouTube and the Internet, and are not the kind of carefully arranged and practiced patterns of movement normally equated with the art of dance.
"We question how much planning goes into attempting a dance seen on YouTube," the tax appeals panel concluded in Matter of 677 New Loudon Corporation D/B/A Nite Moves, 821458. "The record also shows that some of the moves on the pole are very difficult, and one had best plan how to approach turning upside down on the pole to avoid injury. However, the degree of difficulty is as relevant to a ranking in gymnastics as it is dance."
The panel overturned the finding by Administrative Law Judge Catherine M. Bennett that a "dramatic arts" exception to Tax Law §1105(f)(1) should apply to Night Moves' liability for some $129,000 in state sales taxes on cover charges and money dancers turned back to the club for the individual dances they performed for patrons in private. The tax bill covered 2002-05. I thought the Pole Tax was found unconstitutional back in the '60s.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/28/2010 16:45 ||
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should pay the tax with sweaty wrinkled $1 bills
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/28/2010 18:54 Comments ||
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The Czech is in the male.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
04/28/2010 19:21 Comments ||
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#5
That decision won't stand for the simple reason that artists won't let it. The vast majority of art is crapola, and only exists because it can slide in under the umbrella of "art". So artists know if they let any judge determine what is and what isn't art, they are boned.
The Supreme Court said Wednesday that a federal court went too far in ordering the removal of a congressionally endorsed war memorial cross from its longtime home in California.
In ruling the cross could stay, the justices said federal judges in California did not take sufficient notice of the government's decision to transfer the land in a remote area of California to private ownership. The move was designed to eliminate any constitutional concern about a religious symbol on public land.
The ruling was 5-4, with the court's conservatives in the majority Who won't be for long -- just as soon as The One makes his selection, our entire court system changes. For decades.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars erected the cross more than 75 years ago atop an outcropping in the Mojave National Preserve.
It has been covered with plywood for the past several years following the court rulings. Court papers describe the cross as 5 feet to 8 feet tall.
"Here one Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote.
In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens agreed that soldiers who died in battle deserve a memorial to their service. But the government "cannot lawfully do so by continued endorsement of a starkly sectarian message," Stevens said.
Six justices wrote separate opinions and none spoke for a majority of the court. The holding itself was narrow, ordering lower courts to look again at the transfer of land from the government to private control.
Lower federal courts previously ruled that the cross' location on public land violated the Constitution and that the land transfer was, in effect, an end run around the constitutional problem.
#1
Actually, it doesn't, not yet. JP Stevens was both ultra liberal, and was given a modicum of respect by the conservatives solely for his age, if not his legal sense or wit. But no matter how radical Barry-O's replacement for him is, the edge still stays 5-4 in favor of conservatives.
But heaven help us all if anything happens to one of the conservatives. The liberals will always vote in a leftist bloc, no matter the issue. Only the conservatives ever give cases consideration beyond politics.
MOSCOW Kyrgyzstan's new authorities have charged the country's former president with mass murder in the deaths of scores of antigovernment protesters earlier this month, an official in the provisional government said Tuesday.
The police and presidential guards opened fire on thousands of demonstrators on April 7, killing at least 85 people. They failed, however, to stop the protesters, who commandeered weapons and an armored personnel carrier and overran the government.
Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the former president, was forced to flee the country, and is currently in Belarus, where the president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, has guaranteed his security.
The interim government has struggled to return order to Kyrgyzstan, an impoverished Central Asian nation that hosts a United States air base that serves as a transit hub for troops and equipment for the NATO mission in Afghanistan.
The new government has made prosecuting Mr. Bakiyev a priority, and has vowed to seek his extradition from Belarus.
Charges have been filed against Bakiyev for exceeding his authority and also for the mass murder of peaceful citizens,' Azimbek Beknazarov, the deputy head of the provisional government, said in a news conference in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, Kyrgyz news agencies reported.
Mr. Bakiyev has said his guards opened fire only after protesters started shooting into his office at the government headquarters in Bishkek. Dozens of police officers were also injured in the violence.
The new government has said it will file charges against other members of the Bakiyev government, including some of the former president's family members.
Russia, which has pledged its support to the new Kyrgyz government, has already extradited Mr. Bakiyev's former interior minister, who had been recovering in Moscow after being severely beaten in the protests. On Monday, the provisional government said that the former minister would also face charges in the deaths of the demonstrators.
Officials in Belarus have given no indication that they intend to send Mr. Bakiyev back to Kyrgyzstan. Since arriving in Belarus last week, Mr. Bakiyev has appeared at news conferences with Mr. Lukashenko, in which he has challenged the authority of the new government in Bishkek and maintained that he remains president despite having announced his resignation in a letter to the new government.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/28/2010 00:00 ||
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That's a neat trick. Violently overthrow a vulnerable dictator, and then charge him with murder for any casualties.
Wonder who the new tyrant will be? Some pliable Moscow lickspittle, no doubt.
I'm rather surprised that Bakiyev is staying in Belarus, wonder if the Russians are planning on using him to keep their new puppet in line with the implied threat of a return to sender for lack of postage.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
04/28/2010 9:59 Comments ||
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At a time when both parties are competing to crack down the hardest on Wall Street banks, it might come as a surprise to know that the Treasury has been making a tidy profit on most of the government's Wall Street rescue operations.
What few in Congress are disclosing is that the government's non-bank rescues have become the biggest drain on taxpayers, including the burgeoning bailouts of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, insurance giant American International Group, and Detroit's General Motors and Chrysler.
The bank bailout was regrettable, but the banks had plans on how to return to profitability, and plenty of people keeping an eye on them to make sure they did, starting with their shareholders and creditors. The Macs, AIG, GM and Chrysler each shed both groups of watchdogs, and the remaining watchers, the government pols and apparatchiks, were in cahoots with the looters. Funny how these institutions are the ones who have not and will never pay off their TARP bailout loans.
All but one of the megabanks that have raised populist ire -- including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America -- repaid the government bailout funds long ago, along with interest and dividends that made the deals profitable for the Treasury. Citigroup is the only major bank that has not repaid in full, though it has announced plans to do so.
While many smaller banks still have not repaid their government assistance, industry lobbyists say the much-maligned Troubled Asset Relief Program has proved to be mostly a big win for taxpayers and the economy.
"Two-thirds of the TARP investment from banks has already been repaid with a large profit to the taxpayer," said Steve Bartlett, president of the Financial Services Roundtable. "TARP was a positive boost to the economy and the government, and taxpayers are seeing a positive return on their investment."
The Federal Reserve reported last week that it had transferred a record $47.4 billion in profits to the Treasury in 2009 from its Wall Street rescue operations -- up 50 percent from 2008.
About half of that came from interest that the central bank earned on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage bonds it purchased in the past year to support the housing market and keep 30-year mortgage rates near record lows. The Fed's profits were used to help reduce the government's sky-high budget deficit, but were not enough to offset the huge cost of Fannie and Freddie's taxpayer bailout -- which stands at $127 billion and is expected to grow to as much as $400 billion by some estimates.
In an unexpected development, the Fed said it was also on course to earn money on the notorious portfolio of supposedly toxic bonds it acquired from Bear Stearns two years ago to sweeten a merger deal it arranged with JP Morgan Chase. That deal marked the start of the government's massive Wall Street bailout operations, which burgeoned throughout 2008 as the threat of massive failure in the banking system forced Congress to enact the $700 billion bank bailout fund.
But the mostly untold story is that most of the money was never used, in large part because the program was so unpopular that Wall Street banks -- worried about the congressional backlash and pay restrictions attached to the funds -- returned their bailout cash and then declined to take part in several programs that the Treasury set up to help unfreeze credit markets. Since the credit programs were barely used and loan securities markets have been rebounding on their own, the Treasury and Fed have been quietly shutting down the programs in recent months.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/28/2010 00:00 ||
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"TARP was a positive boost to the economy and the government"
I call BS. There was no boost to the economy, just a Washington crony capitalist circle-jerk in which Treasury built up the banks' reserves and rescued shareholders, and banks in turn stopped lending to small businesses and consumers.
The banks are borrowing at close to zero rates. The banks are not lending. They are making money hand over fist, and the real economy is starved of credit. F&&& them, and f&&& their Washington cronies.
We really need a new political class in this country.
Not true. The Chinese economy was rescued and kicked in high gear. Super Luxury car companies too once Wall Street's TARP bonuses got paid out.
Posted by: ed ||
04/28/2010 0:46 Comments ||
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#3
The Chinese economy was rescued and kicked in high gear.
Ha. But then, aren't they also on their way to becoming part of the DC Circle Jerk, ie our governing structure? That will occur formally on that day when no one but the Chinese central bank will buy our junk debt, and Tiny Tim Geithner et al leave government and begin signing retainer deals to serve as financial advisors to Chinese government entities seeking to take over, acquire, restructure, or arbitrage US assets. Stay tuned.
It means the government manipulated the market to keep house prices higher than they would have been otherwise and hence increase the value of the toxic mortgage debt.
Only governments have enough money to do this to domestic markets, and is the reason they made money on the 'toxic debt'.
The losers are the millions of house purchasers forced to pay more than they would otherwise.
We noted this last week, glad to see the MSM catching up. Ukraine's extension of Russian base's lease may challenge U.S. goals in region
MOSCOW -- Ukraine's decision to host a Russian naval base for 25 more years in exchange for cheaper gas, a deal ratified Tuesday despite egg-throwing and a brawl over it in the Ukrainian parliament, does little to alter the immediate military balance in the Black Sea but presents other challenges for U.S. goals in the region.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has played down the significance of the pact, saying it should be seen as part of an effort by Ukraine's new president, Viktor Yanukovych, to improve ties with both Russia and the United States in a "balancing act" that "makes sense to us."
But analysts say the deal could hurt Western efforts to support Ukraine's fitful democratic transition, by allowing it to postpone reforms within its corrupt energy sector and by provoking another round of infighting in the country after years of political instability.
Some also warn that the deal could boost those determined to restore Russia's influence over its neighbors and could complicate NATO plans to use the Black Sea as a base against potential foes in the Middle East and Central Asia. The Pentagon, for example, has considered putting part of its missile shield against Iran on ships in the Black Sea.
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Posted by: Steve White ||
04/28/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Kiss it goodbye. There will be no democratic Ukraine, and no Ukraine in NATO.
Russia, the 'stans, Ukraine: these are criminalized states. Even the "reformers" in Ukraine, most notably the billionaire thief Yulia Timoshenko, are crooks. It is not possible to have democracy and stability in nations where the state has been criminalized.
We're going to have to go back to realpolitik and chess-playing in E Europe and Central Asia. Too bad our current political class is so f**king stupid and historically ignorant of these regions.
Let's hope this isn't prescient for the U.S. economy. Lowered bond ratings will make interest on debt sky high. Bondholders may only recoup 30% of invested value. Panic over swelling budget deficits. Unions have demanded too much in Greece. Too many entitlements. Sound familiar?
April 27 (Bloomberg) -- Greece's credit rating was cut three steps to junk by Standard and Poor's, the first time a euro member has lost its investment grade since the currency's 1999 debut. The euro weakened and stock markets throughout the region plunged.
Greece was lowered to BB+ from BBB+ by S&P, which also warned that bondholders could recover as little as 30 percent of their initial investment if the country restructures its debt. The move, which puts Greek debt on a par with bonds issued by Azerbaijan and Egypt, came minutes after the rating company reduced Portugal by two steps to A- from A+.
We're now borrowing at 4%. If rates spike to 6%, our children will be paying off our debts, and significantly poorer for it, for the rest of their lives. If rates spike to 7% or higher, our children will grow up in the northern equivalent of Argentina.
Who will rid us of this troublesome debt? Not Tweedledum or Tweedledee.
#2
The US is in no better shape.
Gross Federal Debt
2008: $9,986 billion
2009: $12,311 billion
------------------------
Diff: $2,325 billion
That's 16.3% of GDP. Of which only $1,410 billion is the official Fed FY2009 budget deficit. I guess most of the missing $900B was TARP money and not part of the "official" budget deficit. It doesn't include state and local governments.
For comparison, the Greek budget deficit for 2009 is 13.6% of GDP.
GAO Simulation assuming current spending levels continue.
Posted by: ed ||
04/28/2010 1:51 Comments ||
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#3
Question for Rantburg market experts. How much time do we have left with the DOW?
#4
I don't know the answer to your question Besoeker but the following companies make up the DOW: link
The health of these companies? The economy is still very uncertain in my opinion despite rosy reports by the administration. Market seems like it is propped up. Unemployment is high. If people are unemployed, they can't buy much. Can't invest much. I realize unemployment is a lagging indicator. We have such a national debt and the interest to service that debt is staggering. BO has increased that debt. The current administration is not business friendly. They have created much uncertainty about the economy. Individual tax burden can't do anything but increase. That's not good.
#6
Karl Denninger has this to say about the connection of Greece to the bond market: The insolvency itself happened long before, but by allowing people to lie investors were severely damaged instead of being properly concerned and acting to protect themselves.
So it is occurring again, this time in the sovereign debt realm. Greece is not a 30 billion problem it is more like 200 billion.
Worse is the fact that if Greece is bailed out with some sort of rescue package of new loans they will have simply made the situation worse by loading up more debt on an overlevered nation.
And finally, Greece is just the first of many - Spain, Portugal, Italy and even Great Britain anyone?
How's that all going to work out?
Here's the truth - it's not.
Extreme caution is mandatory here folks. You're not going to be told the truth - not by our government or anyone else's. If a dislocation and "disorderly" bond market collapse gets going you will not be told in advance, but large players will be, and be position to profit significantly - at your expense.
There are no promises here, other than one absolute - you will be lied to by the governments of the world.
Theres a reason there are Tea Partiers out there, and when you look at it, anger at the bailout is one of the first things they talk about, says Barofsky, referring to the anti- Obama political movement. This Treasury Department and the previous Treasury Department bear some of the responsibility for not being straightforward with the American people.
AND
If the goal of TARP was to make sure we dont have another financial collapse, well, obviously its made the likelihood of that much, much greater.
#8
Anguper Hupomosing9418; are you trying to cause cognitive dissonance in my mind?
Barofsky is a Democrat. He sounds like a straight-up honest guy trying to do a good job. I didn't know such an animal existed. All I can say is that it is too bad there aren't more like him. Now if someone like him would go after Dodd, Frank, Fannie and Freddie and some of the other corrupt members of our government. But that is a lot of hoping and changing that would have to take place.
#9
Barcepundit says Spain's rating was just dropped from AAA to AA by S&P. It has started.
Posted by: trailing wife at the Toyota shop ||
04/28/2010 15:35 Comments ||
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The analogies are getting more gruesome.
According to Bloomberg: Its not a question of the danger of contagion. Contagion has already happened, Angel Gurria, secretary general for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], said in a Bloomberg television interview today in Berlin. This is like Ebola. When you realize you have it you have to cut your leg off in order to survive.
#11
I heard on NPR this afternoon that some German official or other suggested Greece ought to pull out of the euro, then devalue the new drachma as the only hope Greece has for getting out from under this.
#12
Question for Rantburg market experts. How much time do we have left with the DOW?
Stocks are up from their low in March due to better corporate earnings. Companies have cut their staff to the bone, so expenses are lower (hence better earnings). We are in the midst of an inventory restocking cycle now. Retailers who had stopped acquiring inventory due to very low sales have started running out of things and are restocking anticipating more demand. That demand will come IF unemployment goes down and the consumers and businesses see less uncertainty (read no new onerous government laws regulations) in the future. So, prediction - the economy takes another dip (i.e. crash) by end of summer.
#14
What DMFD said. Valuations are back up to where they were before the crash. Most companies are beating estimates only by slashing payrolls; the jobs have gone overseas in some cases and in other cases are gone for good. Such hiring as is taking place is occurring at significantly reduced salary levels.
Bottom line, the economy was top-heavy with consumer spending, most of fueled by excess consumer debt. That debt is being washed out of the economy as incomes recede. The result is that, absent a huge surge in exports, the US economy is re-setting at a lower level. For stocks to appreciate again, they will have to decline significantly, ie crash.
Any number of catalysts will precipitate this crash - just to take a few off the top of my head, they could be any combination of: bad earnings for the banks, declining consumer confidence, badly-crafted legislation and/or new taxes that hurt investors, a wave of sovereign defaults overseas, a new war in the middle east + a spike in oil prices etc etc.
Bottom line, time to load up on commodities. Oil futures are probably a good investment now.
#15
I talked to my financial guy and he says his company thinks the Dow is shaking out about where it should be around 10-11K. That was maybe a month or so ago. I don't necessarily trust the investment companies much. That was before this roll of countries getting downgraded.
#16
I heard on NPR this afternoon that some German official or other suggested Greece ought to pull out of the euro, then devalue the new drachma as the only hope Greece has for getting out from under this.
Which is the right answer (inflate the debt away) and what will almost certainly happen, when politicians realize bluffing the market doesn't work.
Mind you, they will have to rename the Euro to the Frankmark when they have finished kicking countries out of the Euro zone.
The frustration had been building for years in Arizona with every drug-related kidnapping, every home invasion, every "safe house" discovered crammed with illegal immigrants from Mexico.
The tensions finally spilled over this month with passage of the nation's toughest law against illegal immigration, a measure that has put Arizona at the center of the heated debate over how to deal with the millions of people who sneak into the U.S. every year.
A number of factors combined to produce the law: a heavily conservative Legislature, the ascent of a Republican governor, anger over the federal government's failure to secure the border, and growing anxiety over crime that reached a fever pitch last month with the slaying of an Arizona rancher, apparently by an illegal immigrant.
Posted by: ed ||
04/28/2010 07:50 ||
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Fox News
"The latest immigration bill hasn't been scored yet by the Congressional Budget Office, but many of the components are similar to those in the failed 2007 immigration bill, which would have cost an estimated $30 billion over five years, including $20 billion for enforcement measures. The CBO also said the 2007 bill would have added $15 billion to the federal deficit.
FoxNews.com's latest taxpayer calculator estimates how much someone in your income range would have paid on average under the 2007 bill.
People earning under $15,000 would have paid an estimated $1.27 over five years. The same average for those making $30,000 to $50,000k would be $48. The bill would have cost Americans bringing home $100,000 to $200,000 an average of $365 over five years, or $73 a year.
Staffers and sources on Capitol Hill say that, like the 2007 bill, the latest legislation would require citizenship applicants to learn English and pay a fine, but it also may contain a "touch back" provision in which people would go to their home countries to register but would be allowed to "wait in line" while working in the U.S. with visas.
The conservative Heritage Foundation says comprehensive immigration reform will cost U.S. taxpayers much more -- about $90 billion a year, once low-skilled immigrants are fully legalized. The organization says these immigrants will receive an average of $3 to $4 in benefits for every $1 paid in taxes.
If you are adding millions and millions of very poorly educated people into the welfare system, into Social Security and Medicare, you are going to have a huge expansion of government costs, says Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation."
#2
Al Sharpton is planning a "civil rights" protest out here, and everybody is more than aware that the last time he did that, in a pique of antisemitism, the end result was a Jewish store being burned, and eight people killed.
If he tries a similar riot out here, I look forward to his being Joe Arpaio's personal trustee, as well as whoever replaces Joe Arpaio when he retires, until Al's hair is cotton white, and he needs a walker to hobble around.
#4
So it is better for 67 illegals to be crammed in a U-Haul instead of put in Sheriff Joe's jail for a short stay until they can be shipped back to Mexico?
We live in a small neighborhood. Everyone knows everyone. If people come into the neighborhood who we don't recognize, we ask them who they are and can we help them. So far, one of them was a criminal who the police rounded up later. We have a strong neighborhood watch program where we look out for each other. The program has good ties with our local police. We all work together to prevent crime. Works well. It is not the neighbors who are trying to commit crimes in our neighborhood but the outsiders. Just consider what Arizona did as a neighborhood watch program. If San Francisco wants to b!tch about this immigration law and boycott Arizona, Arizona should take up a collection and ship bunches of illegals to San Francisco to be taken care of in that "refuge city." The rest of us should boycott San Francisco.
#5
Interestingly, the Texas legislature will be considering a bill like Arizona's in the January session. link
Posted by: trailing wife at the Toyota shop ||
04/28/2010 14:46 Comments ||
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Texas passes a law similar to Arizona's law. It is doubtful California and New Mexico will pass such laws. Does this mean illegals will then funnel into New Mexico and California? Not that they are not now, but just asking.
#7
regarding the Sharpton protest vs Freddie's Fashion Mart in Harlem, the eviction of the black owned retailer that was the 'cause' was initiated because the owner of the mall, a black Pentacostal Church, requested that retailer be evicted
this is another small but, I think, important detail in the Al Sharpton legacy
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/28/2010 15:39 Comments ||
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Does this mean illegals will then funnel into New Mexico and California?
Unlikely they'll stay long in New Mexico. It usually ranks per capita income just above Louisiana and Mississippi. If they want poverty, they can just stay home with the family. Free bennies are minimal constrained by that economy. New Mexico does have its share of illegals, noted often for their run for border as soon as there's a vehicular homicide or shooting. However, most just transit here to get to someplace with greater population centers to mingle with.
#1
If the Dolphins come with the modified torpedo tubes, then the Israelis can launch their cruise missiles from about 100 miles out at sea at Iran. The frigates are too much of a visible target for standoff attacks, while the subs can sneak and shoot.
One would feel for these people had they not masqueraded for so long as legitimate scientists.
Another shoe has dropped from the IPCC centipede as scientists in Bangladesh say their country will not disappear below the waves.
Leaving that poor centipede to attempt to swim through the swells, for which centipedes were not designed... or evolved, depending on your bent.
As usual, the U.N.'s climate charlatans forgot one tiny detail.
It keeps getting worse for the much-discredited Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which seems to have built its collapsing house of climate cards on sand or, more specifically, river sediment.
After fraudulent claims about Himalayan glaciers, African crop harvests and Amazon rain forests, plus a 2007 assessment report based on anecdotal evidence, student term papers and nonpeer-reviewed magazine articles, the panel's doomsday forecast for Bangladesh has been exposed as its latest hoax.
According to the 2007 report, melting glaciers and polar ice would lead to rising sea levels and just a three-foot rise would flood 17% of the low-lying country of Bangladesh by 2050 and create 20 million refugees.
Now comes a study from the Dhaka-based Center for Environment and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) that says the IPCC forgot to factor in the 1 billion tons of sediment carried by Himalayan rivers such as the Ganges and the Brahmaputra into Bangladesh every year.
CEGIS director Maminul Haque Sarker told AFP that "studies on the effects of climate change in Bangladesh, including those quoted by the IPCC, did not consider the role of sediment in the growth and adjustment process of the country's coast and rivers to the sea level rise." Even if sea levels rose according to IPCC predictions, Sarker says, natural sediment deposits would cancel the effect of any rise.
Apocalyptic changes forecast by climate change alarmists, according to Swedish geologist and physicist Nils-Axel Morner, former head of the International Commission on Sea Level Change, are not in the cards. Despite fluctuations down as well as up, "the sea is not rising," he says. "It hasn't risen in 50 years."
If there is any rise this century it will "not be more than 10 cm (four inches), with an uncertainty of plus or minus 10 cm."
Golly. That's a heck of an error bar.
Six times he and his expert team visited the Maldive Islands to confirm that the sea has not risen for half a century. Similarly in Tuvalu, where local leaders have been calling for the inhabitants to be evacuated for 20 years, the sea has, if anything, dropped in recent decades. Venice, Italy, has been sinking rather than the Adriatic rising, says Dr. Morner.
*snicker*
IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri defended his organization's predictions by warning that "on the basis of one study one cannot jump to conclusions." Yet he and the IPCC jumped to the conclusion that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 based on unsubstantiated student theses and anecdotes from a magazine for mountain climbers. These claims have been withdrawn amid much laughter.
Still, Pachauri persists in his fables. "One single error doesn't take anything away from the major findings of the report," he said. "The fact is that the glaciers are melting." At least the glaciers in Iceland are, due to natural forces, namely volcanic activity. Even if real, not everything can be blamed on man.
In February, it was reported that India was pulling out of the IPCC because it could no longer trust the U.N. body's data or conclusions. The day after India's announcement, the Netherlands asked the U.N. to explain why the IPCC had said in its 2007 report, which helped it win its share of a Nobel Prize shared with Al Gore, that 55% of the country was below sea level, a figure the Dutch say is closer to 26%.
There's been a sea change in the consideration of the bogus claims of the IPCC, Gore, Britain's CRU and other climate charlatans. No longer accepted on faith, they are being challenged and disproven by scientific fact.
#5
I don't know about disappeared. You can bet it was under radar surveillance the whole time, even if comms was lost. Not hard to do in Mach 20 plasma. The radar telemetry will tell if the HSV followed the programmed flight profile.
Posted by: ed ||
04/28/2010 7:59 Comments ||
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#6
Did it burn up in flight? At Mach 20 wouldn't it have made quite a bang if it made it down?
#10
But it also needs to be cost effective. A $100 million per shot (ICBM booster plus hypersonic vehicle), costing more than the target, does not meet that criteria.
Posted by: ed ||
04/28/2010 15:28 Comments ||
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#11
Yeah, but if something reusable like the X-37B can be sent up with 4 or 6 of the gliders, dispense them as / when needed, and then return, it starts to get a bit cheaper...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/28/2010 17:25 Comments ||
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#12
D *** NG IT, sounds like another OLD DREAM/VISION of mine, but that as they say is another story.
"GLOBAL STRIKE" > Pragmatically, IMO this is one reason why JAPAN should give or sell the BONINS/VOLCANO ISLANDS to the USA in return for a tote US pullout from OKINAWA [save for contigency]. Since various local Guam Perts had argued or theorized over the years that the BONINS are geologically part of the MARIANAS CHAIN, the US CAN FORWARD-DEPLOY POTENT GMD-TMD ASSETS, e.g. BMD MISSLES + UAVS + ARMED BMD DIRIGIBLES, ON REMOTE IWO JIMA NOW A US TERRITORY, etc. as opposed to basing in GUAM'S RADIO BARRIGADA + OTHER SCARCE LOCAL LANDS WHICH CAN BE USED FOR OTHER NON-MIL PURPOSES.
Iff the USDOD + DARPA-JPL during the Cold War can dev designs for basing IRBMS or ICBMS on EARTH-ORBITING SATELLITES, IT CAN DO THE SAME FOR FORWARD-DEPLOYED ADVANCED DIRIGIBLES IN ROUTINE OR STATIC PATROL OVER REMOTE VOLCANIC ISLANDS WID LITTLE TO NO HUMAN POPULATION SAVE FOR SEABIRDS, MARINE LIFE + ASSIGNED MILITARY-GOVT MEMBERS.
The USDOD will still have SOUTH KOREA, TAIWAN, + EMERGENCY BASE USE RIGHTS wid JAPAN as per its former Okinawa milbases. GUAM-CNMI should become a DE FACTO US STATE IN WESTPAC, WILL GET BACK ANCESTRAL ISLANDS VIA MERGER WID THE BONINS, + THE USDOD SHOULD BASE RAPID REAX CONTINGEN MILFORCES OR ASSETS O GUAM-CNMI N SUPPORT OF LOCOL ECONOMIES.
WIN-WIN-WIN for everybody until some Politician(s) decide to destroy it because it makes too much common sense + honesty.
#15
ION TOPIX > PALAU SENATE ASKS US TO CONSIDER ANGAUR AS FUTENMA RELOCATION SITE.
* WMF > WAR INEVITABLE? IRANIAN DEV OF LR IRBMS AND ICBMS MAY FORCE THE US-ISRAEL TO ATTACK IN 2011 OR 2013; + A NEW VIETNAM? US-ISRAELI STRIKE, INVASION OF IRAN WILL START A LONG GROUND WAR OF CONVENTIONAL BATTLES MIXED WITH "PEOPLE'S WAR" OF RESISTANCE. US WILL FALL INTO NATIONAL, GEOPOL DECLINE WHILE CHINA RISES TO SUPERPOWER.
* SAME > TERRIBLE/FEARFUL REPUTATION FOR PLA'S HAINAN ISLAND BASE: RAPID CONTROL OF SOUTH CHINA SEAS FOR CHINA'S SUBMARINES.
* SAME > INDIAN MEDIA: CHINESE MIL BUILDUP AIMS FOR REGIONAL ISOLATION, BLOCKADE OF INDIA.
* IIRC PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > CHINA APPROVES OF PAK PROPOSAL FOR TRI-NATIONAL COOPERATION FOR DEVELOPMENT OF AFGHANISTAN.
Excerpt: But the "strategic" PSYOPS scheming didn't die. What if the U.S. projected a holographic image of Allah floating over Baghdad urging the Iraqi people and Army to rise up against Saddam, a senior Air Force officer asked in 1990?
#1
According to a military physicist given the task of looking into the hologram idea, the feasibility had been established of projecting large, three-dimensional objects that appeared to float in the air.
#5
What if the U.S. projected a holographic image of Allah
Perhaps Muhammed was meant. Islam doesn't have a mental image of God's appearance. Unlike Christianity, which has a long history of providing public visual imagery of bible tales -- even the earliest churches had paintings on the walls and mosaics on the floors, reflecting Roman decorative customs. The art historians quite enjoy pointing out Christian motifs taken directly from pagan conventions.
Posted by: trailing wife at the Toyota shop ||
04/28/2010 14:54 Comments ||
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#6
I meant, pagan artistic conventions. My apologies.
Posted by: trailing wife at the Toyota shop ||
04/28/2010 14:55 Comments ||
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#7
"Holographic image" > D *** NG IT, IS THE USDOD TESTING OVER GUAM AGAIN!
#8
"AREA 51" = And a LOUD LAUGH = YEAH-H-H RIIIGHT is suddenly heard oer the Pacific...
GUAM > "GOD", etal. will "appear" oer GUAM-WESTPAC afore being WEIRDLY MYTERIOUSLY CASUALLY, BUT ONLY COINCIDENTALLY PDENIABLY blown to CLOUD/WISPY-REENIES BY THE USAF ABL + GMD DIRIGIBLES + LATE-NITE UAVS.
* SONG > "AFTER MIDNITE... GOTTA LET IT ALL HANDOUT"!
#9
First COLD WAR ATOMIC-HYDROGEN BOMBS TESTING = RADIATION, now comes OWG-NWO, INTEL-PYWAR, NOT-LUCY-IN-THE-SKY-WITH-DIAMONDS "TV/MOVIES IN THE CLOUDS".
In a provocative move, Thailand's beleaguered government has accused red-shirt protesters of plotting against the Thai crown, which is shielded from criticism by custom and law. How is shutting down trains and cities not provocative?
The news raised concerns among protesters that the authorities are trying to recast their rallies as traitorous in order to justify a crackdown.
It also came amid growing frustration on the streets of Bangkok over aggressive actions by antigovernment red shirts, including impromptu roadblocks and the closure Tuesday of a light-rail system after protesters threatened to throw tires on the tracks. Daily rallies by anti-red groups attract thousands of flag-waving supporters.
An Army spokesman told reporters on Monday that an emergency committee chaired by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was investigating the alleged plot. Thai newspapers Tuesday reprinted an organizational chart that links protest leaders, opposition lawmakers, social activists, and media outlets. Mr. Abhisit was quoted as saying that further action must be taken.'
Red-shirt protesters have ridiculed the claims and threatened to sue for defamation. For now, we only want the dissolution of parliament,' says Jaran Ditapichai, one of the leaders. He said similar slurs had failed to stop the protest movement, now into its seventh week of nonstop rallies in the capital.
The accusation came on the same day that King Bhumibol Adulyadej made his first public speech in four months. A constitutional monarch, King Bhumibol has limited formal powers but retains great moral authority. Some Thais have called on him to adjudicate the current crisis, as he did after bloodshed in May 1992.
In his televised speech, the king told a group of newly appointed judges to do their job honestly, sustain order, and set an example for the public. He made no reference to the protests that have paralyzed parts of the capital and spread to the populous north. Some commentators parsed his words as a call for stability and even as a rebuke to cautious security chiefs.
Among older Thais, such allegations stir uneasy memories of October 1976, when security forces, backed by a royalist militia, massacred leftist student protesters accused of similar offenses. It is still illegal to criticize the royal family, and several activists have been jailed in recent years, drawing criticism from human rights groups. Analysts say the current protests are much broader and less ideological, making it hard to draw a direct comparison.
Despite their leaders' public denials, some protesters are privately critical of the monarchy and accuse the royal family of interfering in politics.
We love our king,' says Taveesak Apichainimitdee, a shop owner, at an anti-red rally over the weekend. Asked if the red shirts also loved the king, he replies, only some of them.'
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/28/2010 00:00 ||
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thisis my congresscritter and I support him wholeheartedly. Dropping an anchor baby shouldn't make that kid American, and invite the entire family to stay.
Representative Duncan Hunter wants to deport the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants but he isn't the only one who wants to change the U.S. Constitution.
Hunter, who spoke at a tea party gathering in Ramona Saturday, said he does not believe children born to illegal immigrant parents should get automatic U.S. citizenship.
In a video posted Saturday on YouTube, Hunter appears to be taking questions from the crowd when he is asked if he would support the deportation of children born to illegal immigrants.
I would have to,' he said.
It's a complex issue and it's you can look and say, You're a mean guy, that's a mean thing to do, that's not a humanitarian thing to do.' We simply cannot afford what we're doing right now,' he said. "California's going under.'
We're not being mean,' he told the crowd. We're just saying it takes more than just walking across the border to become an American citizen.'
Our media partner the North County Times confirmed the statements when a reporter spoke with Hunter Tuesday.
The congressman, whose district includes parts of Poway and Ramona in North County, told the paper that it makes sense that if the parents of illegal immigrant children are deported, that their children go with them. Hunter said he also supports a bill, House Resolution 1868, that would eliminate automatic citizenship for those children.
Currently, the Constitution grants citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/28/2010 19:20 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
