THE STEEL DEAL

Going for baroque ...

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  London - The Bank of England on Thursday cut interest rates to the lowest level in its 315-year history, taking it into uncharted territory as it attempts to ward off a prolonged recession.

  The half point cut in interest rates - to 1.5 percent - sees the central bank nearing the limits of conventional monetary policy after trims totaling 3.5 percentage points since the beginning of October and as Britain faces its bleakest year since the early 1990s recession.

  The bank's nine-member monetary policy committee said the world economy "appears to be undergoing an unusually sharp and synchronized downturn." "Measures of business and consumer confidence have fallen markedly," it said in a statement accompanying its decision. "World trade growth this year is likely to be the weakest for some considerable time."

  The half a percentage point cut was less dramatic than the 1.5 point trim it announced in November, and lower than the 1 point cut expected by some economists -- but still brings the rate down to the lowest level since the Bank of England was founded in 1694.

  The move follows aggressive cuts by other central banks. The U.S. Federal Reserve has already slashed its key interest rate to a record low, at a range of zero to 0.25 percent, while the Bank of Japan has dropped its rate to almost nothing, at 0.1 percent. Ye olde linke

  

To put that into perspective, they were hanging witches in old Salem, the United States was almost a century away, the Dodo had just become extinct and Isaac Newton had just discovered gravity. Johann Sebastian Bach was in his prime. It is my sincerest hope that three hundred years hence, someone will be able to look back on our times and find them half as historically monumental and a fraction as intellectually productive.

Perish that we may find ourselves, our great engines of economy and technology going the way of the Dodo.

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The Magic Money Machine - Committing Econocide

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   WASHINGTON - The forecast Wednesday of a jaw-dropping $1.2 trillion one-year federal budget deficit will make it harder for President-elect Barack Obama to win broad support for a massive stimulus package that would add even more to the red ink.

   With his party controlling both the House of Representatives and the Senate, Obama's still likely to get the OK for spending and tax cuts that cost $1 trillion or more over two years and are designed to jump-start the economy and create or save 3 million jobs.

  However, while many economists, business groups and politicians agree on the need for something dramatic, Obama now concedes that he'll have to wait until February to get a bill to sign. He'll probably find conservative "blue dog" Democrats as well as Republicans balking at the idea of borrowing another $1 trillion on top of this new annual deficit.

  They could deny Obama the kind of broad, bipartisan approval that he hopes will signal not only that he's changed the political culture of a divided Washington but also that he's put forward a plan that's widely popular. Such approval is crucial as he moves to rebuild trust in the government and the economy.

  Yet even before he can point to a law meant to boost the economy or to post-stimulus efforts to rein in budget deficits, he has to deal with the fallout of the Congressional Budget Office's forecast that the current year's deficit will jump from last year's $455 billion to a record $1.2 trillion.

  "There's a sticker shock problem," said Steven Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College in Minnesota and the author of a book on budget politics. "This is a new problem for Obama: How far out there are people willing to go?"  Kaching

   

  

   As a percentage of Gross Domestic Product - all the goods and services produced - the coming deficit will be almost three times more than in World War II. Granted, WWII was the only thing that saved us from FDR's New Deal and over a decade of the Great Depression, but the will - the focus - the national sense of urgency is not there for the grandiose schemes of the Left. What we'll wind up with is a mish mash of pet projects, political pork and ballooning bureaucracy. Throwing money at our problems will not solve them, didn't work for FDR and it will not work for BHO. There is only one thing that will drive our economic engines and push our productivity hard enough to turn this situation around. Only one thing will bring us all together and concentrate our efforts with the laser-like focus this country requires now. Only one single thing. We need a great big war.

Please post your suggestions for potential enemies and 'why' in the comments.

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Why did the scientists open up the shark?

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   A penguin, a seal, or even a human hand – what would you expect to find in the stomach of a great white shark? Scientists in New Zealand are about to discover just that when they perform a necropsy on a 10ft great white shark - believed to be the first of its kind, conducted in front of about 1,000 members of the public and streamed live online.

   The shark will be dissected and its organs investigated during the necropsy at Auckland Museum this Thursday where scientists hope the operation will help add to their limited knowledge of one of the ocean’s least known about animals. “It’s very exciting, we’ve never done anything like this in front of the public before,” Tom Trnski, marine curator at Auckland Museum, told Times Online. “It’s a rare opportunity for us. Little is known about the life history of these apex predators of the ocean, and we hope to learn more about the shark’s recent past before it came into the harbour.”

   Dr Trnski will join Clinton Duffy, a shark researcher with the NZ department of Conservation to perform the two-hour long necropsy – which is similar to an autopsy but whose purpose is for research, not to discover the cause of death. Unlike the famous scene in the shark horror film Jaws where Richard Dreyfuss cuts open a menacing great white to discover a car licence plate and a crushed tin, the NZ scientists hope to find objects of the (previously) living marine variety. “We’re interested in the gut content to see what the shark has eaten – it could be anything from seals, penguins, fish or even whale blubber,” Dr Trnski said, adding that the female’s reproductive organs will also be investigated. “We’re certainly hoping not to find any human bits inside, but you never know.”

   The shark, an adolescent female which measures 10ft and weighs 660 pounds, was accidentally caught by a local fisherman after it had become entangled in a gill net in Auckland’s Kaipara Harbour on Monday last week. Attracted by the large schools of trevally, the large shark had actually been caught alive the previous day and released by the fisherman, only for it to return to its death in the net. The scientists will dissect the shark in an open amphitheatre at the Auckland Museum and examine its stomach content, measure its internal organs and record all their findings for international shark research.The operation will watched by an estimated 1000 people at the museum and streamed live on its website to be viewed by millions more.  Ewww

  

   

I used to be a commercial fisherman and have used this platform to tell a few fish tales. Sharks are amazing creatures - almost indestructible - they have a portion of their brain on both ends of their spinal cord. I used to shrimp in the summers and you can't catch shrimp at night, so the crew is left to its own devices for recreation. We'd catch sharks. Easy enough, just throw garbage over the side and bait large hooks with fish and wait a few minutes. Pull the sharks in and gut 'em and put them on the hooks and soon, bigger sharks would come. By the end of the evening, you'd be catching 8 footers. One night, we caught an especially nice specimen and removed the jaws, cut the spinal cord at the tail, gutted it from stem to stern and stuck a hook in it and tossed it back over the side - that damned thing was trying to swim away. But that's not all. We grew tired of our 'sport' and hit the bunks, only to awake the next day to find that shark STILL trying to swim away. That should give you an idea of how hard they are to kill. Sharks are an endangered species today - primarily because of the appetite for sharkfin soup. I've had that and was not impressed, but it is so popular in Asia that the taking of large shark species has decimated the population worldwide. But this 'research' won't reveal much ...

... sharks eat anything that moves or smells of blood. Period.

 

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Through a glass darkly ...

   Rod Blagojevich may be so very motivated by personal power and self preservation that he qualifies as megalomaniacal - crazy - but he is not stupid. But his special brand of insanity is threatening us all. Had he been left to his own devices within the confines Illinois pay-for-play politics - whatever actions he might have taken would have affected those who elected him and they deserve no better. If the good voters of Illinois are so stupid as to elect such a monster - they have it coming. But the rest of the nation did not. The rest of us elected - for better or worse - Barack Obama, and his historical ascendancy should not be tainted by the likes of some pond scum like Blago.

   By refusing to step down in the face of overwhelmingly damning evidence of corruption, which by Chicago standards may be acceptable, and instead choosing Roland Burris to fill the empty U.S.Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama, Blagojevich has shoved race in our face once again. Just when most people were heralding the dawn of a new age of race relations - along comes this most divisive of scenarios. Every single black politician is on record - including ex-Black Panther Bobby Rush - as stating categorically that no selection made by the disgraced Illinois governor would be acceptable under any terms. Then a week later he chooses Burris and the reversals of opinion within the black community are breathtaking in their gymnastic contortions. It should be physically impossible to be that hypocritical.

   Apparently not, because not only are all the black folks lining up in support of Burris, they are going to literally force the Senate leadership to seat him - under the threat of violence. I, for one, did not need any further demonstration of the hypocrisy of the Left, any more examples of racism on behalf of blacks and I sure as hell didn't need any further proof of the woeful lack of spines to be found in Democrats in general and their chosen leaders specifically. Nor did this nation. But even more troubling is that this situation may undo whatever real good Obama's election might have accomplished - because other than helping to heal centuries old racial divides - his tenure as President of the United States will certainly have scant benefit - if any at all.

   If Democrats had a scintilla of national pride, a drop of concern beyond politics and any commitment to their oft-stated desire for 'change', they would reject Burris' selection out of hand and call for a special election - like they all did before they realized they might just lose said election - even in the most politically corrupt State in the Union and in a State long in the graft-guided grasp of their own stinking monolithic party there. Perish the thought that they might have to actually compete, even on such an uneven playing field in a game with rules of their own making. How terribly ironic that at the same moment Obama - favorite son and shining example of racial harmony - is sworn in as POTUS, some little worm of a man will attempt to slither into the Halls of Congress at the behest of a truly reptilian example of the worst this species has to offer.

   And all the while, this grand theater of the most absurd and what is sure to be one of the darkest chapters in America's political history will have as its cheerleaders, people who can see no further than the color of their skin. If that is not a validation of a majority of this country's voter's worst suspicions about black people and Democrats, then I can not imagine what could possibly be more convincing short of armed insurrection ala post Katrina on a national scale. Where are the outraged black voices? Why isn't the black community up in arms over the blatant hypocrisy evidenced by the Black Congressional Caucus and black 'community leaders' and 'activists'? I can come to only one of two conclusions. Either being black is quite enough, no matter the circumstance OR they are too stupid to recognize the potential damage being done.

Exactly what I would say about the Ku Klux Klan. Racism is color elevated to blindness, ultimately to madness.

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Words DO have meaning.

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  Prison officials have been told not to refer to their charges as 'inmates' because it might offend them. Ministers claim the age-old term is not appropriate if criminals are to be treated with "respect and dignity".

   One prison officer leader attacked the move and warned jails have already become too soft as he called for a return to tough prisons in 2009. Opposition MPs said it was "politically correct nonsense". In a scathing outburst, Brian Caton, general secretary of the Prison Officers Association, called for an end to the "namby pamby attitude" that has led to soft prisons. "It never ceases to amaze me, the hypocrisy of politicians and senior civil servants," he said.

   "On the one hand they say we are not going to have soft prisons but on the other phraseology that has been around for a long, long time suddenly becomes offensive to our dear charges. "As far as I am concerned they are convicts, they are prisoners, they are inmates.

   Shadow Justice Secretary, Nick Herbert, said: "The government would do well to concentrate their efforts on stopping prisoners walking out of open jails, ending early release and tackling the drugs trade in prison which is rife, rather than this politically correct nonsense."

   A Prison Service spokesman said: "The term prisoner, rather than inmate, has been preferred for a number of years as it is more accurate and specific to those held in prison. The term 'inmate' can refer to anyone held in any type of institution."

   Earlier this year prison inspectors at Bullingdon jail in Oxfordshire, said prisoners should be addressed by their first names, given free condoms and be served evening meals later time to stop them feeling hungry in the night. Clink

   You see the implication here, don't you? An 'inmate' has earned his place behind bars, but a 'prisoner' is somehow transformed into a pawn of an uncaring society or an unjust State. Language does matter, and the Left is masterful at reforming our language to suit their political ends. Take 'pro-choice' for instance. Setting aside the arguments pro and con re abortion - the term 'pro-choice' implies that anyone who disagrees with abortion is somehow depriving someone else of their freedom of choice. This puts anyone opposed to abortion on the wrong side of the 'American way' - freedom of choice. But the reality is much more ominous - what of the choice of society to protect the rights of the least among us - the unborn? What of the choice of a voting majority to determine the direction of society? And wouldn't 'pro-abortion' be more apt ...if not 'pro-infanticide'? This is how our language can be corrupted - Orwell called it 'Newspeak' and this cavalier reworking of language poses a major threat to all of us. By changing terms, redefining meanings and slightly altering usage, ideologues are able, by repetition and acceptance, to misdirect our focus on meaningless tangents and red herrings, thus winning the battle of minds without firing a shot. I'm a stickler for language. A dictionary, unlike the Constitution, IS a living document - but lexogrpahers are loathe to change definitions. And when those changes are made to our words - they are made by 'convention - literally - a convention of knowledgeable experts gather to debate whether a particular definition should be changed to suit a changing usage. Historically, Webster's Collegiate Edition dictionaries were issued every decade or so, thus allowing for fad and fancy to pass before actually changing the way we speak. But since the early 20th century, the Left has become increasingly more adept at insinuating changes to our language - our way of thinking - without the aid of lexographers or dictionaries. A willing media, educational system and burgeoning functional iliteracy has made it possible to effect change 'from within' and has met with little resistance. Words matter - never let someone get away with misusing them - especially for political purposes.

'Bailout' vs 'stimulus' comes to mind.

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