Eastwood!

I didn't get the chair routine, but this performance lacks ambiguity:

I'm Endorsing The Randian, Of Course

I guess that I'll have to accept Mitt as a side effect, but I'd be more comfortable with a Freemason as part of a balanced ticket.

Russian Punk Band Convicted

I've posted a clip of the offending incident:

No Randianism Here

Yaron Brook, President of the Ayn Rand Institute, says that Paul Ryan is no Randian. The primary obstacle? His Christianity.

No surprise. ARI is Ayn Rand's institutional heir and the voice of orthodox Randianism.

Interesting Turns Of Events

Scrappy 71 year-old refuses to roll over.





Motel clerk demonstrates nice Weaver stance during 0:43-0:50.

Romney's Cayman Account

Mitt Romney offered an explanation about why he has a Cayman Islands account:

Well, first of all, all of my investments are managed in a blind trust. By virtue of that, the decisions made by the trustee are the decisions that determine where the investments are. Secondly, the so-called offshore account in the Cayman Islands, for instance, is an account established by a U.S. firm to allow foreign investors to invest in U.S. enterprises and not be subject to taxes outside of their own jurisdiction. So in many instances, the investments in something of that nature are brought back into the United States. The world of finance is not as simple as some would have you believe. Sometimes a foreign entity is formed to allow foreign investors to invest in the United States, which may well be the case with the entities that Democrats are describing as foreign accounts.

It makes perfect sense to me, but "experts" are still looking for crime to fit the smoking gun. You know, more Americans should own foreign bank accounts just so that politicians won't sound so moronic when they encounter someone with an international outlook.

Sheriff Joe Rides Again

Members of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's posse said in March that there was probable cause that Obama's long-form birth certificate released by the White House in April 2011 was a computer-generated forgery.

Now, Arpaio says investigators are positive it's fraudulent.

Business As Usual In Greece

Coolidge On The American Revolution

President Calvin Coolidge delivered this view of the American Revolution at his alma mater in 1894:

When history looks beyond the immediate cause of the American Revolution for the justifying principles, it is very soon brought back to the spirit of English liberty. It is the same genius for freedom that has led the race from the primeval forests of Germany to the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution.

Such an honorable antiquity of political ideas has made the race very conservative of self-government. The idea is prehistoric. It is the descendants of those very freemen described by Tacitus, who not only dictated the policy of Edward the Confessor but extorted the great charter of human rights from King John in the thirteenth century.

And during the next four hundred years, too, this spirit was not dormant, but came to the surface on three great occasions:
The confirmation of the Magna Carta by Edward I
The Petition of Right to Charles I, and
The Revolution that drove James II from his throne.

Although it is characteristic of Englishmen to have great love for a king so long as he respects the liberties of the people, yet the fact that they drove out one king, rebelled against two and executed three, shows clearly enough that there was always a strong idea of the divine right of the people as well as of kings.

Precedents, then, are by no means wanting among Englishmen for the successful resistance of arbitrary despotism whenever it encroached upon their liberties.

Fed Extends Operation Twist

The Federal Reserve decided to extend its Operation Twist program whereby it buys longer-dated Treasuries in an attempt to lower longer-term yields. Longer-term Treasury yields are the basis for setting many longer-term interest rates, such as fixed-rate mortgages. Economists tend to think that lowering borrowing costs will spur business growth. A few economists have opined that Operation Twist is simply a confidence booster and has no real economic effect.

In my view, Operation Twist accomplishes a couple of things. First, it monetizes the Federal debt. Yep, this, along with the Quantitative Easing programs, is part of the monetization program that's been going on for a while. Now, some may disagree with me because the Fed is simultaneously selling short-term Treasuries while it's buying longer-term bonds--thereby creating a seemingly neutral situation. The problem with this view is that the Fed is already injecting liquidity to hold short-term interest rates near zero. If Operation Twist raised short-term interest rates because of T-bill sales, the Fed would fight the rise through normal Open Market Operations. Net effect? Net positive liquidity.

Is the Fed injecting too much? No one knows right now. Economic impacts work through human beings' earning their livelihoods. The lags and impacts in real-time can't be predicted with apodictic certainty, but can only be studied afterward when the economic historians take over. Ben Bernanke is confident in his ability to short-circuit future price inflation by using reverse repurchase agreements to suck the excess liquidity out of the system. So far he's done a good job as a central banker, and he may be able to pull it off. The market agrees and isn't forecasting a significant uptick in price inflation over the next ten years.

Second, the Fed is jumpstarting commercial lending. Commercial banks are scared to death to take on any sort of risk by lending to private enterprises. Banks are whipping boys right now, and the impact of Dodd Frank regulation on capital ratios and operations and payrolls has yet to be known. Small businesses are heavily dependent on bank credit since the credit markets (and their high costs) favor larger players. The Fed is trying to inject loanable funds into the economy, but the Fed is operating through the capital markets and therefore benefiting larger companies, rather than the smaller enterprises that fuel the lion's share of job growth during the business cycle's recovery phase. Net effect? Net job growth, but anemic job growth, since the smaller players are still stagnating.

Turks Must Leave Cyprus

'The pious Cypriot people look in hope to the sister Church of Russia, which you have headed by the grace of God, in the expectation that you will continue to help them in their struggle for the liberation of their occupied territories and the restoration of human rights that they have been waging for 38 years,' Archbishop Chrysostomos II said in addressing the head of the Russian Church, Patriarch Kirill, during a meeting of the Holy Synod of the Cypriot Church.

Greece Won't Run Out Of Money

Greece voted correctly for the Eurozone bailout. The markets forecast the outcome much better than the dilettante financial journalists, which is as it should be. Profit opportunities abound outside of the talking-head consensus.

For the talking-head readership and listenership, I'd encourage you to continue to live in fear that the sky will fall. Your fear lines my pockets. I'm grateful.

No Surprises Here

Strong personified central power has always been natural for Russia, whether they like it or no, priority in public hierarchy has always been given to state officials rather than to personified economic actors and moreover various kinds of informal centers of power, whether criminal or some self-proclaimed groups of know-it-alls.

Synodal Department for Church and Society Relations Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin

Greece Will Vote On June 17

Greece will run out of money on June 20.

I'd Rather Not Participate In These Kinds Of Discussions

John at Ad Orientem posted something on birth control, and, against my better judgment, I commented and disputed.

Let's be clear about something. My personal life is way, way, way off the mark, and I suffer from inward embarrassment when I defend the Church's views on issues that I may or may not personally observe. Usually, I'm successful in evading such participation, but, for some reason, I had to stick my oar in this one.

More In Kosovo

Moscow, May 17, Interfax - A group of young ethnic Albanians beat up and hurled stones at a monk at a Serbian Orthodox monastery in Kosovo, the Russian Orthodox Church said on Thursday.

The Monastery of Saints Cosmas and Damian near the town of Orahovac, the site of the attack, is officially under the protection of the Kosovo police.

The assault on monk Dionisije was the latest in a series of incidents "that have marred the life of Orthodox believers in [Kosovo] province over the past few months," the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations said in a statement.

'The assault was perpetrated three hours after the monastery was visited by the commander of the German contingent of the Kosovo Force, and this makes this extremist act even more brazen,' it said.

On the day of the incident, an allegedly terrorist ethnic Albanian group disseminated leaflets with threats of violence against ethnic Serbs who refuse to leave Kosovo.

'The beating up of monk Dionisije has given rise to concern in the Russian Orthodox Church. The incident must receive an appropriate legal qualification and become one more reminder of the need for measures to protect the churches and monasteries of the Serbian Orthodox Church,' the department said.

Did You Just Play Your Ace?

Back when I was in the academy, the Sergeant told us something like, "When you're responding to a fight call, don't play your ace right away or else you'll end up looking stupid".

Alexis Tsipras, leader of Greece's Syriza party said that he'd repudiate Greece's debts if the Eurozone cut off further funding.

Ok, you've played your ace. Thanks for the belated warning. Now what?

Efforts have been underway for the last 18 months to prepare for an eventual Greek repudiation. I'd rate his ace more like a mean-case 5 or 6 or a worst-case 10. A Greek exit from the Eurozone would hurt Greeks more than anyone else, you know, with at least 100% inflation for those entitled public pensioners and a halving of everyone's savings, except for the prudent Euro hoarders. The Germans are better off husbanding their welfare checks for countries with genuine growth prospects, like Spain or Portugal or Italy.

Fire away, Ace.

No Worries, Stud

Desmond Hatchett, 33, of Knoxville has children with 11 different women

RUN!

Am I hearing that the drachma won't be worth spit? Naw, the drachma could be worth as much as 0.5 euros.

I added trenchant comments over at Ad Orientem.

Despicable

Arianna Huffington, founder of the liberal leaning news site The Huffington Post, has criticized the Obama campaign for an ad suggesting that Mitt Romney wouldn’t have killed terrorism kingpin Osama bin Laden, calling the move 'despicable'.

I agree.

I'm acquainted with a SWAT Captain who, after he sledged down a suspect with 00 buck, passed around autopsy photos and loudly calculated his shotgun qualification score as if the suspect been a B-27 silhouette.

Ok, I'm entirely sympathetic with the morbid humour of those who inhabit the nuanced world of mortal peril, but I can't stomach the fake bravado of the pussycat who takes credit for the hard decisions and dirty fingernails that he leaves to others.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey wrote of the Bin Laden decision in today's Wall Street Journal:

A recently disclosed memorandum from then-CIA Director Leon Panetta shows that the president's celebrated derring-do in authorizing the operation included a responsibility-escape clause: 'The timing, operational decision making and control are in Admiral McRaven's hands.'