From the State of Pennsylvania's Department of Public Welfare.

Presented without comment.

Our second plank offers up our thinking on "Climate Change" which having not sold all that well under it's original name, "Global Warming" and many of it's chief promoters having been discredited as haters, cowards, shameless profiteers and crazed sex poodles it has now been repackaged with a new name, new marketing and a new catastrophe ... Hurricane Sandy.

To begin with, the earth has been heating up lately ..... probably.

If you look at the chart above and notice the orange lines at the right end.  Those lines represent those years where temperatures were actually measured using instruments that record real temperatures.  

Take note of the word "Reconstructed" in the key at the upper left hand corner.

Among the problems with calculating "Climate Change" is that word "Reconstructed" as in the year 1000 AD there were almost no thermometers hanging outside the conning tower at your local airport recording daily temperatures.

For the better part of 1900 years out of a 2000 year ... ish ... chart, we're calculating average temperatures from tree rings and ice cores ..... among other things.

This bares repeating ..... tree rings and ice cores.

The problems in data collection are endless as even recently, examples of blatant stupidity and/or pure fraud have been detected in the numbers.

Here are just two physical examples.

By way of explanation for what you're about to look at here, the refrigeration unit and air conditioners blow cold air into the building and exhaust the hot air out ..... pretty much directly at the temperature sensor/thermometer.

Click on either photo below for more examples of sensor placements which are likely serving to help cook the books.

Get it? ..... Cook? ... the books?

I can't crunch the numbers on the research but there are enough complaints about the treatment of the numbers from people who can, not to mention enough assurances from a raft of people who for damn sure can't, to make my bullshit detector swing wildly.

Read this Richard Muller paper from 2003, it's a little long but it's not very tough reading.

Or you can take my word for it as I did read it because, while it is a little long it's not very tough reading.

There is a goodly amount of political nonsense and blatant profiteering being sold as "Science".

Understand something here, all of this is before you even begin to consider possible causes.

Which brings us to our first position.

The Moon is also warming up by the way.

Yeah, yeah that's only a 4 year chart, we're just having a little fun pretending to be Progressives.

NASA also thinks that Mars is warming up along with maybe Jupiter and Triton, but who the hell knows.

They're studying it because ..... that's what scientists do.

Finally, having researched and pondered this issue to the fullness of our not inconsiderable capabilities we arrive at the following conclusion.

Having been both warm and cold, it is our strongly held opinion that ...

From Bloomberg via Azizonomics.

As always, click on one of the above gears for the entire piece.

Japan’s Adult Diaper Boom

Japan’s population has gotten so old that diaper manufacturers are selling more adult diapers for incontinent seniors than they are baby diapers.

Unicharm Corp’s sales of adult diapers in Japan exceeded those for babies for the first time last year.

This is a pronounced trend all over the developed world. As people live longer and as fertility rates fall, there is a proportionately a larger and larger population of elderly retirees being supported by a proportionately smaller and smaller population of young workers paying taxes and interest on debt.

I don't think we've ever posted music two days in a row, but the Little Wiffer of My Dreams took me out to the Chris Isaak show last night and I'm filled with the spirit of Rock and Roll, as for me at least there are few things in life like a professional Rock and Roll band having a good night.

Besides, Saturn is beating the snot out of both my Moon and Mercury simultaneously together as my partner likes to say and I'm bumping along on the border of the dark side.

I'm thinking I should probably be keeping my thoughts to myself for a bit.

So ..... this is Chris Isaak on lead vocals and guitar along with Hershel Yatovitz on lead guitar, Scott Plunckett at the organ, Rowland Salley on the bass, and drummer Kenney Dale Johnson.

Chris Isaak and Sivertone.

Lie To Me.

How does he hit that note?

I have neither the energy nor the will to do much in the way of either thinking or posting this morning.

So ..... here's the great Jerry Douglas unaccompanied in what I think is his practice studio, playing for his own self.

From Oliver Wainwright at the Guardian UK

As always, click on the little gears above or the illustration below for the complete piece.

Billionaires' basements: the luxury bunkers making holes in London streets

A new billionaires' craze for building elaborate subterranean extensions is making swiss cheese of London's poshest streets – but at what cost?

Some 'iceberg houses' add underground extension that triples the size of the property.  Illustration: Ben Hasler

Walking around the stuccoed streets of Kensington and Chelsea today, you are in for a surreal sight. The marching rows of doric columns, pedimented porticoes and dentilled cornices that define these imposing ranks of wedding-cake mansions have been joined by an unlikely addition to the classical architectural vocabulary.

Poking up at regular intervals, thrusting outwards from their moulded openings as if performing a salute to passers-by, are lines of angled conveyor belts. Slowly rumbling away, they reach high above the trees, pouring a continuous stream of rubble into the cradles of awaiting skips. You would be forgiven for thinking that the residents of the royal borough have established a kind of coal-mining cottage industry. Or maybe they're digging for gold?

"It is an absolute disgrace," says one elderly resident, out walking her freshly coiffed miniature poodle in between the rows of hoarded-off skips. "It feels like they've turned Kensington into a war zone."

The reason for all this quarrying is not the discovery of a coal-rich seam beneath the Wrenaissance streets, but the local enthusiasm for subterranean development. Over the past four years, this local authority alone has granted planning applications for more than 800 basement extensions, refused 90, and has a further 20 outstanding. It is the most densely populated borough in the country, with no room to build outwards, and no permission to build upwards – so the only way is down.

 A month or so ago Zero Hedge posted it's list of the top 15 "Economic Truth" documentaries.

We've been methodically grinding through them.

I think we'll probably post them all as so far I've liked every one of the eight I've sat through.

If you don't want to wait for me, hit the little gear above and watch them all back to back to back.

This Telly Award-winning documentary is inspired by The Creature from Jekyll Isalnd a book by G. Edward Griffin who explains the history of the Federal Reserve Act of 1912.

Also featured is Dr. Edwin Vieira, Ph.D., J.D. from Harvard whose discussion of the Fed includes the single simplest explanation of how the banks benefit from "The Federal Reserve System" at your expense ... at about 20 min ... that we have ever come across. 

Mr Viera also discusses various long-term studies which indicate that the Federal Reserve System encourages war, destabilizes the economy, generates inflation (a hidden tax) and in general is THE THING ... you know ... in addition to your own self ... that is screwing you over.

Just sayin". 

Dr. Theodore Baehr completes the vid with a discussion of the relationship between the Media, the Fed and the Government and why you never see these issues discussed on network TV or in the mainstream media.

This stuff is not as dry as my explanation of it.

About 58 minutes.

Way double highly recommended.

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”

 “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

 “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”

 “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

 “Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company.”

 “Classic' - a book which people praise and don't read.”

 “Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”

 “Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

 “Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”

“But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?”

 “Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.”

 “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”

 “God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”

 “Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.”

 “If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.”

 “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”

 “Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”

“Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.”

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”