TROUBLED REVOLUTIONS
Moderate Islamist Party Set to Win Tunisian Vote

Tunisia's moderate Islamist Nahda Party appears set for a decisive victory in the country's elections for a constituent assembly

-- snip --

If official results, which may be released as early as Tuesday, support those results, it would be a substantially better showing for the Islamists than many predicted. The center-left Tekatil Party and a party lead by a leading human-rights activist, the Congress Party for the Republic, looked set to come in second and third. The party most predicted to place second, the staunchly secular Progressive Democratic Party and Nahda's most outspoken critics, did far worse than expected.

So is it good news that they are moderate or bad news that they are Islamist? Hasn't the history of Islamic parties been that the moderates eventually get swept aside into the dustbin of history?

Plus can there really be a moderate Islamist party?

Questions, questions ....

We were wrong! Obama is not about class envy and warfare-

The president and his advisers are correct when they say his policies are not class warfare — that would imply that one class is prioritized over another. Looking at the results of his policies, everyone loses, regardless of whether they are rich or poor.

Heh!

Is this the height of irony or what? Mexico is complaining about illegal immigrants to US returning back to Mexico!

After Arizona passed a mandatory E-Verify law in 2007, lots of illegal aliens left the state and headed back across the border. Mexican officials were outraged at the burdens imposed on them by these immigrants

-- snip --

Rafael Fernandez de Castro, head of the International Relations studies at the Monterrey Technological Institute, told the conference that about 200,000 Mexicans per year are returning to their country, and that Mexican schools are facing a new problem: tens of thousands of Mexican children are coming back each year with little or no Spanish.

As a famous blogger is wont to say, heh!

Is this alright or is it as crazy as it sounds to me -

The Indian government expects a fiscal deficit (you know, the difference between the amount it burns and the loot it hauls in) to be Rs 412,817 crore ( I crore = 10 million). It is going to borrow Rs 470,000 crore this fiscal year, up 53,000 crore from last estimate! That sounds like a lot of money either way.

I'm not an economist. Far from it. But I became interested in this science(?) when I learnt that so much our blood, sweat and tears went into paying off the parasitic, blood sucking state. I'm still stumbling my way around the labyrinthine and tortuous jargon blocked alleyways of Economics.

So somebody tell me - why can't these professional bugs politicos live within their our means? Why do they have to spend like a senseless drunk and borrow like no tomorrow? Is this 'normal' economics? Or is it as mad as hatter?


Update-

The Economic Times-

India's widening fiscal deficit has triggered fresh worries about the possibility of a ratings downgrade of the nation by a leading ratings agency.

 Though no ratings agency has officially hinted at this outcome yet, the market is rife with speculation that India is vulnerable to a ratings downgrade amid the slowdown in the economy.

 A section of the market feels such a move could happen if the RBI raises policy rates on Tuesday for the thirteenth time since February 2010.

 Economists see fiscal deficit widening up to 5.6% of GDP in the current fiscal against government's target of 4.6%.

 Average yields on government bonds have firmed up further of late on worries about higher borrowing and rising policy rates. A ratings downgrade could trigger the next bout of correction in stocks, brokers said.

So it is mad as hatter then? 

Best of comments-

No one disputes the importance of inflation control. If the government has failed in fiscal control, should ordinary people be punished for it. Housing loan EMI has become unbearable. In addtion to increased prices for all consumer items from cooking gas to vegetables, we have to pay high EMIs. Should we sell our houses, repay the loans and shift to some unauthorised slum! There is a saying in my language'if you lose in the market, go and blame your mother for it'. Should government's failure be blamed on people.

By S.K.Nair at this article on the inability of the government or the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) to control rampant inflation and on the impending interest rate hikes.

All Utopian schemes come to a bad end-

The single currency is close to collapse

But not before they have made many lives miserable.

Good news-
Cult of Global Warming Is Losing Influence

Also-

On Oct. 22, 1844, thousand of Millerites, having sold all their possessions, climbed to the top of hills in Upstate New York to await the return of Jesus and the end of the world. They suffered "the great disappointment" when it didn't happen.

I suspect when everyone learns that Global Warming is not the bugbear it is made out to be, there will be many disappointed souls in the environmental movement. They want disaster to happen to, you know, teach a lesson to mankind.

Americans are dying for these people ? -

  Hamid Karzai has said if the United States and Pakistan ever went to war, Afghanistan would back Islamabad

Wow! It's as if they deserve Taliban.

TROUBLED REVOLUTIONS
Happy days are here again in Libya-

.... the chairman of the National Transitional Council and de facto president, announced that Libyan laws would have Sharia as their “basic source.” Just to get the ball rolling, he immediately lifted one law from Gaddafi’s era that he said was in conflict with Sharia — the law banning polygamy.

Don't get me wrong. As a libertarian I'm all for polygamy - but in a non-discriminatory way, for women as well as men. Let anyone have four wives or ten husbands or a hundred if one so chooses. It's about happiness and freedom and, as they said in Kung Fu Panda 2, inner peace, not social oppression.

The fate of India has been to be ruled by economic idiots

Growth equals inflation -RBI (Reserve Bank of India) and the government continue to play this false narrative of  economic growth causing inflation.

Despite the recent spate of concerns about moderating growth, the Reserve Bank of India came out with guns blazing against inflation. The higher than expected 50 basis points hike caught the pundits and markets wrong footed.

-- snip --

The bank is not overly concerned about growth moderating. It says that it will “manage the risk of growth falling significantly below trend.”

Even when they have a clue-

The bank also noted the possibility that commodity prices may still go up because of abundant liquidity even if demand is subdued.

they are clueless.

These eminent experts do 'know' that prices go up even if demand goes down due to "abundant liquidity". And yet they continue to act as if that knowing did not really register in the important areas of their cerebral cortex. How did the liquidity become abundant - did it just drop from the skies? They have no idea that they collectively (politicians, state economists, planners, state bankers) are the cause of general stress now felt by the common man.


 Henry Hazlitt had something to say about it (What You Should Know About Inflation) in 1960-

Yet the plain truth is that our political leaders have brought on inflation by their own money and fiscal policies. They are promising to fight with their right hand the conditions brought on with their left.

Inflation, always and everywhere, is primarily caused by an increase in the supply of money and credit.

This is so important that it is worth repeating and highlighting-

Inflation, always and everywhere, is primarily caused by an increase in the supply of money and credit.

I strongly recommend reading all of it. Pdf of Hazlitt's book is here.
His book came out over 50 years ago! How the things have not changed. False narratives and bad ideas are like zombies - nothing seems to kill them.


The Indian government has been peddling this hogwash of 'Growth equals inflation' to shirk blame for the high inflation spreading misery for the last few years but I'm afraid these people really do believe it. After all, India's Prime Minister is a lifelong government and academic economist as is his cabal of economic advisers. Amartya Sen and Keynes are their models not Milton Friedman or Von Mises. Times change, data changes -but the musty and stifling bureaucratic mindset of state economists and their colleagues tenured in the universities is a constant.

Just as the fate of Russia has been to be ruled by strongmen, the fate of India has been to be ruled by economic idiots.

Liberal columnist Michael Tomasky asks -

Is (Herman)Cain not that bright?

He gets a response in the comments(by hound)-

on Cains brightness
- bachelors degrees in mathematics, masters in computer Science
- he was actually a rocket scientist, he computed missile trajectories for the Navy
- VP of Data systems for Pillsbury
this was before he was 35
after 35
- in 3 years he toook 400 of Burger Kings poorest performing restuarants and transformed them into the best performing in the nation
- in 14 months he transformed Godfathers from near bankruptcy to a prefit making chain
- Chairman of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank.

those are only some of his achievements, compare that to Barrack Obama's

Mr Tomasky is berating Cain on the fact he is not a professional politician as Obama is. To me that is a big plus, not a negative.

Yes, what exactly are Obama's achievements? Apart from writing successful books - about himself!

A better question is -
Are Tomasky and the hordes of other Obamabots in the media bright?

And am I bright to pose such a question when the answer is obvious?
As stupid as asking if Barkha Dutt is bright.

There is a predictable dreariness about Obama - his championing of one bad, already failed idea after another:

Increased infrastructure spending has significant support in Washington these days. President Obama wants a new federal infrastructure bank, and some members of both parties want to pass big highway and air-traffic-control funding bills.

-- snip --

Their histories show that the federal government shouldn’t be in the infrastructure business. Rather, state governments and the private sector are best equipped to provide it.

-- snip --

Some of the highest-profile failures include the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. That disaster dramatically proved the shortcomings of the Corps’ approach to flood control, which it had stubbornly defended despite outside criticism. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was like a dreadful repeat. The flooding was in large part a man-made disaster stemming from poor engineering by the Corps and misdirected funding by Congress.

(emphasis mine)

Wait that can't be!  Katrina was unleashed by the evil Bush to hurt black people!

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would rather see turks die than to have them rescued by Israelis -

"Over 1,000 persons are feared dead in the aftermath of a quake that measured 7.2 on the Richter scale. With workers battling to save those trapped in collapsed buildings in towns and cities near the Iranian border, it’s more than likely that Israel’s experienced rescue teams — which participated in previous earthquake relief efforts in Turkey — would be of value to the effort. But according to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has told the Israelis they are not wanted. Erdoğan would apparently prefer to see his compatriots die rather than to allow Jews to help them."

Too often Jew hatred is cloaked in 'protest' against Israel's policies. When will this racism end? And why are the world elites, uber-sensitive about Western racism, blind to it if not actually supportive?

Top news

Top News is going to be a running section here. This shall be about that which is highlighted at the top of this page but in more detail than is possible there.

The first Top News is about the continuing "Green" energy fail. Why the scary quotes around green? When something kills and creates general misery, the scary quotes are the least of the opprobrium it deserves.

Green taxes now killing more Brits per year than car crashes

Patrick Michaels on the fool's rush for the "Green" energy-

Our friends in the U.K. and Europe are especially green.  Just hop off the plane in London and pick up the papers.  Global warming is everywhere, and, for decades, the religion’s been that carbon dioxide reductions are fine, virtuous, and they’re going to make everyone rich. I have a social security system I would like to sell them.

------- snip ---------

At the same time, consumers got an extra bill to support wind farms that, because of the inconstancy of the wind, operate at 25% of their capacity (figure from the British Wind Energy Association) or 8% (according to E.on, a large operator of UK wind farms).

Guess what?  Electricity prices have gone through the roof.  The average U.K. household bill is a tad under $200 per month, and so the thermostat goes down.  It’s pretty chilly there for much of the year, and a cold house has consequences.  A study just came out today on the health costs of what they call “fuel poverty”, commissioned by the Energy and Climate Change Secretary (don’t we need one of  those?), Chris Huhne.  Bottom line:   the chill from green taxes is now killing more Brits per year than car crashes.

London has suddenly awoken to the costs of indiscriminate greenness and is proposing to reduce the solar subsidies and — this is big — now threatens the multibillion dollar subsidies for its massive (and massively ugly) wind power scam.

(emphasis mine)


Do read the whole thing.


And speaking of car crashes, Sauvik Chakraverti points out the State failure on road accidents in his usual mild way (Fuck The Indian Police, And Fuck Chidambaram, Too - For Gross Dereliction Of Duty)
-

It's official! A report by the highways ministry has said that 1,60,000 people are killed on our roads every year, and more than 5,00,000 are injured, most of them seriously. A Times of India news report adds that a Member of the Planning Commission, BK Chaturvedi, estimated that road accidents cost India 1 lakh crore rupees annually - that is, 1,000,000,000,000 rupees.
------- snip ---------

Chidambaram (India's Home Minister), to me, seems to be a "house-trained" Police Minister, a puppet in the hands of his officials, all of whom are deeply involved in political skullduggery. The man is effeminate - and thoroughly incompetent. He - and the entire police top brass - need to be taken to task over the FACT that some 1000 people per day are killed or permanently disabled on our fucked-up roads.

(emphasis mine)



Green and State fail go hand in hand, in fact hand in glove.

We were wrong! Obama is not about class envy and warfare-

The president and his advisers are correct when they say his policies are not class warfare — that would imply that one class is prioritized over another. Looking at the results of his policies, everyone loses, regardless of whether they are rich or poor.

Heh!

Bastards!

Briefcase bomb at Delhi high court kills 9, injures 50

The blast took place at around 10.15 am. Home secretary RK Singh told reporters the explosives were placed in a briefcase at the high court reception where hundreds of people come through every day to attend court cases. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. Television images showed scores of lawyers in black coats running from one of the main gates of the building.

Why?

Either it is the deathwish that comes to political parties when they are in power for long or the absence of Sonia Gandhi owing to her illness is showing-

Congress seems to be totally at sea when it comes to dealing with Anna Hazare on corruption. After the ham-handed handling of Ramdevbaba affair in June, one would have thought the party has learnt its lessons. Apparently, it has not. On the contrary, it seems even more adrift now than before.

It is a simple fact that situations like these have to be dealt with politically. They cannot be mastered by nuanced argument or through debate hall tactics. Clearly, there is nobody doing political thinking in India's Grand Old Party or the ones capable of it are not in charge. Whoever thought of unleashing the party's bulldogs on Anna just before he is to begin his fast has obviously lost his marbles. That is just not the way. Is it just a coincidence that all three persons engaging Anna - P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Manish Tewari-are lawyers? They appear to be fighting a court case rather than negotiate a political crisis.

Read the whole thing. 

UPA govt's tyranny will make Anna's movement stronger-

I remember saying more than once that one can’t trust this government when it promises that it will work together with the civil society on a credible Lokpal bill. Why? Because this government has far too many people who are smart alec and think they are the ultimate spin doctors around. All this could have been OK in the pre 24 x 7 TV era, or before the social media gained in size and influence. More importantly, it is the social media crowd that these smart alec kinds target with their irritating remarks, so it was natural that they were torn apart in no time.

The way the government has acted past two days shows desperation creeping in. While one can understand that the Independence Day was round the corner our country is genuinely living under constant terror threat, but this is stupid. Honestly, how can anyone say that the protest has to be over in three days and that no more than 50 cars should assemble? This is a mass protest, for God’s sake.

The Royal (Gandhi) family only approves of 'mass' movements run by it's own political machine.

Prashant Bhushan of Team Hazare(most of whom are in detention now) says-

Delhi Police a Puppet in Central Govt's Hands: Bhushan

But wait, the head of the government is himself reputed to be a puppet of a certain royal family.

That makes Delhi police the puppet of a puppet. Or, a second hand puppet.
Personally, I think they are rather 3rd degree lapdogs.

The Big Brother is getting bigger

The Big Brother is getting bigger-

The Securities and Exchange Board of India has sought powers to seek e-mail and call records from telecom service providers. 

and plans to grow and grow-

Though getting call records from the phone service providers may not be difficult, tracking e-mail records could be. Most e-mail service providers such as Google, Yahoo, Hotmail have their servers based outside India. Even security agencies have been trying to get access to these services in vain. 

Thank God for Internet. But wait, didn't Obama in his most esteemed wisdom hand over the keys of the Internet to that den of corruptocrats known as the UN? How long before UN sets up a panel to choke regulate online freedom?
Thanks 'Bam.

Son of emergency is here

And brought to you by the same Royal family -the God like Gandhis(at least in their own humble opinion)- that couldn't tolerate to be challenged the last time.
(for continuous updates go to Liberty News Central)

Anna Hazare arrested from house

Some 15 police officials ask Hazare to not come out of the flat. Hazare says no and comes out; police promptly arrest him

Team Anna calls for mass protest on Wednesday

Asks govt. employees to take mass leave, wear black armbands

Thousands detained

FEMALE ANNA SUPPORTER AND RTI ACTIVIST SHOT DEAD IN BHOPAL

Humor-
Centre has no role in Anna's arrest: Ambika Soni
Flashback-
Ambika Soni -one of Sanjay Gandhi's coterie of 'pretty' women during Emergency



India is such a mature democracy that one of the notorious Emergency 'babes' is now the Information minister!
I suppose throttling free speech gives one great practice for running the information ministry and it's propaganda channels. This is the true Congress heritage.

As an aside why does one need an Information ministry anyway? Not to advance the free flow of ideas but to control them.