Graph of the Day

Twitter has released a bunch of graphs that isolate the year's top stories - by volume, by political preference, and other criteria. 

Click to see a larger version.

Story and more graphs at ZH.

Meme of the Day

A FB Comrade shared this gem today:

Other Ferguson-related links:

GP lists all the recent attacks on police.

Powerline has a great article exposing the media's support role to the Ferguson Bolsheviks.

US Economy: An Update

I've been following Jim Rickards since I read his two books earlier this year.  I get a sense of a seasoned perspective from him, leaning on the side of a glass-is-half-empty approach.  He is more constant than some of the others in the opinion game.  

Some interesting comments on China, Russia, gold, central banks and the recent drop in oil.  This interview was posted today, but it appears to be a few weeks old.




Jim's Blog

Another Ushanka Pep Talk

From a post by Comrade Zombie, quoting a dispatch from the Ferguson Bolsheviks in their mom's basements to their agitators in the streets:

…There’s countless videos where these fuckin’ pigs wantonly murder people right in front of a camera knowing they’re being recorded! What the fuck is it gonna take to get these muthafuckers to stop?! The answer is Revolution — Nothing Less! Nothing less than overthrowing the capitalist-imperialist system that they so viciously serve and protect…

They left out: "non-workers of the world, unite!"

After 8 years here at Ushanka, picking apart their language to prove the majority of liberals including the DNC leadership have communist inspirations, finally they say what they mean.  Is that because they think their Utopia is within reach?

Lessons to learn from:

The Tsars didn't see it coming in 1917. 
Early communist infiltrators in the US government allowed it to happen in China in 1949.
Nobody in Cuba stopped the communist momentum in 1953.
Or in Cambodia in 1963.

We deserve the same fate if we don't fight. 

History shows that standing up to these losers is 90% of the battle.  Violence is rarely needed to win.

As individuals, they are cowards.  They only exist in the mob.  Separated, or left unprotected, they will slink away at the slightest opposition.   They will choose EBT and sleeping-in over risking injury or arrest. 

Something to remember when you see video of these protests: the police are there to protect them.

Q: Who are the police protecting them from?

A: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.

The fight against communism has victories.   (Chile '73.  Reagan '89 & '91. )   We're due for another.

Who is Behind the Ferguson Bolsheviks?

Noisy Room has posted a lengthy article on the subject and this cartoon below.  They appear to share the Ushanka theory.

The MSNBC Lineup

MSNBC has the least to lose if America's police choose to do what they are being accused of doing.

Sucks to be you, brother Al.

Merry Christmas

Stand for Capitalism

The Ferguson Communists tweeted this (GP) and are protesting disrupting now:

I like mine better:

These commies will go home eventually.  They won't want Mom to sell their stuff.

She might turn a profit...

W Claus

Our last president with class dressed up as Santa, with secret service elf in tow, and visited patients at Dallas' Children's Medical Center.

It wasn't long ago we had presidents who handed out more than platitudes.

U/T: Ace of Spades and Bizpacreview

NYPD and the Ferguson Bolsheviks

Here are my thoughts on the two NYPD police officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, who were ambushed and murdered on Saturday.  Aside from the two murdered police, there is a whole lot of 'gray.'  Please add a comment to tell me what I've missed, or tell me where I'm wrong...

---

Finally, the Ferguson Bolsheviks found a useful idiot in Ismaaiyl Brinsley (aka Abdullah-Muhammad), the shooter.  Just like Palestinians, Sharpton's Bolsheviks need mentally-weak, suicidal minions to execute their terror strategy.  And, at risk of sounding like a broken record here, the core ideology shared between Palestinians and the Ferguson Bolsheviks is... wait for it.... Marxism. Oh ya, Ismaaiyl worked for Hamas-linked Islamic Society of North America.

The cold war between the Ferguson Bolsheviks and the nation's police is now hot.  God help the protesters Bolsheviks if the police, or taxpaying citizens for that matter, choose to solve this problem.

I agree with the consensus: Al Sharpton and Mayor de Blasio have contributed to a climate that overlooks, and even encourages, racism and violence.  (Photo: WZ)

Obama, Holder, MSNBC and the 72% of New York City's voters who voted for de Blasio are all enablers.  Branco:

The Ferguson Bolsheviks want to dilute the rule of law through terror and violence.  It's a "Bolshevik" thing.

De Blasio would have weathered any criticism for his alliance with Sharpton or his communist inspirations had these murders not happened.  He deserves the mounting anger from NYPD for these positions.

Somewhere, a police department is researching the costs and benefits of up-armored police cars.

Somewhere, an armor company is preparing a marketing campaign to police departments for up-armored services.

Unfortunately, some of the best criticisms of Mayor de Blasio have come from the police union.  Police unions have supported Democrats for decades.  Democrats have supported the destruction of the black family.  The destruction of the black family has created a demographic that snaps to attention when Bolsheviks like Al Sharpton want to terrorize and burn.  Branco:

NYPD officers and their families have lost a lot of sleep this week.  I'm not sure the career is worth it.  Service to citizens is one thing.  Being murdered by a communist terrorist, who has failed every challenge in life and has amounted to nothing, is another.

Somewhere politicians are looking at this shooting as a reason for more gun control.  They will not mention any of the gun laws that the shooter violated when he entered New York City to shoot the police officers.

While the rank and file police have little to do with it, the nation's police forces have militarized in preparation for war against tea parties.  They have created a two-front war: the old war with the common criminal, and a new war with their traditional supporters.  Pick a book listed to the left, any book, and read about the number one cause for premature death: government.  If you want to tell me that is all in the past, please also convince me that history does not repeat.

The Michael Brown and Eric Garner deaths had nothing to do with racism and everything to do with resisting arrest.  The Ferguson Bolsheviks claim it is about race, but in reality their cause is against authority.  Last Saturday, Ismaaiyl Brinsley shot a Hispanic-American and a Chinese-American.  Let's call it what it is: "Black-on-Blue" violence.

Oh ya, speaking of Michael Brown.  A new video has surfaced of Michael and a gang-friend beating an older man unconscious.  Kuckledraggin: The Gentle Giant.

Police will have an uphill PR battle.  The murders of Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were pure evil and their fellow officers and families deserve peace and respect.  But the proliferation of MRAPs, no-knock raids and more raids, and dead dogs have soiled a great tradition of honorable service.

Nobody will question New York City's policies against civilian concealed carry after this incident.  When a NYPD officer sits in his car on a city street, any confrontation will be between him and the threat.  Unlike nearly every police officer in America, the NYPD officer cannot consider any passerby as an ally with the ability to assist.  Ismaaiyl Brinsley tried to get away and only committed suicide when the cops were onto his location.  In other parts of America Ismaaiyl would likely have been put down next to that police car.

While we were amazed the Tea Party was not the MSM's initial culprit, we we quickly told the murder of the two minority police officers did not have an Islamic connection.  So disregard the video Abdullah-Muhammad (aka Ismaaiyl Brinsley) posted of himself walking to his Brooklyn Mosque, Masjid At Taqwa.

Another rumor suggests Mayor de Blasio can't find a NYPD sergeant to head his security team.  His only requirement is that the sergeant be black.  But I'm the racist.

This is all part of Obama's plan.  He is the Bolshevik leader, and the Ferguson Bolsheviks are his shock troops.

U/T: Gateway Pundit, Weasel Zippers, 90 Miles, Pamela Geller, Weapons Man for their work - linked above. Imagine what little we'd know if we didn't have new-media sources to go to first.

Headline of the Day

Weasel Zippers nails it:

So Sad: The 10 People In North Korea With Internet Access Are Experiencing Severe Outages… 

It is an honor to be part of the new media.

UPDATED 3pm:

Doug Ross with the runner-up headline!

BOTH PC's ARE DOWN: North Korea Suffering a Complete Internet Blackout
   
While there are credible reports that North Korea may not have been behind the Sony hack, that hasn't stopped someone from taking out the DPRK's entire Internet infrastructure.

Which means both Commodore 64's are down.

2014: The Year of the Peter Principle

Assuming my DVD can support one more viewing, the Karl household will be watching Team America tonight in honor of the failures of Obama and Sony.

2014 has been the year of the Peter Principle (Wiki):

The Peter Principle is a concept in management theory in which the selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate's performance in his or her current role rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and "managers rise to the level of their incompetence."

We saw it first with Obama and Ebola.  After a few days of 'incompetence on parade,' the country's entire leadership went into hiding and the media accepted a total gag-order.  It was a crisis that Democrat politics couldn't manage, and it exposed Democrats and their like-minded bureaucrats as frauds to those who still thought otherwise.  There isn't one person left who will believe anything Obama, or the CDC, has to say about Ebola.  Not one.

Next up: Putin.  Russia folds like a cheap pair of smuggled jeans when the price of oil fluctuates in a direction counter to their desires.  Inflation, lost revenues, sanctions and a currency crisis demonstrate the utter failure of a government that embraced make-believe economics.  The only question left: "Who will suffer?"  Will external states like Ukraine, Poland, Georgia, Estonia and other neighbors be 'confiscated' to cover the costs of this crisis?  Or, will the people of Russia be asked to 'struggle' once again for the greater good?

And now Sony.  Their decision to stop the release of the movie The Interview has NOTHING to do with the terrorist threat on America's theaters.  It has mostly to do with blackmail.  (Also maybe a little to do with the buzz prior to a reversal and a new release date.)  Un has something on Sony they do not want released.  The executives at Sony, following the leadership examples of Obama and Putin, are in the fetal position sucking their thumbs.

Four messages to Un:  

1.  Excellent move to call for a US-NK partnership to investigate the Sony hacking.  F'ing brilliant!  (Yahoo finance screenshot)

2.  Don't make the mistake of painting Americans with the broad brush of Obama, Sony executives and other failures who seem to always be in the spotlight.  We are not all incompetent boobs.

3.  A suggestion: Release every Sony item you have.  Start with the Interview, if you have it.  Then, once a week or so, release something else.  Offer it all on a pay-per-view site.  Make some big bucks.  Then feed your people.

4.  Whether you like it or not, The Interview will be seen.

UPDATED 12.23 1:30pm:

Mayor De Blasio:  With only a few days left in 2014, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio barely made this list.

De Blasio, following his communist inspirations, was chummy with Al Sharpton during the anti-police protests.  Then two NYPD officers were ambushed and murdered.  De Blasio cannot walk back his comments, or erase his alliance with those who benefit from chaos, terrorism and murder.  He can call for all comments to stop, and he can criticize the media for his growing problems, but these just expose him as another fraud who is far over his head.

I Had a Dream

I never remember my dreams, but today is an exception.

Could I get help analyzing my dream from this morning?

I’m at a Chipotle at a small table reading and eating.  This is a different [better] Chipotle, as I can go over to a buffet and fill my bowl with more chicken and rice.  [Nice, eh?]

I’m there early and the lunch-hour crowd starts to form.  The line goes through the middle of the restaurant, next to my table.

I go to the buffet table for my 2nd refill.  The pan is empty and I realize another person is waiting for a new pan to come.  I step behind her and we share a couple comments on the slow service.  After I refill, I head back to my table.

The line is very long now, but it has moved up against the wall.  Nearly all the tables are taken.  I have a clear path back to my table.  I’m still a few feet away when I notice Michelle Obama.  She is holding a food tray in one hand, and is moving my iPad off the table with the other.  And, she looks taller in person.

I continue to approach and say "I’m still using that table."  She hands my iPad back to me and says “Sorry.”  I correct her: “You're sorry you got caught.”  She squares her shoulders, clearly pissed and clearly capable of kicking my ass, and moves toward me in a hostile approach...

My alarms goes off.

There is no need to analyze why I would eat three meals in one sitting at Chipotle.  I know exactly what that means. 

But what of the actions of, and my interactions with, our dear first lady? 

Out Of Basement - Part III

I'm offline for a few days.

A good friend heard about my recent chest pain and suggested I meet him in sin city for some blood thinning beverages.

My buddy and I are having a great time.

I saw someone wearing a Commie Obama Hat in the casino.

And, as expected after a few days in sin city...

Blogging is back to normal tomorrow. 

Out Of Basement - Part II

I'm offline for a few days.

A good friend heard about my recent chest pain and suggested I meet him in sin city for some blood thinning beverages.

So I say goodbye to the wife.

 I must go!

I make my way through "security..."

My flight was uneventful, despite my fears...

Part III tomorrow....

Out Of Basement - Part I

I'm offline for a few days.

A good friend heard about my recent chest pain and suggested I meet him in sin city for some blood thinning beverages.

Great idea!

So I ask my wife if I can go.

She approves.

Yes!

I tell my buddy.

Part II tomorrow....

Monday Tab Clearing

Captain Capitalism published an excellent article over at Return of Kings:  What Every Man Needs To Know About Capitalism And Economics

First, understand that capitalism is NOT an option. It’s not an “opinion.” It’s not a “belief.” It’s not a “theory.”

It’s a law.

You have no choice but to abide by it just as you have no choice to abide by gravity.

---

It’s merely the economic manifestation of human nature.

Fred hammers the old media in his latest article: Balkanizing the News

[The] media are quasi-governmental organs, predictably predictable and predictably dishonest. The truth is not in them.

---

They are dull because they have to be, bland because they must avoid offending anyone, controlled because they can be. They write to the least common denominator of their clientele because they have to be comprehensible to non-specialist readers and, in the United States, are quasi-governmental.

Lee Stranahan has one of the best Ferguson-related posts at Rebel Pundit:  The Ferguson Disaster: The Wreckage of Obama & Marx

Ferguson shows the destructive consequences of Marxist ideological theory and its application in practice.

—

I believe that the oppressor-oppressed mindset creates the “perpetual victimhood” mentality that many conservatives notice in liberals.

—

So while most of the protestors may not be thinking about the Michael Brown shooting in Marxist terms, the people pushing things behind the scenes certainly do.

—

When conservatives accuse President Obama of being a Marxist, it’s often dismissed by the media and casual observers as a crazy conspiracy theory. The idea that the President of the United States would be a Marxist sounds like something out of a bad movie.

Unfortunately, when it comes to his adoption of the oppressor-oppressed view of the world, it’s true. 

An older article by Fred touches on the race issues of Ferguson.  I think Fred is the best new media personality at discussing racial issues.  He is direct, respectful and thoughtful.  And realistic.  His Nov. 27 article, with some glass-is-half-empty predictions:  Fergusons in Perpetuity.

Among people who study intelligence, the racial disparity is not debated. It is evident, accepted. I suspect that it is evident also to many thoughtful liberals who fear the question: If we admit the obvious, what now?

---

. . . we will see a continuation of hostility by blacks toward whites. This often amounts to outright hatred, as seen in the intermittent riots that never cease, and in the frequent, though carefully under-reported, racial attacks on whites. If blacks cannot rise, and it seems they cannot, they will remain angry in perpetuity. Then what?

---

. . . the danger will grow of serious conflict between whites and blacks. I suspect that even now only heavy federal pressure and dissimulation by the media keep the cork in the bottle. Among whites a large proportion loathe affirmative action, degraded educational standards, toleration of crime, and compulsory integration.

 As the economy declines and jobs become scarcer, the likelihood grows that jobless whites will rebel against racial preferences. The hidden rock in the current is that if affirmative action were eliminated, blacks would almost disappear except in sports and entertainment. There will be hell to pay, though in what currency is not clear.

Che Tours

A FB Comrade just informed me of a new tour in Cuba.  Motorcycle tours led by Che Guevara's youngest son, Ernesto.  Just $3000 to ride around the workers' paradise island.

For those who do not know, Che's story of his motorcycle ride through South America was the focus of the movie, Motorcycle Diaries.  It is one of the most boring movies ever made.  How anyone can watch it and feel inspired is beyond me.  I'd rather sit through a Communist Party meeting.

Some Che images from the Ushanka archives:

Ernesto should consider taking his tours through Bolivia. 

Healing the Racial Divide

Healing the racial divide should not require a hospital burn unit.

Doug Giles has a Townhall article today:  BREAKING: Massive Spike In Whites Setting Blacks On Fire

For those of you who’re not in the know about this recent increase in this ghastly phenom carried out against us “white devils”, one of my guest contributors at ClashDaily.com, Angela Turner, did yeoman’s work last Friday and cobbled together this large list of insanely ill-reported burnings of white people that almost makes one think that lighting white people on fire might be the new “knock out game” perpetrated by black hoodrats on us pigmentally challenged white clods.

And I found these related images on FB today:

Our dear leader led us to believe he'd heal the racial divide.  The divide remains after six years.  Was he sincere, or did he have an different plan altogether - born from envy, resentment, and crisis as a means?

When Marxist Tyrants Feel the Squeeze: Oil

If so many people didn't suffer in the process, it'd be an absolute joy to watch the communist-inspired squirm as their policies implode.

OIL

The ingenuity, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit of America's "frackers" has redefined the energy sector.  There is no more oil that can't be reached.  The capitalists in America's energy private-sector have succeeded against incredible odds - both natural in the form of finding the right mix of horizontal drilling and high-pressure fracking, and artificial with Obama's Keystone Pipeline delays and his NKVD (EPA) thugs. 

In fact, Obama has exacerbated the current energy crisis with a 6-year global recession started here at home.

Demand is down.  Supply is up.  A barrel of oil today is selling for $58, down almost 50% since July.  (Graph and more at GP)

There are two ways this will play out - both with higher prices.

Commodities, like oil, are simple.  Every oil well has a magic number, and when the price of oil drops under that number, the well is no longer profitable and the driller stops the well.  This leads to less supply which leads to more stable (higher) prices. 

The other scenario is war.  Note the nations listed below that suffer the most in a drop in oil, then ask yourself if any of them a) are led by tyrants, b) are unstable enough to be pushed into war, and c) would benefit from a spike in oil prices brought on by war. 

Last, I speak for all consumers when I say "I am enjoying the $2.50/gal gas."  But this happiness is at the expense of others.  Who?


Putin and his Russia.  

The Ruble is down 50% to the dollar.  You don't have to be an economist to know that a 50% move in a currency is a bad sign.  Bloomberg 1-yr chart:

Putin has driven foreign investment away.  He invited Western energy companies into the country back in the 90's and early 2000's, then confiscated their investments and threw several Russian oilmen in jail.  It wasn't enough, so he extended the jail sentences to make his point.  The only difference from Stalin was these oil executives weren't asked to dig a canal or work a mine.

His policy has been constant: rely on Russia's massive natural resources.  Those resources are now going for half of what they were just a few months ago.  Russia has no diversity in their economy, so they have no power to project when oil trades at $58 a barrel.  Even Putin's attempts to stir-up the middle east in order to spike the price of oil has failed. 

Bloomberg:

Russia’s currency is on course for its worst year since the nation’s 1998 default after getting battered as sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine blocked companies from western debt markets and oil dropped into a bear market. Five interest-rate increases by the central bank failed to alter the ruble’s course, while choking economic growth as inflation accelerates to a three-year high.

Nicolas Maduro and his Venezuela.

The drop in oil is killing Venezuela too, as they also put all their barrels into one basket and doomed their dictatorship to failure.

Reuters:

Increasing numbers of low-income Venezuelans are souring on Maduro as they suffer a declining economy, the highest inflation [60%] in the Americas, chronic shortages of basic goods and one of the world's highest murder rates.

Swelling frustration in the tough slums dotting Caracas's rolling hills means Maduro is much more vulnerable, especially as oil prices fall to around five-year lows. 

Bloomberg:

. . . the implied probability of default to 93 percent, the highest in the world.

This year’s 38 percent plunge in oil prices has exacerbated concern that Venezuela is running out of dollars needed to pay debt, pushing bond prices to levels investors haven’t seen since the 1998 Russian financial crisis spurred a selloff in emerging markets. Foreign Minister Rafael Ramirez, also the country’s OPEC representative, said yesterday that the government is working constantly with other members of the energy cartel to raise oil prices to $100 a barrel. 

Good luck finding someone to pay $100, Comrade Maduro.


Mexico and Nigeria.

ZH posts graphs showing their currencies collapsing too.


Iran.

Iran, also suffering high inflation, is mentioned in another ZH post.


Saudi Arabia.

The background for this massive drop in oil prices comes from the Saudis.  They are purposely flooding the market with supply in a war against America's "frackers."  The hope is the wells here in the States will become unprofitable.  Perhaps, assuming their move doesn't trigger a coup or a shooting war.


Predictions:

Stability will return to the oil market, or everything will blow up.

I'll be doing more travel to visit friends while fuel is cheap.

I will smoke a cigar for each country listed above after its default or collapse.  Plus one cigar for every Marxist who hangs.

UPDATED 12.13.14 Noon:

Thanks to Comrade Robert and Comrade Anon in the comments for adding substance to this post.  Anon linked to this ZH post, which has an interesting graphic.  I've updated the WSJ graphic with yesterday's closing price of $57.49: