kenlacrosse

COLD OPEN: Last night’s Saturday Night Live mocks ObamaCare. Video at the link.

DETROIT’S PENSION MADNESS:

I’m rarely speechless, but I’m having trouble putting my emotions into words after reading the latest report on the Detroit pension situation. Now, I admit it: I’m kind of naïve. Usually when I see an underfunded pension, I think to myself “poor pensioners — undone by a combination of stupid tax rules, volatile stock markets and mismanagement by trustees who tried to restore depleted fund assets with an investment approach you might call ‘desperate optimism’.” Thus, I was not entirely prepared for the new revelations about the Detroit trustees’ custom of handing out annual holiday “bonuses” to workers, retirees and the City of Detroit. Between 1985 and 2008, they handed out roughly $1 billion this way. Had they been invested, one estimate says those funds would be worth almost $2 billion today — or more than half the current shortfall in the funds.

These “bonuses” were used to lower the contribution the city was required to make, to give retirees a little something extra around Christmas time, and to fund individual savings accounts that workers are offered along with their pensions. In 2009, when the financial markets were completely frozen and the automakers were shotgunning through the bankruptcy courts, the pension trust paid 7.5 percent interest into those accounts — which is about 7.5 percent more than they would have gotten at a bank. This while the pension funds were busy losing about a quarter of their value.

I literally slapped my forehead while reading some of the explanations that the trustees offered for their behavior.

They did this for the same reason a dog licks himself: Because they could.

(Paul Mirengoff)

It requires little discussion to show that the U.N. approved resolution on chemical weapons in Syria is a joke. As Brett Schaefer and Baker Spring point out, the resolution is toothless because it fails to establish a direct enforcement mechanism for assuring the complete application of Chemical Weapons Convention requirements in Syria. The resolution provides that in the event of non-compliance with its terms, the Security Council will impose undefined measures under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter.

This means that Russia can block imposition of effective measures, as it has done repeatedly over the past two years. Schaefer and Spring remind us that Russia has made it clear all along that it opposes both sanctions and the use of force.

But the resolution is worse than toothless. It fails even to acknowledge that Syria has used chemical weapons. And it effectively makes the U.N. Security Council the partner of the Assad regime in a joint quest to a address a problem for which the regime accepts no responsibility.

It’s as if the police had responded to O.J. Simpson’s offer of a reward for information about his wife’s murder by joining forces with Simpson to investigate.

So what does our U.N. ambassador, Samantha Power, have to say about this toothless resolution? She made her name with fiery rhetoric about the horrors of practices like gassing hundreds of innocents to death. And following Assad’s use of chemical weapons she tweeted:

Reports devastating: 100s dead in streets, including kids killed by chem weapons. UN must get there fast & if true, perps must face justice.

Under the U.N. resolution, not only will the “perps” not face justice, they are not even identified. Yet today, Power praised the U.N. resolution. She stated:

Just two weeks ago, tonight’s outcome seemed utterly unimaginable. Two weeks ago, the Syrian regime had not even acknowledged the existence of its chemical weapons stockpiles. But tonight we have a shared draft resolution that was the outcome of intense diplomacy and negotiations over the past two weeks.

Actually, tonight’s outcome has seemed to us utterly inevitable since September 9, when Obama enlisted Putin as his Syria partner.

For Samantha Power, it’s no longer about zero tolerance for mass murder by a criminal state. It’s now about “shared draft resolutions” and “intense diplomacy and negotiations.” Or, to get to the heart of the matter, about doing her boss’s bidding.

As for her boss, who plucked Power from relative obscurity because of her professed outrage at mass murder, it’s about weaseling out of a political tight spot.

By Leo Babauta

Last night I received a phone call from a loved one, someone who I love deeply but have struggled with internally because I’ve been worried about his health.

I want to help him, because I feel I’m losing him.

I want to show him my habit method, so he can give up smoking and drinking and eating unhealthy foods, can take up exercise and meditation, and all of a sudden be transformed into a healthy person again.

And of course, I can’t. I want to control something that scares me, but I can’t. I’m not in control of the universe (haven’t been offered the job yet), and I’m not in control of anyone else. I want to help, but can’t.

So I melted.

Not melted as in “had a meltdown”, which sounds wonderful if you like melted foods but actually isn’t. I melted as in I stopped trying to control, stopped trying to change him, and instead softened and accepted him for who he is.

And guess what? Who he is? It’s wonderful. Who he is — it’s super awesome mad wonderful. He’s funny and loving and wise and passionate and crazy and thoughtful and philosophical and did I mention crazy?

I melted, and accepted, and only then could I actually enjoy his presence instead of worrying about losing him or changing him.

And this, as I’ve learned, is the best way to be.

We can stop trying to change people, and just melt into their presence, just notice who they really are, just appreciate it. We can stop complaining about our life circumstances, about our losses, about how the world is, and just melt into it.

Just accept. Just notice. Just appreciate.

This is the way to be.

Mark Tapscott:

Obamacare increasingly appears to be converting America into a nation of part-time workers, crushing the opportunity of businesses to expand and create new jobs, robbing millions of families and individuals of the doctors and health insurance President Obama promised they could keep, stifling medical innovation that could someday save countless lives, compromising the financial and medical privacy that was before sacrosanct, and in countless other ways subverting a private sector-based health care system that draws the lame, the ill and the injured from around the world.

And it is doing all of that even before its first full official day in effect.

But Bush. Or something.

Anyway, go read the whole thing — it’s required.

The Fed’s pump, ZIRP — they’re all we have left.

On the other hand, there’s a ray of hope in the comments: “Six days and counting before the EBT cards are reloaded.” So we have that going for us. Which is nice.

(Paul Mirengoff)

The only thing unraveling faster than Syria is President Obama’s Syria policy. There is, of course, a relationship between the two downward spirals.

This morning comes word that eleven of the biggest armed factions among the Syrian rebels have repudiated the Western-backed opposition to the Assad regime and formed an alliance dedicated to establishing an Islamic state. Jabhat al-Nusra, an al Qaeda affiliate, is the lead signatory to this new coalition.

The coalition claims to represent 75 percent of the rebel opposition. Compare this to the 10 to 20 percent figure at which our intelligence agencies have estimated rebel support for Jabhat al-Nusra and other al Qaeda-related outfits.

Did our intelligence agencies get it wrong? I don’t think so. In all likelihood, Syrian rebels haven’t abandoned Western-backed groups because they are al Qaeda sympathizers. They have switched because the jihadists are now “the strong horse” — much better armed and equipped, and maybe better trained, than the less extreme alternative.

At this point, with the Iranian-backed Assad regime on the rise, the Syrian civil war is a daily fight for survival. Naturally, the rebel combatants wish to be allied with the forces most likely to thrive, or at least survive. The al Qaeda forces now fit the bill.

They fit it mostly because the United States has failed to provide the “vetted” opposition with arms and military equipment at the levels needed to make that opposition a credible “horse.” And, compared to the Western-backed forces, the jihadists are not demoralized by the failure of the U.S. to follow through on promised air attacks on the Assad regime. The jihadist backers are delivering on their promises.

Common sense tells us that if the defections were motivated by pro-jihadist ideology, the defectors would have aligned themselves with the jihadists in the first instance. Their defections at this late date, following mounting evidence of America’s fecklessness, is consistent with statements attributed to leaders of the defectors that they see the West as “betraying us” and “wanting to negotiate with the regime over our blood.”

Indeed, Abu Hassan, a spokesman for the defecting Tawheed Brigade in Aleppo, explained his group’s decision by citing disappointment with the Obama administration’s failure to launch threatened military strikes and its decision to strike a deal with Russia over ways to negotiate a solution. If this is the best Obama can offer, why cast one’s lot with clueless America?

Speaking of clueless America, the Washington Post describes the Obama administration as “surprised” by the announcement of the new Islamist alliance in Syria. The State Department’s spokesperson assured us, however, that U.S. officials have “seen the reports.” That’s better than not seeing them, I suppose.

The Obama presidency has triggered neither the receding of the tides nor the repeal of human nature. Weakness, however much couched as high-mindedness, is still weakness. Potential friends still recoil from it; adversaries still pounce on it. Everyone with skin in the game regards it with contempt.

Only fools find this surprising.

Professor Ditherton Wiggleroom is making one last stand for his signature achievement, the total encrapification of American employment and health services. IE, ObamaCare:

“The president will cut through all the noise coming out of Washington,” a White House official said of the short trip to the Largo, Md., campus, which is a 14-mile car ride from the White House.

“He’ll walk through the benefits that have already strengthened insurance protections for the 85 percent of Americans who already have health insurance coverage today, and he will explain what new benefits lie ahead for those Americans who don’t have insurance today,” the official said.

If Wiggleroom’s speeches could change ObamaCare’s fortunes, it would enjoy 99% approval already and be referred to as the Puppies and Unicorns and Chocolate Sundaes That Don’t Make You Fat Act of the Benevolent Super Democrats.

But no. Wiggleroom couldn’t move the needle on ObamaCare when his poll numbers were in the 50s and 60s, before it even became a law. Now that its effects are being felt, and his poll numbers are in the low-mid-40s… well, as I often say to Ben Bernanke, “You just keep on pushing that string.”

The fact is, O-Care is still a big stinking turd and will remain a big stinking turd. The only difference is, now I have to listen to another damn speech about it.

Yes, I’m cranky this morning. Wouldn’t you be?

SHADES OF THE EASON JORDAN DAYS: CNN Presented Bogus Rouhani Translations That Made Him Seem Moderate. This is CNN.

(Steven Hayward)

One of the leading talking points of the climateers, repeated more often than the rosary in the Vatican, is the factoid that “97 percent of scientists agree” that human-caused climate change is real.  As I’ve noted before, the only surprise is that the number isn’t 99.5 percent, as the question of whether greenhouse gases have a warming effect—all other factors being equal—is uncontroversial.*

Of course, all other factors are not equal, which is why IPCC climate science reports are thousands of pages, and why the number of scientists down with the extreme or catastrophic forecasts is much lower.  But it turns out if you peel back the original survey behind the “97 percent” claim, you find that the methodology is just as dodgy as the climate models that said we should be about 0.4 degrees warmer than we are by now.

Lord Monckton of Brenchley is all over the case, demanding that Environmental Research Letters retract the article where the 97 percent claim is made.  It’s a long post, but here’s the clinching argument:

I am disappointed – and so should you be –

• that the paper had erroneously and gravely over-claimed 97.1% “scientific consensus;
• that the authors had tried to conceal that they had had categorized only 64 abstracts out of 11,944 as explicitly endorsing the “scientific consensus” as they had defined it;
• that, even then, the authors had miscategorised 23 of the 64 abstracts as endorsing that “scientific consensus” when the 23 had not in fact endorsed it;
• that the authors had failed to disclose that their effective sample size was not 11,944 nor even 4014 papers but just 119, rendering the entire exercise meaningless;
• that, on the basis that one of the authors now says was intended, that author says they had meant 87% consensus (not 97%) among just 73 abstracts (not 4014);
• that the true “scientific consensus”, after correcting an obvious error in the newly-asserted (and still strange) basis for calculation, would be 34% of just 119 abstracts;
• that the authors had failed to admit that only 1% of the 4014 abstracts they marked as expressing an opinion had endorsed the “scientific consensus” as they had defined it;
• that the authors had failed to disclose that only 0.3% of all 11,944 abstracts had endorsed that “scientific consensus”;
• that the authors had not adhered to a single definition of “scientific consensus”; and
• that one of the authors, in a public scientific forum, continues in defiance of the truth to assert that 97.1% had “said that recent warming is mostly man made”, when very nearly all of the abstracts had neither stated nor implied any such thing.

* From the Los Angeles Times story on the IPCC’s problems, citing GIT scientist Judith Curry: “All other things being equal, adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere will have a warming effect on the planet,” Curry said. “However, all things are never equal, and what we are seeing is natural climate variability dominating over human impact.”

Michelle Malkin:

Like an estimated 22 million other Americans, I am a self-employed small-business owner who buys health insurance for my family directly on the individual market. We have a high-deductible PPO plan that allows us to choose from a wide range of doctors.

Or rather, we had such a plan.

Last week, our family received notice from Anthem BlueCross BlueShield of Colorado that we can no longer keep the plan we like because of “changes from health care reform (also called the Affordable Care Act or ACA).” The letter informed us that “(t)o meet the requirements of the new laws, your current plan can no longer be continued beyond your 2014 renewal date.”

In short: Obama lied. My health plan died.

Read the whole thing, but lots of those letters are going out.

It’s personal for me, too. Other than a hyperactive thyroid, now nuked, I’m in good health. So is my wife. And our two boys, knock on wood, have never had anything worse than a stomach bug. I would much prefer to spend less money on a high-deductible catastrophic plan, and pay for most things out of pocket.

But that’s not how politicians get the insurance companies on board. That’s not how you get the AMA (which represents fewer than one doctor in five) on board. That’s not how you get big pharma on board.

My paycheck was the bribe Washington came up with to garner just barely enough support to pass ObamaCare.

My preferences? My plans? Feh. What I — you, all of us — got in exchange for higher prices, fewer choices, and ultimately less care, was a mandate. We got a requirement. We got to be turned into milch cows for favored lobby groups.

Impressive Senate speeches aside, this is going to hurt.

The status quo falls apart when people discover, first to their surprise, then to their glee, that it’s lost its teeth. The presidency of Barack Obama appears to be unraveling. Whether the yarn will be pulled out to the last inch remains to be seen, but a lot of it is already coiled on the floor. First the UK Parliament and then both parties of Congress balked at his Syrian policy. Then Putin humiliated him so badly internationally that he retreated to the safety of domestic policy.

But while resting between rounds, he was immediately beset by his own cornerpeople. Taking cynical advantage of his weakness, a cabal of Democratic Party activists rejected his candidate for the Federal Reserve, Larry Summers, and foisted on him a candidate of their own.

The liberal activists may have thought they had the exclusive franchise on defying Obama, but success breeds imitation. Once the hyenas see the lion is unable to resist, then more, and not fewer, pile on. Thus it was not long before Obama’s hatchet person in the IRS, Lois Lerner, announced she was retiring, probably hoping she would be forgotten in the confusion. There are even reports she is negotiating with investigators for immunity against prosecution.

But worse was to come. Obama, having sent Sultan Qaboos with a “penpal” letter for Rouhani, saw the Iranian leader respond by pointedly snubbing Obama, declining to meet him at the UN  ”for lunch,” or to have even a handshake “encounter.” Rouhani boarded a plane home having refused to meet the president of a country he had just visited, and demonstrating to all and sundry you could beard the president of the U.S. on his own home turf without apparent consequences.

That was the context in which Ted Cruz started his long, filibuster-like speech in the Senate against Obamacare.

Cruz has trod on center stage and shouted the politically unsayable, probably having made the calculation that if there were a moment to defy Obama, that time was now. And as Mark Tapscott of the Washington Examiner writes, Cruz’s speech was also a play for the leadership of the Republican Party: if not for the GOP as an organization, then at least for the party as an idea.

For years, it has been led by what Tapscott calls “Arthur Larson’s policy of accommodation.” Cruz, by going very publicly out on a limb, by embarking on what in days past would be considered a “career ending” move, is betting that the policy of accommodation is ripe for the challenge:

The aim of Larson’s brand of Republicanism was to make peace with FDR, “to rationalize and reform the New Deal rather than repeal it.” Republicans would not repeal the New Deal, they would simply deliver it more efficiently than Democrats.

For better or worse, Larson distilled the essential inspiration for the moderate wing of the GOP epitomized by Nelson Rockefeller and Gerald Ford against the grass-roots populism of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

…

Senate GOPers who follow their lead will appear to be opposing Obamacare, but in reality will effectively be protecting President Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement.

Since the policy of accomodation is the dogma of the current Republican leadership, in toppling it Cruz will also have toppled them. Can he do it?

There is in Cruz’s flagrant transgression against the “norms” an element of risk. He is counting on “something in the air.” That something was typified by the flat refusal of a University of Wisconsin-Madison teaching assistant and Ph.D. student to attend a “diversity training session” and transgender awareness session, on the grounds that it was insulting and promoted perversion. He wrote:

I regret that this leaves us in an awkward situation. After having been accused of virulent racism and, now, assured that I will next learn how to parse the taxonomy of “Genderqueers”, I am afraid that I will disappoint those who expect me to attend any further diversity sessions. When a Virginia-based research firm came to campus a couple of years ago to present findings from their study of campus diversity, then-Diversity Officer Damon Williams sent a gaggle of shouting, sign-waving undergraduates to the meeting, disrupting the proceedings so badly that the meeting was cancelled. In a final break with such so-called “diversity”, I will not be storming your office or shouting into a megaphone outside your window. Instead, I respectfully inform you hereby that I am disinclined to join in any more mandatory radicalism. I have, thank God, many more important things to do. I also request that diversity training be made optional for all TAs, effective immediately. In my humble opinion, neither the Department nor the university has any right to subject anyone to such intellectual tyranny.

In days gone by that student’s academic career would have been terminally over, his Ph.D. dreams finished. Now, one is not so sure. From the highest councils of government to the humble classroom, is there something in the air? That remains to be seen.

REVEALED: Climate Change Activist David Suzuki Doesn’t Actually Know Anything About Global Warming Data.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Kid expelled for playing with airsoft gun in own yard.

Two seventh grade Virginia Beach students previously suspended for shooting an airsoft gun have been expelled, WAVY.com has learned.

During a hearing Tuesday morning, Aidan Clark and Khalid Caraballo were expelled in a unanimous vote. Clark was offered the option of attending an alternative school, but his father, Tim, told WAVY News’ Andy Fox he will be homeschooled.

Caraballo will attend an alternative school.

Like thousands of others in Hampton Roads, Khalid Caraballo plays with airsoft guns. Caraballo and his friend Aidan were suspended because they shot two other friends who were with them while playing with the guns as they waited for the school bus.

The two seventh graders say they never went to the bus stop; they fired the airsoft guns while on Caraballo’s private property.

Aidan’s father, Tim Clark, told WAVY.com what happened next lacks commons sense. The children were suspended for possession, handling and use of a firearm.

Khalid’s mother, Solangel Caraballo, thinks it is ridiculous the Virginia Beach City Public School System suspended her 13-year-old son and Aidan because they were firing a spring-driven airsoft gun on the Caraballo’s posted private property. “My son is my private property. He does not become the school’s property until he goes to the bus stop, gets on the bus, and goes to school.”

The bus stop in question is 70 yards from the Caraballo’s front yard.

Homeschooling is the right solution. The school district should worry that others will follow suit. And the parents should (1) file suit: (2) oppose funding for the public school system, which has obviously gone off the rails.

Lois Lerner, the embattled director of the IRS's Tax Exempt Organizations Division, has announced her retirement from the agency.  She leaves under a cloud, but will collect a pension estimated at more than $115,000 a year (National Review photo) 


Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the efforts to harass Tea Party groups and deny them tax-exempt status, is bowing out.  Ms. Lerner, who has been on administrative leave--with pay--since late May has retired from the agency, according to The Wall Street Journal.

A Democratic congressional aide said Ms. Lerner's decision came after an IRS review board had informed her that it was set to propose her removal from the agency. The board had found "neglect of duties" during her tenure as director of the IRS exempt-organizations division, as well as mismanagement consistent with critical findings of an earlier inspector general's report, the aide said. However, the congressional aide noted the board found no evidence of political bias or willful misconduct.

"Removing" Lerner from the IRS would have been the first step in her termination as a federal employee.  But Ms. Lerner avoided that possibility by simply submitting her retirement paperwork.  And we're guessing the agency set new records in approving her request, since it can now depict the targeting of conservative groups as the actions of a "former" employee.

In exchange for falling on her sword, Lerner will be nicely compensated.  As a career federal bureaucrat, she has a fat government pension to fall back on, somewhere in the neighborhood of $115,000 annually.  This calculation is based on Lerner's coverage under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS), which covers government workers who began their careers before 1987.

Retirement annunities governed by that plan are based on a percentage of the employee's highest three-year salary average.  During the latter stages of her IRS career, Lerner averaged $185,000 a year; using the Office of Personnel Management formula, that gives the disgraced federal official an estimated monthly retirement check of $10,110, before taxes and other deductions.

We use the term "estimated" because it's been virtually impossible to find a biography of Ms. Lerner that provides a complete listing of her federal service.  This much we know: after earning her bachelor's at Northeastern University, Lerner graduated from the Western New England University School of Law in 1978.  Then, she made a beeline for D.C., signing on as a staff attorney at the Carter Justice Department.  Eight years later, she moved to the Federal Election Commission, where her partisan enforcement style first became obvious.  From Eliana Johnson at National Review:

One of Lerner’s former colleagues tells National Review Online that her political ideology was evident during her tenure at the FEC, where, he says, she routinely subjected groups seeking to expand the influence of money in politics — including, in her view, conservatives and Republicans — to the sort of heightened scrutiny we now know they came under at the IRS.

[snip]

“I’ve known Lois since 1985,” says Craig Engle, a Washington, D.C., attorney who from 1986 to 1995 served as the executive assistant to one of the FEC’s commissioners and later worked as general counsel to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “I’m probably one of the few people in Washington who really knows her whole career as opposed to those who have come across her lately.”

Engle describes Lerner as pro-regulation and as somebody seeking to limit the influence of money in politics. The natural companion to those views, he says, is her belief that “Republicans take the other side” and that conservative groups should be subjected to more rigorous investigations. According to Engle, Lerner harbors a “suspicion” that conservative groups are intentionally flouting the law.          

Despite her obvious "suspicion" (read: bias), Ms. Lerner's career flourished at the FEC, where she held the position as Associate General Counsel and head of the Enforcement Office.  From there, she joined the IRS in 2001, rising to the top of its Tax Exempt Organizations division, giving her enormous influence over political groups applying for that status.  By our count, Lerner spent at least 34 years on the federal payroll, using her position to target conservative groups and candidates.  And despite obvious warning signs from her FEC days, few raised objections to her tactics and enforcement "style" until the IRS scandal erupted earlier this year.   

So why did Lerner quit?  The odds of her actually being fired from the bureaucracy are ridiculously low; a 2011 study by USA Today found that the average federal worker was more likely to die on the job than be dismissed for cause.  For personnel at the upper levels of the GS scale and members of the Senior Executive Service, the chances of being dismissed are akin to being struck by a meteorite.  During FY2011, the paper reported, the federal government fired only 11,000 personnel--out of a workforce of more than 2 million (excluding postal service workers and military personnel).   

We're guessing that Ms. Lerner was told to submit her retirement papers, probably by the new IRS Commissioner and (likely) at the direction of the White House.  Both the administration and the agency want to move beyond the targeting scandal, and having the central figure on paid vacation certainly doesn't help that cause.     There is also reason to believe that even more damning revelations about Lerner and her minions are about to unfold and there's still the possibility (albeit remote) that the former bureaucrat could face criminal prosecution some day. 

By retiring now, Lerner has effectively secured her six-figure pension; as outlined in a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, laws that can strip pensions from convicted members of Congress--and other senior government officials--are rarely enforced.  In fact, a CNN report (from 2007) estimated that 20-25 former Congressmen, all convicted of various offenses, were still collecting their federal pensions at that time, even while incarcerated.
               
Against that backdrop, Ms. Lerner has little to worry about, even if lightning strikes (quite literally) and she spends a little time behind bars.  It's easy to run a politically-motivated vendetta when you have little to fear in the way of punishment.       

Terror experts tell Fox News that “the grisly massacre at an upscale Kenyan shopping mall by al-Shabab militants is a ‘great shot in the arm’ to the Al Qaeda-linked group’s efforts to recruit fighters from the West, including the U.S.” It’s going to attract new adherents in droves.

By selecting and ultimately carrying out an attack on a soft target such as a shopping mall frequented by Westerners and affluent locals, al-Shabab — which means “The Youth” in Arabic — sent a clear message to would-be jihadists, Schroeder said.

“We’re still credible and we’re alive,” he said. “So come join us. That’s going to be the message.”

Astonishingly enough, ThinkProgress agrees. It’s a poster drive. A recruitment campaign. “The bloody Shabaab attack on Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall on September 21 was an act of desperation by a jihadi group beset by internal power struggles and plummeting support.”

There’s a tendency in the Western public to believe that the scenes of mayhem, cruelty and destruction are somehow a turn-off to the al-Shabaab cause. They imagine that these grisly scenes will discourage new recruits.

Why would they think that? People talk about dog whistles. This is a message in a special pitch.

Making the assumption that terrorism attracts the idealistic, disaffected, and alienated is as epic a blunder as assuming Che Guevara was a nice guy. Or that Pol Pot only had humanity in mind. Like everything else, the prospect of inflicting death, pain, and cruelty on others attracts a certain kind of individual.

It’s the same old call from the same shadowy places. The lure of power. The chance to gratify sadism, perversion, and greed. For the most brutal, it is a chance to inflict fear and absolute abjection as a way of affirming the nothingness in them.

Oh they dress it up with a line of patter. But that’s just to add insult to injury. Not only are they going to hurt you, but they are going to make you thank them for it before they’re through.

TOO BAD MORE PEOPLE WEREN’T ARMED: SAS hero of the mall massacre: Off duty soldier with a handgun saved 100 lives as terrorists ran amok.

TRAIN WRECK: “Family Glitch” in ObamaCare could leave 500,000 children without coverage. Old spin: If you oppose ObamaCare it’s because you want kids to die! New spin: Hey, what’s a half-million kids in the scheme of things?

Bad luck for Iran’s new President Rouhani.  He arrives in New York just after the carnage in Kenya and Pakistan.

Of course these mass murdering terror attacks were perpetrated by Sunnis, not Iranian Shiites, but most of the American public doesn’t know the difference.  And those of us who do are only reminded these killings are just the latest in a long and sadly predictable history of such events, Sunni and Shiite, during which, according to one website, a staggering 21269 deadly attacks have been undertaken by Islamic terrorists since  September 11, 2001. (To give you an idea of how many deaths this comes to, the Mumbai mass killing of 2008 in which 164 died is only one of this over twenty-one thousand, as are the 2004 Atocha Station bombings in which 191 died. And 68 and 78 died, so far, in the Kenya and Pakistan attacks, also part of the over twenty-one thousand.)

So Barack Obama should be aware, if he is in the mood to appease an Islamic regime with multiple terrorist tentacles, that it might not be the best week for such an action. Too bad, Rouhani. (Or let’s hope it’s “Too bad, Rouhani,” whose “moderate” track record fits right in with the 21269 deadly attacks above, although his pre-dates 9/11.)

Indeed, like a badly failing family member — an alcoholic or a drug addict — what Islam desperately needs now is not nuclear appeasement or CAIR-style “tolerance” but an intervention.

To say that something is decidedly wrong in the Islamic world is a monumental understatement. And Muslim societies make almost no serious effort to correct themselves, ricocheting back and forth between military totalitarianism and religious totalitarianism while — like that family heroin addict — blaming everyone but themselves for their fate.

They are indeed in deep need of an intervention. The question is how to do it.

Of course, just by raising that question you are accused of Islamophobia, an absurd almost self-contradictory term, which always applies better to those using it. They are the ones who are phobic about Islam because they are the ones who are fearful (actually terrified) of what Islamic people will do if told the truth.  So they come up with those equally absurd lies, like defining the crime of a soldier who murders his fellows while shouting “Allahu Akhbar” as “workplace violence.”

This real Islamophobia has been the pathetic stance of our government and military since 9/11, made worse by the delusions of Barack Obama.  Of course it has failed.  How could it possibly succeed when it is fundamentally dishonest?

Meanwhile, another large sector of our society wants us to throw up our hands at the whole thing — let these madmen destroy each other.  I am sympathetic — how could I not be?  We have already lost so much in treasure, human and material.

But I will remind those people — and myself — that in our tradition we are our brother’s keeper.  And that is one of the most important values, if not the key value, that gave us this great country.

Furthermore, such a violent ideology left unchecked could destroy the world. It already infects over a billion Muslims, with painfully rare, though highly laudable, exceptions.  (The depressing truth is that I met almost all of them in my job at PJM. Where are the rest? Why is it there is no really organized attempt within Islam for any kind of serious reform — only the most momentary lip service after a terror attack?)

REASON TV: Anarchy In Detroit: How Ordinary Citizens Are Stepping Up. “But while politicians, unions, and investors slug it out in bankruptcy court and grasp for their share of what little cash is left, ordinary citizens are left to fend for themselves in a city with no functioning government. This is Reason TV’s coverage of what happens when people are left to their own devices and forced to come up with creative ways to pick up the pieces and find solutions in a city they once loved.”

South Park has been a cultural touchstone for so long that you might not even consciously remember just how long it’s aired. But this weekend, Comedy Central revealed the answer — 234 episodes, 16 seasons worth, or over five days straight.

The proof comes with the Ultimate South Park Marathon, an online-only descent into the complete run of South Park, leading up to the premiere of Season 17 this Wednesday.

Beginning on Saturday, Sept. 21 at 3 PM ET, Southparkstudios.com began a steady stream of every episode, interrupted only by ads for the sole sponsor, soccer video game FIFA 14. It’s doubtful that any really devoted fan will stay tuned for all 94 hours, 59 minutes and 40 seconds of the marathon, but if they do they’ll also get to check out creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s “Year of the Fan” commentary, as well as the documentary 6 Days to Air, which chronicles the process by which South Park is made.

I checked in on the marathon at a couple of different points throughout the weekend: Once on Saturday afternoon, just as it was reaching the end of Season 1, and then Sunday morning (at which point it was right in the middle of Season 4).

The amount of live-tweeting wasn’t huge, at least on the #spmarathon and #southparkmarathon tags, though there were a few fans checking in regularly.

watching South Park with little brother. he’s laughing just as much as I did when I was 10 and watching it. #SouthParkMarathon

— Uncle Cups (@Colin_Cups) September 22, 2013

Nothing to watch on TV today. Guess I’ll settle for streaming the #SPMARATHON

— Joshua Travis (@jktravis) September 22, 2013

South Park has been on at my house for like 10 hours now #southparkmarathon

— Evan Myler Moore (@mooreva16) September 22, 2013

Commercial interruptions only occurred in between episodes; while the one-to-two minute ads were exclusively for FIFA 14, there were at least four of them in rotation (always important in a marathon situation), and each was relatively funny and unique. Plus, they were just the right length for a bathroom break.

What I find fascinating about the South Park-a-thon is this: If you have or have ever had a cable subscription, you might remember an occasion when you’d turn on the TV and there’d be a movie you like playing on some basic cable station — a movie you like enough, in fact, to own on DVD.

But instead of getting up and playing the DVD of the movie, so you can watch from the beginning, commercial-free, you’ll sit there and watch it on cable, right to the end.

This might not be a universal experience, but it’s the best equivalent I can come up with for the South Park marathon — because every single episode being streamed as a part of it is available to watch right now on southparkstudios.com. Every episode has been available, in fact, since the site’s launch in 2008.

Of course, that presumes you feel the need to watch a specific episode of South Park, as opposed to just sinking into the experience of reconnecting with the animated hijinks of .

I’ve never been a huge fan of the series, but South Park is an impressive comedic achievement, and at the very least it’s hard not to admire something that has lasted for as long as it has. The ability to pop in and out on the show’s remarkable legacy over the next couple of days is perhaps the best way to celebrate that.

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FIRST LOIS LERNER OUT, NOW THIS: Exclusive–IRS Offers True The Vote Tax Exempt Status, Files to Dismiss Lawsuit. Reportedly, they were worried about discovery. I can imagine.

Barack Obama’s depiction of his Syrian chemical weapons “Red Line” policy as a triumph looked less than glowing in the light of Bashar al-Assad’s recent demands to comply. “WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Bashar al-Assad said on Wednesday it would cost about $1 billion to get rid of Syria’s chemical weapons under a plan agreed to by Russia and the United States last week.” Who would pay the $1 billion? Assad offered some suggestions.

“As I said, it needs a lot of money. It needs about 1 billion. It is very detrimental to the environment. If the American administration is ready to pay this money and take the responsibility of bringing toxic materials to the United States, why don’t they do it?”

Assad sounds like he’s got Obama over a barrel and not the other way around. A billion isn’t much money these days. The only question is what it buys. In this case, maybe nothing. Assad says it will take a year to deliver the goods, as the BBC explains.

Under the terms of the CWC, Syria has been given nine months to complete the destruction of its chemical weapons.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said he is committed to a plan to destroy his country’s chemical weapons but warned it could take about a year.

Professor Hay said he hoped the Syrians should be given a bit of “latitude” – if the destruction programme falls behind: “If the work is going well, and for some technical reason there is a hiccup, or if the sheer volume of material cannot be processed in time, I am reasonably hopeful that if it is clear that Syria is not just stalling for time, then there will have to be some give in the deadline.”

What? Not a next day money-back guarantee? A billion ain’t what it used to be.

And if Syria is just stalling for time, what does America do if they don’t comply? Why go to the United Nations, which will doubtless recommend giving them another billion and another year. The world is witnessing a geographic miracle; the transformation of Syria into North Korea, another country which is always on the point of giving up its WMDs but never quite does. In the meantime the international community will focus on another transgressor. That’s right and you guessed it: Israel. Vladimir Putin argues the only reason that Syria has chemical weapons in the first place is because Israel has nukes. All the US has to do in order to demilitarize the Middle East is to get Israel to throw away them old shootin’ irons.

“Syrian chemical weapons were built in response to Israel’s nuclear weapons,” Putin said, responding to a question about the chances of persuading Syria to give up its arsenal, as agreed under a deal proposed by the Kremlin last week. …

Putin told one of the conference participants that Israel will have to agree to get rid of its nuclear weapons, as Syria was giving up its chemical weapons.

That’s a preview into the next big meme that will hit US left wing academic circles. Demilitarize the Middle East and start with Israel.

Of course, none of this should detract from the administration’s achievements in Syria, which have been momentarily overshadowed by dire news from Kenya, where attacks reportedly from al-Shabab attacked a shopping mall and killed over 30 people after first ascertaining they were not of the right religion.

It’s a tragedy, but coming on a day which reports many dead in Iraq, and many more dead in Libya and many more dead in Africa and the Middle East, what is truly interesting about the Kenya attacks is that they have received prominent play at all. Only last week, rebels from the Moro National Liberation Front attacked and burned parts of Zamboanga City, which has a million inhabitants and it received almost no media play.

The contrast between the triumphs that are portrayed inside a narrow power circle and the actual reality of the wider world is the most striking feature of the media age. As Pauline Kael famously said when Nixon won by a landslide, “I don’t know anyone who voted for him.” She was probably telling the truth.

The Narrative is all about votes. The Syrian “triumph”, the War in the Congo, the attacks in Nairobi, the Siege of Zamboanga are all weighed in the balance of how many states they will swing or how many dollars in campaign funds they will generate. Then the right kind of story is written.

And as for Syria, well how long does it take to print a billion dollars?

---

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The breaking news is that an Islamic terror group has shot up — and is still shooting up — a shopping mall in Kenya.  The news reports say “non-Muslims” were targeted. And guess who’s helping the Kenyans break the al-Shabab siege of the Nairobi shopping mall? The Mossad, as a Kenyan senator explains in the video below. Wait for it at 3:50. Almost 40 people have been confirmed killed in the attack on the mall so far.

One of sources of al-Shabab’s arms, according to the Telegraph, is Libya. “Libyan arms that went missing during the fighting to remove Col Muammar Gaddafi are now spreading ever further afield, being used in conflicts as far apart as Niger, Somalia, Gaza and Syria, a UN report says.”

The new report by a special UN security council committee suggests that they have now travelled even further, with Libyan ammunition showing up in the continuing war being waged by al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda offshoot in Somalia.

This is the very same group believed to have attacked the Nairobi mall. Never fear, the AFP news agency reports that the “Shebab Twitter account [was]  suspended after Kenya mall attack claims”.  I guess any moment now their Facebook account, if it exists, will be similarly sanctioned. That’ll learn ‘em.

One reason the Mossad may be so interested is that Iran is reportedly supplying weapons to al-Shabab as well. Reuters covered the little noticed seizure of a ship back in July.

(Reuters) – An Iranian ship laden with arms seized by Yemeni authorities in January may also have been bound for Somalia, according to a confidential U.N. report seen by Reuters on Monday. …

Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman for Iran’s U.N. mission, rejected the suggestion that Iran could be connected in any way with arms supplies to al-Shabaab.

“These are some baseless allegations and ridiculous fabrications about the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said. “This alleged report by the Monitoring Group on Somalia on arms shipments from Iran carries no basis or the minimum rationality.”

A Western diplomat said that the fact that there were 16,716 blocks of C4 explosive on the Jihan 1 suggested a potential connection between Iran and al-Shabaab in Somalia, as Huthi rebels, unlike al-Shabaab, were not known to use C4.

A feller could have a pretty good Fourth of July with 16,716 blocks of C4.

President Obama is scheduled to meet with the Iranian leader to discuss that country’s nuclear arms. Some days before that meeting Benjamin Netanyahu is due in the US to talk about his concerns regarding a nuclear Iran.  Perhaps these developments are merely coincidental. But there is usually a political dimension behind a major terrorist attack? So why Kenya? Why al-Shabab? And what about Benghazi? Well never mind. Let’s wait for Susan Rice to explain things.

From what I can make out there are reportedly still hostages in the building and the incident continues unresolved. Other reports, however, suggest that the assailants are isolated in a single location and there are no live hostages in their power. The Kenyan cops are clearing the mall methodically to ensure that no more civilians are left in jeopardy and then they have a clear battlefield.

In an unintentionally curious turn of events, a news story said that “President Barack Obama urged supporters on Saturday to “go back at it” and pursue gun-control measures after mass shootings in Washington and Chicago…” The timing of that proposal is bad. It must be obvious, even to advocates of gun control, that disarming the population creates another sort of risk as illustrated by the Nairobi mall attack. Once such attackers get past the border and into an building packed with unarmed civilians, it’ll be like a fox in a henhouse.

Armed groups which infiltrate and attack civilian targets, as in Beslan, Maalot, Mumbai and now Nairobi are the modern day equivalent of parachutists, who were so feared in the early days of World War 2. The British population, which we now think of as anti-gun, clamored to be universally armed during the height of the fear of the 5th column and paratroop attack.

Fears of an invasion rapidly began to grow … of a fifth column operating in Britain which would aid an invasion by German airborne forces. The government soon found itself under increasing pressure to intern suspect aliens … and Josiah Wedgwood, a Labour MP, wrote to the Prime Minister asking that the entire adult population be trained in the use of arms and given weapons to defend themselves. Similar calls appeared in newspaper columns; in 12 May issue of the Sunday Express a Brigadier called on the government to issue free arms licenses and permits to buy ammunition to men possessing small arms, and on the same day the Sunday Pictorial asked if the government had considered training golfers in rifle shooting to eliminate stray parachutists.

These calls alarmed government and senior military officials, who worried about the prospect of the population forming private defence forces that the Army would not be able to control, and in mid-May the Home Office issued a press release on the matter; it was the task of the army to deal with enemy parachutists, as any civilians who carried weapons and fired on German troops were likely to be executed if captured. Private defence forces soon began to be formed throughout the country, placing the government in an awkward position; these private forces, which the army might not be able to control, could well inhibit the attempts by the army during an invasion, yet to ignore the calls for a home defence force to be set up would be politically problematic

And so the British formed the Home Guard and similar units. This is exactly what may happen in the West and in other countries unless the governments begin to effectively prosecute the campaign against terrorism. Popular clamor for internment and arming the population will overcome political correctness at a certain point; and to head it off some kind of officially sanctioned equivalent of these will probably be offered in response. The best way to avoid the evils of private armies, as I have elsewhere argued, is for the government to act in earnest instead of pussyfooting around.  If things get bad enough they will be compelled to resort to ugly measures later, and that is not good. But government has the habit of kicking the can down the road.

As for Nairobi, multiple news sources believe on reason for the attack was the presence of an Israeli-owned cafe somewhere in the mall.  Photojournalist Tyler Hicks of the NYT was on the spot and recorded the aftermath of the mayhem, from which you can see that a lot of people had a bad day.

---

Did you know that you can purchase some of these books and pamphlets by Richard Fernandez and share them with you friends? They will receive a link in their email and it will automatically give them access to a Kindle reader on their smartphone, computer or even as a web-readable document.

The War of the Words for $3.99, Understanding the crisis of the early 21st century in terms of information corruption in the financial, security and political spheres
Rebranding Christianity for $3.99, or why the truth shall make you free
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99, reflections on terrorism and the nuclear age
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99, why government should get small
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99. Fiction. A flight into peril, flashbacks to underground action.
Storm Over the South China Sea $0.99, how China is restarting history in the Pacific
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CRONY CAPITALISM: In government-created market, Wall Street wins.

When you drag commerce into the arena of government, it’s always a home game for the big guys.

When Congress created an ethanol mandate in 2005 and expanded it in 2007, this was widely, and correctly, derided as a political gift to the ethanol industry. But it’s worth noting that big Wall Street players were also pushing for the ethanol mandate.

In fact, Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson was lobbying on ethanol within a year of becoming Treasury Department chief of staff in the Obama administration.

When I write about the big guys lobbying for and profiting from big-government, some liberal bloggers yawn and ask “who cares if someone’s getting rich?” (See, for instance, Brad Plumer, Matt Yglesias, Ezra Klein.)

But figuring out who believes they will profit off of a law can help us detect flaws in the law we may not have previously detected. In other words, we should ask “what are these lobbyists seeing that we’re not?”

In the case of the ethanol mandate, that flaw may be the ability of big banks to rig the market in ethanol credits.

Ethanol is a scam, and it’s also starving poor people.

(Steven Hayward)

Five more days until the next IPCC climate science report will be released.  Not only will Power Line’s climate desk analyze the expected 2,000-page document, but we’ll also begin daily pre-coverage with a note about how the IPCC is apparently struggling mightily to explain why global temperatures have flattened out over the last 15 years.  From the AP:

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Scientists working on a landmark U.N. report on climate change are struggling over how to address a wrinkle in the meteorological data that has given ammunition to global-warming skeptics: The heating of Earth’s surface appears to have slowed in the past 15 years even though greenhouse gas emissions keep rising. . .

Scientists and statisticians have dismissed the purported slowdown as a statistical mirage, arguing among other things that it reflects random climate fluctuations and an unusually hot year picked as the starting point for charting temperatures. They also say the data suggests the “missing” heat is simply settling – temporarily – in the ocean.

There is some data to support the hypothesis of ocean warming, but nowhere near enough.  And there are the several anomalies about why the ocean–but not the air–would be absorbing all the heat.  And why the deep ocean, rather than surface waters?  One of the leading “mainstream/consensus” climate scientists told me in June that he was “certain” that ocean warming explained the pause.  I didn’t think to ask him just when or where the climate models had previously predicted that this might happen; that the temperature slowdown and ocean warming were surprises ought to tell us something.

But more important than the unresolved arguments about cause and effect, the role politics is playing is more significant just now.  Remember—the IPCC is supposed to represent the acme of scientific rectitude, but as the AP story makes clear, political factors—not science— are driving what the report is going to say this Friday in the all-important “Summary for Policy Makers” (SPM).  As this story makes clear, this is not a summary for policy makers—it is a summary for news media headline writers, determined by willful policy makers who want to justify their relentless drive to acquire more power over people and resources.  More from AP:

In a leaked June draft of the report’s summary for policymakers, the IPCC said that while the rate of warming between 1998 and 2012 was about half the average rate since 1951, the globe is still heating up. As for the apparent slowdown, it cited natural variability in the climate system, as well as cooling effects from volcanic eruptions and a downward phase in solar activity.

But in comments to the IPCC obtained by the AP, several governments that reviewed the draft objected to how the issue was tackled.

Germany called for the reference to the slowdown to be deleted, saying a time span of 10 to 15 years was misleading in the context of climate change, which is measured over decades and centuries.

The U.S. also urged the authors to include the “leading hypothesis” that the reduction in warming is linked to more heat being transferred to the deep ocean.

The Daily Mail‘s account is more direct about what’s going on:

Scientists working on the most authoritative study on climate change were urged to cover up the fact that the world’s temperature hasn’t risen for the last 15 years, it is claimed.

A leaked copy of a United Nations report, compiled by hundreds of scientists, shows politicians in Belgium, Germany, Hungary and the United States raised concerns about the final draft.  [My emphasis on politicians.]

Tune in again tomorrow for Climate Countdown: T-Minus 4

IN GERMANY, a big win for Angela Merkel. “With unemployment near a two-decade low and the budget deficit virtually eliminated, voters backed Merkel’s handling of the domestic economy, Europe’s largest, and her push for austerity in the euro zone in exchange for aid. They punished her Free Democratic coalition partner after four years of bickering and failure to deliver on its tax-cutting pledges.” Can she run for President here?

(John Hinderaker)

Every socialist country comes to the same end: it can no longer produce its own toilet paper:

A Venezuelan state agency on Friday ordered the temporary takeover of a factory that produces toilet paper in what it called an effort to ensure consistent supplies after embarrassing shortages earlier this year.

Embarrassing–that’s putting it mildly!

A national agency called Sundecop, which enforces price controls, said in a statement it would occupy one of the factories belonging to paper producer Manpa for 15 days, adding that National Guard troops would “safeguard” the facility.

“The action in the producer of toilet paper, sanitary napkins and disposable diapers responds to the state’s obligation to ensure a steady supply of basic goods for the people,” Sundecop said, adding it had observed “the violation of the right” to access such products.

It isn’t easy to pack that much stupidity into two brief paragraphs. If you have price controls, you will have shortages. To expect anything else is like expecting objects to fall upward, in defiance of the law of gravity. So if a government really wants to “ensure a steady supply of basic goods for the people,” it should get out of the way and allow producers to produce, and consumers to consume.

Government supporters laud efforts by Maduro, the successor to late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, for maintaining tough regulations of private businesses.

Obviously that’s working really well. Unless you would like some toilet paper.

They blame unscrupulous merchants for hoarding products to make quick profits, and celebrate the socialist government’s legacy of social assistance programs.

Are they living in the 14th century, or what? Shortages are due, not to insane government policies, but to “unscrupulous merchants” who “hoard products to make quick profits.” As long as they are going medieval, maybe they should burn some of those unscrupulous merchants at the stake.

What is it about socialism that allows it to rear its head, generation after generation, long after it has proved to be the dumbest idea in the history of human civilization? I can’t explain it. Maybe we should ask Barack Obama.

(Scott Johnson)

Obamacare has been an enormous engine of economic destruction even prior to its passage, from the time it emerged on the legislative horizon. The evidence is obvious and ubiquitous. White House flack Jay Carney has responded to a question on one aspect of the damage done — the suppression of growth in full-time employment — with the usual falsehoods and non sequiturs:

I would say broadly that if you look at the economic data, the suggestion that the ACA is reducing full-time employment is belied by the facts. So what the ACA allows is the opportunity for individuals who could not, prior to passage of the Affordable Care Act, afford insurance, to get insurance. And it provides subsidies for those who need help in affording it. And it assists businesses in that effort so that they can provide insurance to their employees. And again, the broader data here does not reflect that assertion. I don’t have a specific response to the story you’re citing, but I think the data is very clear on this.

In the Wall Street Journal’s Weekend Interview, Steve Moore talks with the proprietor of one of the country’s largest employment agencies on the effects of Obamacare. Jay Carney, meet Bob Funk:

Here’s something you don’t often see in Washington: a businessman trying to repeal a law that helps his company. That’s Bob Funk’s latest mission in life. He’s the president and founder of Express Employment Services, the fifth-largest employment agency in America, with annual sales of $2.5 billion and more than 600 franchises across the country. This year he will place nearly half a million workers in jobs.

“ObamaCare has been an absolute boon for my business,” he says as we sit in his new office headquarters near downtown Oklahoma City. “I’m making a lot of money thanks to that law. We’re up 8% this year. But it’s just terrible for the country. I see that firsthand every day.”

Why is the health-care law good for Express but bad for the country? “Firms are just very reluctant to hire full-time workers,” Mr. Funk says. “So they are taking on more temporary help, which is what we do.” ObamaCare imposes new mandates and penalties on companies with more than 50 full-time employees—and even those working 30 hours a week are considered full-time.

He quickly adds: “The problem isn’t just ObamaCare, though. It’s the entire regulatory assault on employers coming out of Washington—everything from the EEOC”—the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission hits companies hard when employees claim age, race or sex discrimination—”to the Dodd-Frank monstrosity. Employers are living in a state of fear.”

Whole thing here.

schwit1 writes "In a paper published today on the Los Alamos astro-ph preprint service, astronomers propose that as many as eleven past extinction events can be linked to the Sun's passage through the spiral arms of the Milky Way. (You can download the paper here [pdf].) From the paper: 'A correlation was found between the times at which the Sun crosses the spiral arms and six known mass extinction events. Furthermore, we identify five additional historical mass extinction events that might be explained by the motion of the Sun around our Galaxy. These five additional significant drops in marine genera that we find include significant reductions in diversity at 415, 322, 300, 145 and 33 Myr ago. Our simulations indicate that the Sun has spent ~60% of its time passing through our Galaxy's various spiral arms.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.