Monday, August 24, 2009

Revenge of the Reverse Leveraged ETFs


QuantGuy emails:

Subject: Failure of the reverse leveraged ETFs

Today represented the anomaly that has been in the news lately about the inverse leveraged ETFs:

S&P down 0.06%
SDS down 0.05%

not only wasn't it doubled, it went in the same direction.

SDS is one such ETF ("UltraShort S&P500 ProShares") that is intended to protect against downside risk -- in this case against a daily drop in the S&P 500.

Looks like the fund designers need to go back to the drawing board.

Larwyn's Linx: Sarah Palin should not leave the room

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email or reply via Twitter.

Nation

Why Sarah Palin should not leave the room: Doc Zero
Harry Reid is "on the ropes": Malkin
A question of competence: Examiner

Governing as a community organizer: Heidelbaugh
Oregon's Health Rationing Nightmare: PJM (Emanuel)
Less than half of Obama's key appointees in place: TAB

GovDelivery Blames White House for Political E-mails: Verum
Lieberman: Not right time for major bill: Times
Kennedy should resign: Jacoby

Economy

Why special interests love Obamacare: Examiner
Palin Correct on U.S.-Brazilian Investment: C&S
Sopranos-style tactics in health care: Gingrich

Are you ready for massive inlation?: Wizbang
Great News for Seniors: No COLA Increase: JWF
How CPSIA hits one small business owner: Morrissey

Fiscal Conservatism and the Soul of the GOP: WSJ
Did Rifqa Bary's Parents Lie in Court?: Atlas
Get your government hands off my vending machines!: LegalIns

Media

Look Out for the Union Label: Claremont
Zero Hedge vs. All Comers: Zero Hedge
No Apology Needed: Ambinder Right About Left's Bush-Hatred: AmPower

CAIR formulates media strategy on Rifqa Bary: Jawa
Zero Hedge's Op-Ed to The New York Times: Zero Hedge
The Verbiliousness Of The Impotently Indignant Sockpuppet: Crittenden

Whither Candidate Obama?: PJM (Rubin)
'He's an idiot.': T&CS
Confiscating cell phones?: Stott

Climate & Energy

GOOD NEWS: DTE Energy offering cheap CFL bulbs! BAD NEWS: You're already paying for them!: BlogProf

World

The Shame of Scotland, the Shame of the United Kingdom, the Shame of the Civilized World: AmerDig
Accuse First, Ask Questions Never: PJM (Rubin)
Mubarak's and Arab States' Peace Plan: Israel Gives Everything, Arab States Think About It: Rubin

Tony Blair, British Petroleum And The Lockerbie Deal: JoshuaPundit
Argentina objects to Iran's terrorist defense minister: Prairie

SciTech

The $50,000 amputation: Prairie
Please identify yourselves, in the name of science!: C&S
Star Wars Design Fail: BlogProf

Cornucopia

"O Magnum Mysterium:" The Persistence of Sacred Beauty: AmerDig
Foodicare: Health-Through-Nutrition Care for America: Cube
Have your art silkscreened onto tortillas: Boing Boing

Another inappropriate vid on the women of the IDF: NeoEx
Double-Down Sandwich: Consumerist

We're going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, signed by a president that also hasn't read it (and who smokes) with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's nearly broke.

What possibly could go wrong? -- Rush Limbaugh


Health Care Trap


Doesn't this:


...have an eerie resemblance to this:

Just food for thought.


Hat tip: @Coffee260.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Breaking News from 2010


Breaking news this evening: election voting was marred by violence that killed 26 and closed polling places across the country.

About 11 percent fewer polling places opened than originally estimated as election day violence spilled onto the streets. Sarah Goodscott is tracking the situation in our election center. Sarah?

Thanks, Bip. Federal election officials have decried the outbreaks of violence that have killed at least 26 people across the country and injured hundreds.

One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, reported that his organization had tracked 135 separate clashes.

Increasing militarization and conflict at polling places had been predicted before the election, but no one was anticipating anything like this.

Security concerns clearly had an impact on voter turnout.

"I wanted to vote, but what I heard was happening at the polls I decided not to." This 70-year old woman from Philadelphia said she had voted in every election since 1960 until today.

Prior to the election, the New Black Panthers, the SEIU, ACORN and other left-leaning organizations had promised to "ensure a fair election by maintaining a presence at every polling location."

But in Chicago, ACORN protesters accosted voters wearing Republican garb.

In Lowell, Massachusetts a gunfight erupted after more than a dozen Republicans were denied entry to a polling place by members of the SEIU.

In East Los Angeles, a shootout raged for more than three hours between members of an unidentified leftist group and police after dozens of reports of voter intimidation.

The fight only ended after a heavily armed National Guard unit arrived at the scene. Eight persons were killed and more than two dozen injured in that incident alone.

Philadelphia was arguably the birthplace of the militarized polling place, after the controversial 2008 incident in which New Black Panther Party members harrassed voters.

In a 2009 interview, civil rights attorney Bartle Bull called the incident "the most blatant form of voter intimidation he had ever seen."

"I watched the two uniformed men confront voters and attempt to intimidate voters. They were positioned in a location that forced every voter to pass in close proximity to them. The weapon was openly displayed and brandished in plain sight of voters."

"They tried to interfere with the work of other poll observers ... whom the uniformed men apparently believed did not share their preferences politically... one of the Panthers turned toward the white poll observers and said 'you are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.'"

Why, then did President Obama, and the Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder, decide to drop charges against the Panthers?

No one knows the answer to that question, but there is no dispute that the incident encouraged lawlessness at polling places across the country this time around.

Officials across the country have promised that investigations will get to the bottom of this terrible day in American history, but some are already decrying November 2, 2010 as an ominous milestone.

Speaking today at the National Press Club, talk show pundit and best-selling author Mark Levin called it "the day the United States became a third-world country. When the President and the Attorney General conspire to abrogate the rule of law, as they did in the 2008 Panther case, this sort of anarchy is inevitable. This is a terrible, terrible day in American history."

This is Sarah Goodscott reporting from Washington.


Postscript: Obviously, I hope and pray that this sort of thing never happens. But I fear that tolerating voter intimidation -- in any of its forms -- is antithetical to Democracy. That would be the case if any legitimate voter were denied their right to vote, no matter their skin color, ethnicity or religion. But the precedent set by Obama and Holder is an ominous one. If our polling places are not kept pristine from the threat of violence, then what has our Democracy become?
Real news update: "MoveOn.Org, SEIU, ACORN To Infiltrate/Disrupt Recess Protests"

Your hand-selected bizarre photos o' the day


I have no explanation for any of the following.








Via IZI.

Hurry Up and Die, Already!


Little wonder so many folks are showing up at health care protests, expressing anxiety over socialized medicine, health care rationing and "death panels". Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Jim Towey describes the Obama administration's ham-handed attempts to cut costs at the Veterans' Administration.

Last year, bureaucrats at the VA's National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, "Your Life, Your Choices." It was first published in 1997 and later promoted as the VA's preferred living will throughout its vast network of hospitals and nursing homes. After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated "Your Life, Your Choices."

Who is the primary author of this workbook? Dr. Robert Pearlman, chief of ethics evaluation for the center, a man who in 1996 advocated for physician-assisted suicide in Vacco v. Quill before the U.S. Supreme Court and is known for his support of health-care rationing.

"Your Life, Your Choices" presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political "push poll." For example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be "not worth living."

The circumstances listed include ones common among the elderly and disabled: living in a nursing home, being in a wheelchair and not being able to "shake the blues." There is a section which provocatively asks, "Have you ever heard anyone say, 'If I'm a vegetable, pull the plug'?" There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such as "I can no longer contribute to my family's well being," "I am a severe financial burden on my family" and that the vet's situation "causes severe emotional burden for my family."

When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living, who needs a death panel?

...This hurry-up-and-die message is clear and unconscionable. Worse, a July 2009 VA directive instructs its primary care physicians to raise advance care planning with all VA patients and to refer them to "Your Life, Your Choices." Not just those of advanced age and debilitated condition—all patients. America's 24 million veterans deserve better.

As do the intended victims of Democrats' rabid plans for socialized medicine. Consider the framing in "Your Life, Your Choices":


On the other hand, Jim Towey is the author of "Five Wishes", the most widely used living will in America, with more than 12 million copies in circulation. Unlike the VA's document, it contains no bias either for or against end-of-life medical care. Consumer Reports describes Five Wishes as a "well conceived" document and an NCI-NIH study praised its use as a living will.

Those who ridicule the notion of "death panels" need ask themselves only one question: if I am in that situation, which document would I prefer? Follow-up question: which document should be used by our veterans?


Hat tips: Curmudgeonly & Skeptical and Parkway Rest Stop.

Vandals target construction sites


Jan sent these photos in, explaining that a construction worker had been fired earlier in the week. He is suspected of revisiting the site late on Saturday night and left this in his wake.














KION reports that vandals also targeted a Scotts Valley construction site last week.