Snakes on a plane

It's getting to be you can't keep up with reality.

A Czech Man Actually Tried To Smuggle Snakes On A Plane

Get your own state!

I love micronations. There's something appealing--and pleasantly eccentric--about sticking a flag on a rock, declaring it to be an independent country, and naming yourself emperor. Who hasn't wanted to do that, at one time or another?  Especially at tax time?  I've always admired Sealand.

And sometimes it seems the only way to avoid a big government is to set yourself in charge of a little one.  Seriously, as states come under increasing pressure--and react to it with increasing centralization and restrictions on individuals--I wonder if this may be the wave of the future.

If not for all of us, at least for those who can afford it.

But for now, see Business Insider: Check Out 10 Of Europe's Oddest Micronations. Three examples:

Kingdom Of Elleore

Location: Denmark
Founded: 1944
Ruler: King Leo III
Estimated Population: Unknown. But the population grows in the summer time.
Estimated Size: 15,000 square meters.
About: A small island off Denmark's Northern coast, the Kingdom of Elleore was founded and declared independent when a group of school teachers bought it to organize a summer camp in 1944. The micronation has issued numerous stamps and coins and has had six monarchs since its independence. 

BjornSocialist Republic

Location: Sweden
Founded: 2005
Ruler: President Oskar Augustsson
Estimated Population: Usually Zero.
Estimated Size: Six square meters.
About: Located on a stone that "looks like a tractor," this tiny socialist state near the Bos Islands doesn't recognize Swedish laws and has its own hymn. It made the news when Sweden refused to recognize a marriage between two citizens that allegedly took place on the tiny rock. It claims to be the smallest republic in the world. 

Principality of Filettino

Location: ItalyFounded: 2011
Ruler: Luca Sellari
Estimated Population: 550
Estimated Size: 30 square miles
About: Demonstrating its frustration with Italy's economy and austerity measures, this village decided to break away from th Italian government in August this year. The village intended to invite Prince Emmanuel Filiberto from the deposed Italian royal family to be Prince of their principality.

See the others at Business Insider. And don't forget to renew your passport for Sealand!

A lesson for analysts

From the December 15th edition of Nightwatch, one of the best sources on current events:

NightWatchFor the night of 15 December 2011 

Administrative note: NightWatch will not be published this night in honor of the official end of the US intervention in Iraq. Now Iraq can rediscover a new Arab normality and identity. 

Lesson for new analysts: Whenever a senior official of any government feels the need to assert in public that a nine-year military commitment was worth it, that assessment obviously is not self-evident.

I have nothing to add.

Comparative politics

Kim Jong Il is dead.  He was a treacherous little monster, and he left a pathetic little empire.  Vaclav Havel is also dead, a man described by James Fallows as one who "helped make the world more decent and promising, through his combination of literary skill, civic responsibility, and deep humaneness."


Guess which one got the most attention in the press?  Guess which one had more tears--real or otherwise--shed for his passing?

“It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved. ”
   --Nicolo Machiavelli

It was a matter of time

Mubarak is out because he had outlived his usefulness to the military, and now more of the Egyptian people are realizing it. The big question: will the military find enough common ground with the Islamists to keep control of the sectors each cares about the most?

Well, *that* didn't take long...

One day after the US forces officially leave Iraq,

Nuri al-Maliki plunged Iraq into political turmoi by ordering the arrest of Tareq al-Hashemi, his respected Sunni vice president, on terrorism charges.

Further escalating tensions, he also asked parliament to hold a no-confidence vote to allow him to dismiss Saleh al-Mutlak, the Sunni deputy prime minister, who angered Mr Maliki by describing him as a "dictator" during a television interview last week.

Mr Hashemi was briefly detained after being escorted of a plane at Baghdad's airport, where he was attempting to catch a flight to the Kurdish city of Irbil, prompting speculation that he was attempting to flee.

Although Mr Hashemi was released, three of his bodyguards were arrested for "suspected terrorist activity". Following frantic negotiations brokered by the United States and Kurdish political leaders, Mr Maliki was said to have agreed not to implement the arrest warrant for now. 

But last night, judges barred Mr Hashemi from travelling overseas shortly before the arrest warrant was formally issued. Tanks were also deployed outside his home, as well as outside the houses of Mr Mutlak and a third senior Sunni politician.

It's not unexpected, but you'd hope he'd at least have the courtesy to not immediately embarass President Obama.  I suppose nobody wants to late to the Civil War.

The "complex"

Some people hate and distrust "big business."  Some people hate and distrust "big government."  And so often they argue with one another: Tea-Party versus Occupy, if you were.  Yet when you get down to details it doesn't really make sense to fight about.  Big business or bid government, it's often the same people.  A case in point:

So what are we arguing about?

It's a wonder anyone ever trusts eyewitness testimony

Just follow the instructions.  How did you do?

A few "secrets"

This is stuff I've already seen in the public domain, but the article at Danger Room does a good job of summing up some of the "secret" military and intelligence programs most people don't hear about.

I gotta wonder what hasn't been revealed (yet).

The war on poverty is over. Poverty won.

I don't know whether to trust all these statistics.  But they do seem to coincide with what I see when I monitor the current situation.  The guy who compiled them blames the Federal Reserve for all the problems, despite the fact that we also had a Fed through the post-war boom, etc.  It's part of what has been going on, but only part.  Nevertheless, here's some statistics:

• #1 A staggering 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be "low income" or are living in poverty.
• #2 Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be "low income" or impoverished.
• #3 If the number of Americans that "wanted jobs" was the same today as it was back in 2007, the "official" unemployment rate put out by the U.S. government would be up to 11 percent.
• #4 The average amount of time that a worker stays unemployed in the United States is now over 40 weeks.
• #5 One recent survey found that 77 percent of all U.S. small businesses do not plan to hire any more workers.
• #6 There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States today than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million extra people to the population since then.
• #7 Since December 2007, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% once you account for inflation.
• #8 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.6 million Americans were self-employed back in December 2006.  Today, that number has shrunk to 14.5 million.
• #9 A Gallup poll from earlier this year found that approximately one out of every five Americans that do have a job consider themselves to be underemployed.
• #10 According to author Paul Osterman, about 20 percent of all U.S. adults are currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages.
• #11 Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs.  Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.
• #12 Back in 1969, 95 percent of all men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job.  In July, only 81.2 percent of men in that age group had a job.
• #13 One recent survey found that one out of every three Americans would not be able to make a mortgage or rent payment next month if they suddenly lost their current job.
• #14 The Federal Reserve recently announced that the total net worth of U.S. households declined by 4.1 percent in the 3rd quarter of 2011 alone.
• #15 According to a recent study conducted by the BlackRock Investment Institute, the ratio of household debt to personal income in the United States is now 154 percent.
• #16 As the economy has slowed down, so has the number of marriages.  According to a Pew Research Center analysis, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married.  Back in 1960, 72 percentof all U.S. adults were married.
• #17 The U.S. Postal Service has lost more than 5 billion dollars over the past year.
• #18 In Stockton, California home prices have declined 64 percent from where they were at when the housing market peaked.
• #19 Nevada has had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation for 59 monthsin a row.
• #20 If you can believe it, the median price of a home in Detroit is now just $6000.
• #21 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida are sitting vacant.  That figure is 63 percent larger than it was just ten years ago.
• #22 New home construction in the United States is on pace to set a brand new all-time record low in 2011.
• #23 As I have written about previously, 19 percent of all American men between the ages of 25 and 34 are now living with their parents.
• #24 Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.
• #25 According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980.  Today they account for approximately 16.3%.
• #26 One study found that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.
• #27 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.
• #28 The United States spends about 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States.
• #29 It is being projected that the U.S. trade deficit for 2011 will be 558.2 billion dollars.
• #30 The retirement crisis in the United States just continues to get worse.  According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 46 percent of all American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, and 29 percent of all American workers have less than $1,000 saved for retirement.
• #31 Today, one out of every six elderly Americans lives below the federal poverty line.
• #32 According to a study that was just released, CEO pay at America's biggest companies rose by 36.5% in just one recent 12 month period.
• #33 Today, the "too big to fail" banks are larger than ever.  The total assets of the six largest U.S. banks increased by 39 percent between September 30, 2006 and September 30, 2011.
• #34 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a net worth that is roughly equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans combined.
• #35 According to an analysis of Census Bureau data done by the Pew Research Center, the median net worth for households led by someone 65 years of age or older is 47 times greater than the median net worth for households led by someone under the age of 35.
• #36 If you can believe it, 37 percent of all U.S. households that are led by someone under the age of 35 have a net worth of zero or less than zero.
• #37 A higher percentage of Americans is living in extreme poverty (6.7%) than has ever been measured before.
• #38 Child homelessness in the United States is now 33 percent higher than it was back in 2007.
• #39 Since 2007, the number of children living in poverty in the state of California has increased by 30 percent.
• #40 Sadly, child poverty is absolutely exploding all over America.  According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 36.4% of all children that live in Philadelphia are living in poverty, 40.1% of all children that live in Atlanta are living in poverty, 52.6% of all children that live in Cleveland are living in poverty and 53.6% of all children that live in Detroit are living in poverty.
• #41 Today, one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps and one out of every four American children is on food stamps.
• #42 In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7% of all income.  Today, government transfer payments account for more than 18 percent of all income.
• #43 A staggering 48.5% of all Americans live in a household that receives some form of government benefits.  Back in 1983, that number was below 30 percent.
• #44 Right now, spending by the federal government accounts for about 24 percent of GDP.  Back in 2001, it accounted for just 18 percent.
• #45 For fiscal year 2011, the U.S. federal government had a budget deficit ofnearly 1.3 trillion dollars.  That was the third year in a row that our budget deficit has topped one trillion dollars.
• #46 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for about 15 days.
• #47 Amazingly, the U.S. government has now accumulated a total debt of 15 trillion dollars.  When Barack Obama first took office the national debt was just 10.6 trillion dollars.
• #48 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.
• #49 The U.S. national debt has been increasing by an average of more than 4 billion dollars per day since the beginning of the Obama administration.
• #50 During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that Bill Clinton took office.

Check out the ones you doubt.  Let me know if any are misrepresentations.  At first glance, it looks like things are worse than most people (especially government) would like to admit.