Friday A/V Club: Too Hot for Sesame Street

Fun fact: There are college graduates who are younger than Elmo.Monday marked the 45th
anniversary of the first Sesame Street, and sites
across the Internet have been honoring the occasion all week. (I
especially enjoyed The Onion‘s
tribute.) Back when the show was turning 40, I pointed
out one of the reasons it had been so successful:

When the program’s entertainers were at odds with its social
engineers, the entertainers frequently won. If Sesame
Street‘s board of academic advisers had its way, the
show’s people and puppets wouldn’t have interacted at all. (It was
inappropriate, they felt, to mix fantasy and reality.) For its
first two decades on the air, writers and performers were usually
free to follow their creative instincts…

But not always. Whether they were pulling Roosevelt
Franklin from the show for fear that he was too much of a
stereotype or ending the
grown-ups-don’t-believe-in-Mr.-Snuffleupagus gag because for fear
it would discourage kids from revealing they’d been molested, the
writers did periodically bow to pressure. The biggest loss may have
been Don Music, a songwriting Muppet who starred in several funny
sketches with Kermit the Frog. Those ended when the producers heard
some kids had copied his habit of frustratedly banging his head on
the piano.

Fortunately, they’ve been preserved online. Here’s Don Music,
the Muppet too hot for Sesame Street, writing “Twinkle
Twinkle” with the assistance of a frog:

There’s also the program’s infamous unaired episode, “Snuffy’s
Parents Get a Divorce”—but given how the test
audience reacted
to that one, it’s probably for the best that it never was
transmitted.

(For past editions of the Friday A/V Club, go here.)

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ISIS Unveils Its New Gold-Backed Currency To Remove Itself From “The Oppressors’ Money System”

It appears the rumors are true. Islamic State is set to become the only ‘state’ to back its currency with gold (silver and copper) as it unveils the new coins that will be used in an attempt to solidify its makeshift caliphate. ISIS says the new currency will take the group  out of “the oppressors’ money system.”

 

 

As Zaid Benjamin notes, ISIS releases details of its new currancy with golden 1 & 5 dinar, silver 1, 5, 10 dirham and copper 10 & 20 fils

*  *  *

It seems Alan Greenspan may have been on to something after all…

“Remember
what we’re looking at. Gold is a currency. It is still, by all
evidence, a premier currency. No fiat currency, including the dollar,
can match it.”

*  *  *

Of course this will mean more physical demand – along with Russia and China – and so more price suppression by the West.




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Obama Conspires to Keep States Hooked on Common Core Years After He Leaves Office

ObamaJust days after
I suggested that the best way to stop Common Core was for
Congressional Republicans to prohibit federal education waivers,
the Obama administration has
invited states to renew their current waivers through the
2018-2019 school year. In effect, this is a not-so-subtle attempt
to keep states hooked on Common Core for years after President
Obama leaves office.

As I explained previously, the federal government was never
supposed to have anything to do with Common Core, the national
education curriculum standards devised by the National Governors
Association. But Obama, who likes having his hands in everything
and isn’t so hot on federalism, instructed his Department of
Education to incentivize states to adopt the standards. These
incentives took the form of federal grant money through the Race to
the Top initiative and regulatory waivers that exempted
Core-compliant states from burdensome No Child Left Behind Act
requirements. More than 40 states received waivers at some
point.

Increasing numbers of parents, teachers, students, and local
activists of the left, right, and center all despise Common Core
and the disruption it has created in classrooms. But state
legislatures have every reason to keep the standards—if they don’t,
their states will no longer be considered committed to the goal of
“college-and-career-ready standards,” and punitive NCLB
requirements will kick in.

Now that Republican foes of Common Core have power in U.S.
Congress, they should abolish the waivers and take Obama out of the
game. It’s a move that even Common Core’s supports are okay
with.

DOE’s latest announcement that it would like states to renew
their waivers should serve as a good reminder of why it is so
critical for Republicans to strip the executive branch of this
power. Otherwise, Obama could dupe the states into codifying his
misguided education policies far beyond the end of his second
term.

More from Reason on Common Core here.

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‘Gold Wars’ – Swiss Gold Shenanigans As Russia Stockpiles Gold For War

‘Gold Wars’ – Swiss Gold Shenanigans As Russia Stockpiles Gold For War 

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,154.00, EUR 926.31 and GBP 736.20 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,161.00, EUR 930.81 and GBP 736.26  per ounce.

Gold climbed $1.70 or 0.15% to $1,161.80/oz yesterday. Silver fell $0.06 or 0.38% to $15.61/oz.

Gold
for immediate delivery lost 0.8% to $1,153.50/oz in late morning trade
in London. It reached $1,132.16 last Friday, November 7, the lowest
since April 2010.

Gold, for the moment, is taking its signal and
remaining weak due to the resurgent dollar and buoyant and bubbling
stock markets (see chart below).


S&P 500 – 20 Years (Thomson Reuters)

There
are lots of important economic data points in the coming week including
US October industrial output, US PPI & CPI, Germany ZEW and China
HSBC Flash November Mfg PMI.

Negative numbers, particularly weak
industrial output and higher than expected inflation would likely see
gold supported and could even see a safe haven bid and short covering
rally.

More dovish than expected FOMC Minutes could also support
gold. Hawkish minutes could lead to further weakness and gold testing
the next level of support at $1,100/oz.


Gold in U.S. Dollars – 10 Years (Thomson Reuters)

Gold
remains very vulnerable and further declines to $1,000/oz are quite
possible. Though the momentum of the selling seems to have abated
somewhat, momentum is a powerful thing and the short term trend remains
down.

Three important factors which should support gold above
$1,100/oz are Chinese demand, central bank demand including from Russia
and of course the Swiss Gold Referendum.

Chinese SGE Gold withdrawals for the week were at 54.19 tonnes suggesting Chinese gold demand is more robust than thought.


Chinese SGE Weekly Gold Withdrawals at 54.19 tonnes

Questions are being asked about whether Chinese demand has actually fallen as the WGC suggest.

They
appear to be only viewing Chinese demand through the rather narrow
prism of Hong Kong exports to China. However, today China is importing
huge volumes of gold bullion from all over the world and therefore
deliveries on the Shanghai Gold Exchange are a much better benchmark of
real Chinese demand.


Silver in U.S. Dollars – 10 Years (Thomson Reuters)Russia,
according to the latest data from The World Gold Council (WGC) has
continued to buy significant amounts of gold. Dwarfing the rest of the
world’s buying in Q3, Russia added a large 55 tonnes to its reserves.

The Telegraph
reports that Putin is taking advantage of lower gold prices to pack the
vaults of Russia’s central bank with bullion as it prepares for the
possibility of a long, drawn-out economic war with the West.


Russia bought more gold in Q3 then all other countries combined…

It
is not just Russia buying gold. So too are ex Soviet States which are
aligned with Russia. Meanwhile, the People’s Bank of China quietly
continues to stealth diversify its reserves into gold.

The Swiss
gold referendum is in just 16 days and volatility is likely to pick up
ahead of the big vote.  A ‘no’ vote is still more likely than a ‘yes’
vote but the results will likely be very close.

There is much
dissatisfaction with politicians amongst voters in the western world.
Indeed, there is a distrust of banks and bankers. The Swiss people are
stubbornly independent and quite contrarian by nature. Also there is the
important fact that there is a another vote on the same day about
immigration in Switzerland and this is likely to bring out more
conservative voters who may vote for the Swiss Gold Initiative.

All in all it promises to very interesting and very close and should result in volatility in the gold market.

Should
there be a sense that the yes side may win then we would expect gold to
recover from its recent bout weakness and test $1,200/oz again.   

We remain bearish in the short term but very bullish for 2015 and in the coming years.

Read Essential Guide to Gold Storage in Switzerland

www.GoldCore.com




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UMich Consumer Confidence Jumps To 7-Year Highs As Inflation Expectations Plunge To 12-Year Lows

Last month’s 7-year high UMich consumer confidence came amid an Ebola scare and collapsing stock market…with surveyers actually noting their own surprise, “it would be surprising if recent declines in household wealth did not
reverse some of the recent gains in optimism in the months ahead.” So when November’s preliminary print hit 89.4 – smashing expectations of 87.5 – to its highest since July 2007. For the first time since Dec 2011, UMich has risen 4 months in a row. The main driver of the exuberance is ‘current conditions’ which surged to 103 – the highest since Jul 2007 as the outlook barely budged. However, despite Bullard’s comments about a rebound in inflation expectations, with 5Y expectations collapsing to the equal lowest since Sept 2002.

 

 

But inflation expectations collapsed…

 

Charts: Bloomberg




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The White House Reveals Its “New Strategy” To Fight ISIS

Rumors that the US is rapidly losing its drone and “military advisor”-based war against ISIS (and expensive oil) may not be greatly exagerated, but it doesn’t mean the US is out of ideas. Here is the White House’s latest “strategy pivot.”

h/t @KarlreMarks and @rConflictNews




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Bullard Observes The Market Rebounded On His “QE4” Comment

Isn’t it amazing what 2000 Dow points will do to a Federal Reserve member’s perspective of ‘the economy’ and ‘inflation expectations’. Bullard is back again today:

  • *BULLARD: INFLATION EXPECTATIONS REBOUNDED SINCE MID-OCTOBER
  • *BULLARD: FED TO RAISE RATES IN 2015, TIMING DETERMINED BY DATA

So basically calling off QE4 until the next 9.9% correction… Dow-Data-Dependent indeed

 

If by ‘inflation expectations’ he means the Dow Jones Industrial Average….

 

Because it appears inflation expectations didn’t “rise” too much…

 

 

Meanwhile, here are St Louis Fed “research” officials hard at work maintaing the narrative:




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This Is How Greece Celebrates “Exiting” Its Historic Recession

Greece – it would appear by this morning’s GDP print – is now the engine of growth for Europe. Despite near-record unemployment, record suicides and poverty, and an increasing number of Greeks doing unpaid work (or in slavery), GDP rose at the fastest rate across the EU… However, it appears, judging by the protests across Athens today, the people did not get the message that the crisis is over… as police resort to tear gas and stun guns.

 

 

As The Guardian reports,

The news that Greece has left recession comes as the country is gripped by scenes of protesting students.

 

Our Athens correspondent, Helena Smith, explains:

 

Tensions are very much on rise after overnight riots outside Athens Polytechnic (where the 1973 student uprising set in motion the events that lead to the fall of Greece’s hated military regime) and a student take-over this morning of Thessaloniki University.

 

As I write, students are marching through Athens.

 

Protestors are up in arms over government’s controversial decision to implement a lock-out at all tertiary education institutions in run-up to the anniversary this Monday. Usually, university students have used the three-day period set aside for commemorations to stage sit-ins (that are themselves often marked by clashes between left and right wing students).

 

Tensions have been fueled by anger over tuition costs & other international-mandated educational cuts – and they show no sign of abating ahead of Monday’s anniversary.

 

Videos have been released that also depict riot police using excessive force to remove protestors from scene of Polytechnic last night. Riot police resorted to using tear gas and stun guns to remove students from sight – without giving them any prior warning that they should get out of the way! Outside Athens University’s law School tensions are also high today.

*  *  *




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Cops Called Because Kids Brought Confetti Guns on School Bus

ConfettiA bus driver in Flagler County, Florida called
the cops on two students who brought a very colorful, non-dangerous
kind of toy gun onto the bus: a confetti gun.

This kind of weaponry delivers a payload of brightly colored
paper and makes a pleasant popping sound when fired.

Administrators at Buddy Taylor Middle School praised the driver
for calling the cops when he heard the noise—which he immediately
recognized as not belonging to a real gun—because it’s always
better to be safe than sorry. According to
myfoxorlando.com:

Once he heard the pop, even though it may be wasn’t exactly the
sound of a gun he just wanted to be precautionary and so he called
for backup,” Townsend said. “He did the right thing.”

Flagler County deputies quickly established there was no threat
on the bus and the students from Buddy Taylor Middle School
continued on the route to the school. Fox 35 showed parents
a picture of the party favor, which the district
considers a toy gun.

It’s not clear whether the kids received any formal punishment,
but the district believes it would be well within its rights to
punish them, since real weapons, look-alike weapons, and even
imaginary weapons are all strictly prohibited under the insanity of
zero tolerance.

At least the kids never got a chance to shoot up the school—with
merriment.

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Viral Video of Harassed Drunk Girl Was Totally Fake—Can We Stop Now?

ViralYou may have watched this viral video
featuring a young actress roaming the streets of Los Angeles
pretending to be drunk and getting aggressively hit on by male
strangers eager to take advantage of her. Based on this, you may
have concluded that the world is a sad, fundamentally unsafe place
for women.

You were duped! The video is fake. The scenario was staged; the
men were told by the video’s producers to behave that way,
according to
LA Weekly.

Of course it’s true that some men do treat women unkindly, or
are rude to them in public, or are even willing to harm them. In
the same vein, Hollaback!’s viral street harassment video
demonstrated that some men say creepy things to complete strangers
on the streets of New York City.

But
we should be more careful about interpreting every anecdotal
story of someone being mean to someone else as cause for necessary
and immediate action to prevent a widespread social ill. Sober
statistical analysis is the best vehicle for attacking big
problems, not shock and awe. For instance, even though these videos
seem to portray an America that is very much a sexually hostile
place for women everywhere, rape has actually decreased by more
than 50 percent in recent years,
according to RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National
Network).

It’s important not to exaggerate our problems—or become
convinced that our problems
require draconian solutions—because of false—or in this case,
staged—observations.

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