A fiesta boxing match in Hilongos, Leyte, Phillipines was interrupted by an IED which killed 10 and injured more than 20 attendees.
Author Archives: Aaron 'BingoBoingo' Rogier
Bitcoin Network Difficulty Continues Climb Rising ~2.43 Percent For Yet Another All Time High
The Bitcoin network mining difficulty rose from 310153855703.43334961 to 317688400354.03375244 in a modest increase of approximately 2.43 percent. While less impressive than last period's ~8.16 percent jump this adjustment, being an increase, brings yet another all time high mining difficulty. This is accompanied by continued upwards noise on fiat/Bitcoin interfaces.
Monetary Printing Press Hot Again: USDA No Rejection Farm Loans And Unlimited Lending Authority To Run Through April 28th 2017
A totally no good year for farmers that only got worse as the months marched on has been capped with unprecedented new monetary powers for the United States Department of Agriculture. In what the mainstream media is calling a "temporary budget fix" the USDA Farm Services Division has been granted the authority to lend without limit through April 28th with the further stipulation that it can not reject any "qualifying" loan applications.1
This degree of fiat printing largess is typically reserved for the salvation of favored "banks" and "contractors" represents another sector of United States policy being blown up and destabilized on the road to the unpresidenting of Hussein Bahamas.
The extent to which US farmers who are accustomed to subsisting on "operational loans" will milk this opportunity for excess is uncertain, but an orgy of capital purchases2 and further investments in offensive cultivation practices.
With interest rate increases expected through the rest of Yellen's term as Federal Reserve chair, sorry for your loss.
The pretense behind this is the authority is "secured" against "future funding" and how this is interpreted by the incoming administration remains to be seen. ↩
Deere and Company stock is trading within a dollar of its 52 week high at the time of this writing even as the economic fortunes of its customers have declined over these past 52 weeks. ↩
92 Presumed Dead As Russian Passenger Plane Headed To Syria Crashes
A Russian passenger plane reportedly crashed over the Black Sea after refueling near Sochi en route to Syria for a Christmas celebration serving deployed troops (archived). Among the victims are Alexandrov Ensemble, the premier choir of the Russian armed services and humanitarian activist Elizaveta Glinka. Pieces of the Tu-154B-21 are being found ~1.5km out from the Black Sea coast at a depth of 50-70 meters. President Vladimir Putin has declared December 26th as a national day of mourning.
Registration number RA-85572 and entry to service in 1983 ↩
Grinch Netanyahu Deliver Christmas Scolding To Ambassadors
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summoned the ambassadors from all of the United Nations Security Council members in his country to scold them for passing a resolution which condemned Israeli home building practices. Earlier this week the UN Security Council voted 14-0 to condemn the Israeli practice of locating new residential developments inside contested areas within Israel's borders.
Normally such a resolution would have been blocked by the United States voting no, but Hussein Bahamas instead decided to having his representative simply not vote at all as he attempts to create the largest possible mess for his successor to inherit. What was good United States foreign policy the first 95 months of the Hussein Bahamas administration apparently stopped being good US foreign policy the 96th month.
And so on Christmas day the Prime Minister of the Jews harangued 111 ambassadors to his country because Hussein Bahamas suddenly decided to care where homes are built.
Four potential scoldings were avoided due to the countries holding Security Council seats while abstaining from diplomatic relations with Israel. ↩
US Leftists Begin Collecting Arms
According to the BBC a wider variety of leftists in the United States are beginning to stockpile weapons. Traditionally only a subset of black American leftists stockpiled arms, but according to the British government's media arm the focus of this growth is among Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered, and otherwise Queer leftists who are forming their own gun clubs. Per the BBC's Brian Wheeler (archived):
But since the election of Donald Trump in November she has started going to a gun range for the first time and is shopping around for a semi-automatic pistol.
"It's been seeing the way that Trump's election has mobilised a lot of the far right and given them hope," she says, citing a rise in reports of hate crimes and neo-Nazi activity.
As a transgender woman, she does not fear for her personal safety in the Californian city where she now lives but she says she knows people in rural areas "who woke up and found a bunch of swastikas and words like 'faggot' and 'trannie' scrawled all over their building".
She foresees a wide-ranging struggle between the Trump administration and the left over issues such as immigration and racial politics.
But won't buying a gun just increase tensions?
"Things are already escalating and they will continue to do so and me not engaging or being prepared to defend my friends by force… isn't going to stop people from being attacked or harassed," Clara says.
Praxair Buying Linde, Renaming Self Linde In Industrial Gas Consolidation
US based Praxair1 is buying German firm Linde in a move that stands to substantially consolidate ownership of world industrial gases production. In a most unfair merger Praxair will be ceding to Linde half of the seats on the merged board, nearly half of the conjoined equity, and taking Linde's name after consummating this marriage. As is traditional in rushed elopements the combined headquarters will be in neither the US nor Germany, but in a third "neutral" Eurozone country.2 The cherry top is an anticipated 25 euros of value created for current Linde shareholders through synergies and a mere 17 United States dollar of synergies for Praxair holders. Praxair CEO Steve Angel however will remain CEO of the new Praxair which calls itself Linde. It's almost as if Monsanto had bought Bayer this time!
Of who could have predicted pressurized cylinders would heat to failure on hot asphalt fame. (archived) ↩
Provided there is still a Eurozone by the time regulators get a say. This is a fiat marriage after all. ↩
US Steel Refocuses In Anticipation Of Great Again
US Steel this week announced it would be restarting its hot strip mills in Gary, Indiana and Granite City, Illinois at far less than full capacity while further announcing it would be "permanently"1 shuttering its tubular products operations in Lorain, Ohio and Lone Star, Texas. The mixed messages seem to result from an anticipated increase in demand for domestic steel in the US sufficient to start warming up the machinery as a result of Trumpreich trade policies, though the shifting policies are not anticipated to be enough to justify making finished pipe while oil prices continue to sit in the shitter.
For a peculiar definition of "permanently" used in US Steel's contract with the United Steelworkers. ↩
Coinbase Login Woes Rumored As Price Reported By fiat/Bitcoin Interfaces Moves
As the price reported by fiat/Bitcoin interfaces has begun a steep climb self described Coinbase users are reporting issues logging into their accounts on the platform. There is a healthy spread of nearly 30 United States dollars per Bitcoin across fiat/Bitcoin interfaces with BTCChina leading the upward movement and reporting ~860 United States dollars per Bitcoin. Sorry for your loss.
Swedish Policy Update: "White Power" Causes Islamic Extremism
According to Sweden's new anti-extremism czar Anna Carlstedt, much of the growing Islamic extremism in their country is driven by "the extreme right-wing white power movement". Sweden lead Europe in the export of aspiring Jihadists reporting to the Middle East for internship training in the practice of Jihad. Per Carlstedt this export is substantially fed by ethnic Swedes dissatisfied by the socialist regime and its policies rather than anything to do with the aspiring Jihadis and their motivations.