DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

We have seen the future, and it sucks.

Archive for October, 2016

Yet Another Hiatus

31st October 2016

Yet more eye surgery. Look up macular hole and vitrectomy and despair….

Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | 3 Comments »

NYU Prof Ousted for Anti-PC Twitter Campaign

31st October 2016

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“My contention is that this particular social-justice-warrior-left is producing the alt-right by virtue of its insanity. And because it’s doing all these things that manifest to the world, the alt-right is just eating this stuff alive,” Rectenwald told the Washington Square News last Monday.  “That’s why I adopted Nietzsche as the icon for the @antipcnyuprof and that’s why I said ‘anti-pc.’ Frankly, I’m not really anti-pc. My contention is that the trigger warning, safe spaces and bias hotline reporting is not politically correct. It is insane. This stuff is producing a culture of hyper-vigilance, self-surveillance and panopticism.”

The paper published his critics’ response on Wednesday from a group of students and professors, including two deans, calling themselves the “Liberal Studies Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Working Group.”

Can’t get much more PC than that. Do you suppose they have a Naming Standards document, like some programming shops do?

“As long as he airs his views with so little appeal to evidence and civility, we must find him guilty of illogic and incivility in a community that predicates its work in great part on rational thought and the civil exchange of ideas.”

And, of course, ‘illogic and incivility’ are hanging offenses. Never mind that illogic and incivility are the hallmarks of the hillbullies and their ilk.

Upon publication of the letter Rectenwald was summoned to a meeting with school officials. The confab was like the Salem Witch trials, he recalled. “They claimed they were worried about me and a couple people had expressed concern about my mental health.”

NYU spokesman Matt Nagel denied the suspension was related to his Twitter account but refused to give an alternative explanation.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on NYU Prof Ousted for Anti-PC Twitter Campaign

Nashville Family Sues Amazon After Hoverboard Fire Destroys House

30th October 2016

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If you live in a million-dollar-house, of course you sue Amazon, no matter what happens.

Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Nashville Family Sues Amazon After Hoverboard Fire Destroys House

Resignation Letters Piling Up From Disaffected FBI Agents, His Wife Urging Him to Admit He Was Wrong: Why Director Comey Jumped at the Chance to Reopen Hillary Investigation

30th October 2016

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As usual, the British press has better quality coverage of this stuff than the American Drive-By Media.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Resignation Letters Piling Up From Disaffected FBI Agents, His Wife Urging Him to Admit He Was Wrong: Why Director Comey Jumped at the Chance to Reopen Hillary Investigation

Disposable Friendships in a Mobile World

30th October 2016

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When the Jewish German psychologist Kurt Lewin fled Nazi rule and moved to the United States in 1933, he, like many immigrants, found his new home a little puzzling. Especially when it came to friendships.

“Compared with Germans, Americans seem to make quicker progress toward friendly relations early in the acquaintance process and with many more persons,” he wrote in his 1936 paper “Some Social-Psychological Differences Between the United States and Germany.” “Yet this development often stops at a certain point and the quickly acquired friends will, after years of relatively close relations, say good bye as easily as after a few weeks of acquaintance.”

Lewin thought that this idea of friends as fast fashion—easily acquired, emotionlessly discarded when worn out—might be spurred by the United States’s high level of residential mobility. American society was mobile in his day and has only gotten more mobile since. People can move from sea to shining sea, dropping things as they go.

For really disposable friendships, see the previous post about dissolving corpses.

Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Disposable Friendships in a Mobile World

Dissolving the Dead

30th October 2016

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Ever since 1942, people have been looking for an efficient way to get rid of dead bodies.

There isn’t quite an app for that yet, but they’re getting close.

Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Dissolving the Dead

Thought for the Day

29th October 2016

putin-influence

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USEFUL STUFF SATURDAY

29th October 2016

SkunkLock.

Aluminet shade cloth.

Biem butter sprayer.

Navdy head-up car display.

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Paging Joe Klein

29th October 2016

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Everyone’s running out of cliches to describe how the news that the FBI is reopening its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails may affect the last 10 days of the campaign. The fact that it involves emails found on the smart phone of dumb guy Anthony Weiner is just a bonus. As of this afternoon, this crazy election cycle has gone from a reality TV show to a Joe Klein roman a clef novel that no one would believe. Like the Bill Clinton scandals of the 1990s, if you walked into a Hollywood studio pitching this plot, they’d throw you out the door.

Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | Comments Off on Paging Joe Klein

Dem Group Files Complaint Against FBI For Interfering With Election

28th October 2016

Read it.

You knew it had to happen.

Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Dem Group Files Complaint Against FBI For Interfering With Election

Man Leading Police on Car Chase Stops at In-N-Out for Food

28th October 2016

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A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

Judging by his tats he’s been down this road before.

Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | Comments Off on Man Leading Police on Car Chase Stops at In-N-Out for Food

Culture-Enrichers Demand Armani

28th October 2016

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Migrants domiciled at a three-star hotel in Italy at taxpayers’ expense are unhappy with their clothing and shoes. They demand that the authorities help them upgrade their sartorial gear to more prestigious brands.

Posted in Living with Islam. | 1 Comment »

Nightmare In Deep Ellum: How Pension Obligation Bonds Ruined Dallas Employees’ Retirement Dreams

28th October 2016

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Like the victims in any good horror film, officials in Dallas, Texas, find themselves in a situtation that was entirely avoidable—if only they’d realized it before it was too late.

In 2005, Dallas issued a $500 million bond that was supposed to plug the leaks in its police and fire pension system.

Now, just more than a decade later, the city is scrambling to prevent a “run on the bank” that’s threatening to bankrupt the pension system before 2028. By one count, more than $200 million was withdrawn from the system in less than six weeks as Dallas’ police and firefighters are making a run for it—yanking their investments out of the system that’s teetering on the edge of collapse.

As with all big cities in Texas, Dallas is (and always has been) run by Democrats.

Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Nightmare In Deep Ellum: How Pension Obligation Bonds Ruined Dallas Employees’ Retirement Dreams

Army Rescues ‘Fat-Ass’ Raccoon Stuck Upside-Down in Tank

28th October 2016

Read it. And by all means watch the video.

A rotund raccoon’s curiosity got the better of him after he got stuck head first in an Army tank, a YouTube video posted Thursday shows.

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Sailor Petition Forces White House Review of Navy’s Unpopular Ratings Elimination

28th October 2016

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I predict that Obama’s response will be ‘Suck it’.

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Esquire Editor Condemns Celebs Silent on Trump

28th October 2016

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Esquire magazine’s resident Chekist, Matt Miller, whose official job title is Associate Culture Editor, is now engaged in a culture war against celebrities whose high crime is that they haven’t joined in the liberal hate fest against Donald Trump by openly denouncing him. Not only does he condemn them generally but Miller goes so far as to list their names along with their social media following.

It doesn’t matter if these celebrities are silent even though they really support Hillary or they are just apolitical or if they secretly support Trump but don’t want to alienate a portion of their fan base. To Miller it is an outright Thought Crime if they don’t loudly become as openly psychotic over Trump as he is.

Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Esquire Editor Condemns Celebs Silent on Trump

ISLAMOCOPIA FRIDAY: What’s New in the Religion of Peace

28th October 2016

Isis slaughtered at least 232 civilians near Mosul last week, UN says

Saudi Arabia accuses Yemen’s Houthi rebels of firing missile towards Mecca

Syrian refugees in Germany find country’s mosques too conservative

France Fears New Migrant ‘Jungle’ Is Already Taking Shape In Calais

Mosul offensive: Up to 900 Isis jihadis killed while more than 11,000 people are displaced in fighting

UN chief demands investigation into Syria ‘war crimes’ as two more schools attacked

Tunisian immigrant facing deportation threat dies after setting himself on fire

At least 90 refugees drown in Mediterranean as boat capsizes off coast of Libya

New branch of Isis seizes its first Somali town as jihadists show signal of intent

Iraqis find bomb factory, tunnels on long road to Mosul

Violent Incitement, Not Grievance, Drives Knife Wielding Palestinian Kids

Syria conflict: Dozens of school children killed in Idlib air strikes

Italian Villagers Barricade Road To Stop Refugees From Entering Their Town

Mosul offensive: Isis fighters ‘shaving off beards’ and preparing escape routes as Iraqi army approaches

Dozens killed by Isis landmines and boobytraps as they try to return home to liberated Syrian town

Top Qu’ran reciter accused of sexually abusing teenage students in first case of its kind case in Iran

ISIS Social Media Campaign Falters Under Military Assault

Obama’s Afghan Strategy Hinges On A Crazy Man With An Army, Threatening Civil War

Taliban insurgents abduct and kill 26 people, Afghan official says

Isis-allied militants abduct and kill 30 civilians in Afghanistan, including children

Suspected Isis recruiters arrested in Ibiza

Refugee women forced out of Italian town after locals block streets  And so the backlash starts….

Saudi groom divorces bride two hours after wedding for posting pictures on Snapchat

‘Sniper of Mosul’ strikes fear in hearts of ISIS fighters

Detainees ‘beaten, sexually abused and threatened with rape’ after Turkey coup, Human Rights Watch claims. My, what a surprise.

Rift between Turkey and Iraq grows as Ankara threatens to put boots on the ground in battle against Isis

Iran jails author for unpublished story on stoning

‘Scores of villagers’ executed by Isis as battle for Mosul intensifies

REPORT: Syrian Refugee Receives Nearly $400,000 In Benefits For His 4 Wives, 23 Children

Antalya explosion: Turkey tourist resort hit by car blast ‘injuring several’

British troops to train Syrian fighters as pressure on Isis grows

Engagement photos of Egyptian children spark outrage

Mosul offensive: Turkey joins battle against Isis despite Iraqi counterclaims

ISIS Burns 6 Men Alive in Bakery, Uses Dough Mixer to Kill 250 Children

U.S.-backed Iraqi forces battle ISIS in western town, far from Mosul

NYT: Global Warming Will Cause More Forced Child Marriages. And if you believe that one, they’ll tell you another one.

Why Sectarian Violence Is Resurging in Pakistan

Refugees Burn Down EU Offices In Protest Over Asylum Wait Times [VIDEO].  Which will only make wait times longer. Very smart.

Yazidis guard ravaged home, ever wary of ISIS’ chemical attacks

At least 59 killed after gunmen storm police training center in Pakistan

Christian Fighters Triumphantly Erect Cross In Liberated Iraqi Town [VIDEO]

France Starts Demolition Of ‘Jungle’ Migrant Camp After Weekend Of Clashes [VIDEO]

Iranian Militias Release Movie-Quality Video, Complete With Jesus Memorabilia To Assuage Concerns Over Extrajudicial Killings.  Uh, yeah.

Intelligence Agents Swarm To Mosul With Expectation Of Massive ISIS Document Trove

Taliban Pulls In Record Profits As Afghanistan Slides To Ruin

Somali pirates’ hostages ‘had to eat rats’ to survive four-year ordeal

Iraq forces hit IS near Mosul; human rights group urges airstrike probe

Calais ‘Jungle’ evacuation begins after clashes with riot police

Turkey’s Ambitious Goals Surrounding the Mosul Operation

Syria: 4 Uncomfortable Truths That Washington Is Ignoring

Mujahideen Are Proliferating at the Roissy Airport

Opium production soaring in Afghanistan as struggle to suppress drug production fails, UN reveals

ISIS Creates Hell On Earth By Setting Oil Fields On FIRE [PHOTOS]

France Deploys 1,000 Officers To Battle Migrants In ‘The Jungle’ [VIDEO]

Muslims stage mass prayer in protest over closure of mosques in Italy.  Of course, they have no problem with closing Christian churches in Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Saudi-led air strikes pound Sanaa once again as Yemen truce expires. Why don’t they just annex that country and get it over with?

Isis launches attack on town in western Iraq in effort to divert attention from Mosul

Photos Of Forced Child Engagement Spark OUTRAGE

Heavy clashes resume as ceasefire ends and Russia steps up battle for Aleppo

Iraq parliament bans alcohol in surprise vote.  Surprise to some, maybe.

Iraqi forces just three miles outside Mosul after dawn offensive on Isis

The ISIS chemical weapons arsenal is weak but instills fear

Migrant foster mum reveals her horror at discovering ’12-year-old refugee’ in her care is actually a 21-year-old Jihadi

Reeling ISIS tricks boys as young as 8 into manning front lines

Somali pirates free 26 hostages held captive for nearly five years

Vehicle-Born IED Destroys Entire Afghan Compound In Seconds [VIDEO]

Mosul offensive: ‘Civilians killed’ by toxic sulphur fumes after Isis sets factory on fire to slow Iraqi advance

Female journalist slapped in face by police officer during television report in Pakistan.  I know the feeling.

UN investigation finds Bashar al-Assad’s regime responsible for third chemical weapons attack in Syria

Belgian shopping centre evacuated after robbery by men armed with Kalashnikovs in Chatelineau

Mosul offensive: Isis abducts 550 families from villages to use as human shields as Iraqi forces continue advance

East Aleppo civilians ‘shot at’ by rebels to prevent them leaving during truce

Syria threatens to shoot down Turkish planes in its airspace after attack on Kurdish bases

Failed Islamist suicide bomber found dead at Strangeways jail

Isis launches ‘distraction’ attack on Iraqi city of Kirkuk as battle for Mosul intensifies

ISIS Executes 284 Civilians in Mosul

ISIS attacks Kirkuk and a power plant amid Mosul fight

Cali Kid Gets 30 Years For Trying To Fund ISIS Trip With Pell Grants

Posted in Living with Islam. | Comments Off on ISLAMOCOPIA FRIDAY: What’s New in the Religion of Peace

Thought for the Day

28th October 2016

There’s an app for that….

Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day

Brickbat: Find Your Own Path

28th October 2016

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In British Columbia, retired road engineer David Pacey has pleaded not guilty to two counts of damaging flora, fauna or a natural object in a national park. Pacey has repaired and cleared of debris some five kilometers of existing trails in Kootenay National Park. He says officials at Parks Canada are just angry with him for doing the job they should be doing.

Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Brickbat: Find Your Own Path

Study: Google Searches Favor Left-Wing Content

28th October 2016

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Many conservatives suspect that Google, along with Facebook and other new media giants, are biased in favor of the left. The suspicion is logical. The class that operates these outlets can be viewed as a younger version of the class that operates the liberal mainstream media. Why expect different from it?

I don’t deal with Facebook, but I use Google for searches. It seems to me that it’s easier to find left-liberal content than conservative content in typical searches.

Now, there’s a study that confirms my impression and links the phenomenon to political bias by Google. The study is by SEO Competitive Analysis company CanIRank.

It finds that top search results are almost 40 percent more likely to contain pages with a “Left” or “Far Left” slant than they are to contain pages from the right. Searchers are 65 percent more likely to encounter liberal search results than conservative search results among the five first returns to their inquiry.

Moreover, 16 percent of political keywords contain no right-leaning pages at all within the first page of results.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | 1 Comment »

Grifters-in-Chief

28th October 2016

Kimberley Strassel pulls no punches.

In an election season that has been full of surprises, let’s hope the electorate understands that there is at least one thing of which it can be certain: A Hillary Clinton presidency will be built, from the ground up, on self-dealing, crony favors, and an utter disregard for the law.

This isn’t a guess. It is spelled out, in black and white, in the latest bombshell revelation from WikiLeaks. It comes in the form of a memo written in 2011 by longtime Clinton errand boy Doug Band, who for years worked simultaneously at the Clinton Foundation and at the head of his lucrative consulting business, Teneo.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Grifters-in-Chief

Civil War on the Left, Part 30

28th October 2016

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Today we get another two-fer: a fresh installment of the Civil War on the Left series, and a Green Weenie Award. Up in Washington state, there’s a revenue-neutral carbon tax initiative on the ballot, which would impose a $15 a ton carbon tax (or about 15 cents per gallon of gas), rising eventually over the years to $100 a ton, or $1 added to the cost of a gallon of gas. To offset this, the initiative proposes to reduce the state’s sales tax and business taxes—just as proponents of a revenue neutral carbon tax, including Al Gore, have long advocated.

So guess who’s against the initiative? Why, environmentalists of course! Why? Because the proposal doesn’t result in a net tax increase or spend new funds for “environmental justice.”

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American Children Are Drowning in Self-Esteem

27th October 2016

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Yet my children’s experience of school in America is in some ways as indifferent as their swimming classes are good, for the country’s elementary schools seem strangely averse to teaching children much stuff. According to the OECD’s latest international education rankings, American children are rated average at reading, below average at science, and poor at maths, at which they rank 27th out of 34 developed countries. At 15, children in Massachusetts, where education standards are higher than in most states, are so far behind their counterparts in Shanghai at maths that it would take them more than two years of regular education to catch up.

This is not for lack of investment. America spends more on educating its children than all but a handful of rich countries. Nor is it due to high levels of inequality: the proportion of American children coming from under-privileged backgrounds is about par for the OECD. A better reason, in my snapshot experience of American schooling, is a frustrating lack of intellectual ambition for children to match the sporting ambition that is so excellently drummed into them in our local swimming pool and elsewhere.

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Farmers Are Using Bees to Spread Nature’s Own Pesticides

27th October 2016

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BVT is among a swell of companies, from startups to the world’s agrochemical giants, trying to bring pesticides derived from natural materials, or biopesticides, to the agricultural mainstream. Biopesticides are growing faster than synthetic pesticides, which make up the bulk of crop protection. Newer materials are making their way through the regulatory pipeline. There are several forces driving this trend. For example, pests and pathogens have grown resistant to many pesticides, while the EPA has phased out older chemistries, due to environmental and health concerns. These concerns have not only increased government regulation and driven up the cost of developing new chemical pesticides, but have also increased demand from consumers for farmers to grow more organic produce.

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Physics Tweak Solves Five of the Biggest Problems in One Go

27th October 2016

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It’s not a bad day at work. Five of the biggest fundamental problems in physics seem sorted in one go. The model that can do this, formulated by Guillermo Ballesteros at the University of Paris-Saclay in France and his colleagues, may explain dark matter, neutrino oscillations, baryogenesis, inflation and the strong CP problem.

Dubbed SMASH, the model is based on the standard model of particle physics, but has a few bits tacked on. The standard model is a collection of particles and forces that describes the building blocks of the universe. Although it has passed every test thrown at it, it can’t explain some phenomena.

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Federal Judge Asks Why Obama Administration Isn’t Admitting Christian Syrian Refugees

27th October 2016

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In an otherwise unremarkable opinion over the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a federal appellate court judge has issued a sharp rejoinder to the Obama administration over an issue that has been discussed in the news–the almost complete lack of Syrian Christian refugees being brought over to the U.S.

Perhaps Obama thinks that we have enough Christians already.

(Really — If Obama actually were a ‘secret Muslim’, what would he be doing differently?)

Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Federal Judge Asks Why Obama Administration Isn’t Admitting Christian Syrian Refugees

Health Law Tax Penalty? I’ll Take It, Millions Say

27th October 2016

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The architects of the Affordable Care Act thought they had a blunt instrument to force people — even young and healthy ones — to buy insurance through the law’s online marketplaces: a tax penalty for those who remain uninsured.

It has not worked all that well, and that is at least partly to blame for soaring premiums next year on some of the health law’s insurance exchanges.

The full weight of the penalty will not be felt until April, when those who have avoided buying insurance will face penalties of around $700 a person or more. But even then that might not be enough: For the young and healthy who are badly needed to make the exchanges work, it is sometimes cheaper to pay the Internal Revenue Service than an insurance company charging large premiums, with huge deductibles.

Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Health Law Tax Penalty? I’ll Take It, Millions Say

Left-Wing Billionaire Rails Against Money in Politics, Quietly Becomes Big Spender in 2016

27th October 2016

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The liberal California billionaire famous for railing against money in politics is slated to become the biggest spender during the 2016 election season.

Former hedge fund manager turned environmentalist Tom Steyer will have spent more than $75 million on this year’s election when all the dust settles. Much of his efforts have gone toward registering millennials to vote, mostly on environmental issues.

It’s other people’s big spending that he objects to, not his own.

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Clinton’s Policy Team Cheered Murder of Black Teen as Chance to Advance Gun Control, WikiLeaks Reveals

27th October 2016

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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How Many Pumpkins Does It Take to Stop a .50 Cal Desert Eagle? [VIDEO]

27th October 2016

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Just because we all need a little break.

Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | 1 Comment »

“Atmospheric Radicalization”: The Latest Climate Catchphrase

27th October 2016

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Original Image: Cloudy Sky

You can’t keep up with the jargon without a program….

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Post-Obamacare, These People Are Leaving Their Jobs

27th October 2016

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Following the public release of rates for health insurance plans under Obamacare for 2017, brokers from around the country began fielding calls from angry clients, many of whom were panicked about the rising cost of their health insurance.

But separate from the worried voices of clients on the other end of the telephone, many brokers themselves are looking toward 2017 with anxiety as health insurers have slashed or eliminated the commissions that helped them make a living.

“It’s gotten more aggressive and competitive with those who are still left because everyone is fighting for survival,” Scott Leavitt, of Scott Leavitt Insurance and Financial Services in Boise, Idaho, and the former president of the National Association of Health Insurance Underwriters, told The Daily Signal.

“The carriers are bleeding, agents are losing commissions, things are tougher than they’ve been before this,” he continued. “[Obamacare] did nothing to keep the cost of health care low.”

Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Post-Obamacare, These People Are Leaving Their Jobs

Wastin’ Away in Shariaville

27th October 2016

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Did you think Islam’s takeover was only for EUrope and Europeans?

The sad reality is it’s coming to the U.S. It’s here. Let’s hear a #HoorahForHillary as she walks on Obama’s heels in Obama’s footsteps toward their mutual goal of making the United States united in sharia. Not for them, of course, but for the little people — the group they most despise — who deserve their historical fate of Submission.

Ann Corcoran is a tireless fighter against this cruel, inhuman tidal wave engulfing the West. Surely all of our readers know her by now? Here is Ann’s latest post, which I call “The Little Town That Could”.

To be honest, it’s not certain that Waterford, Michigan will be permitted to fight back. Certainly the mayor of Manchester New Hampshire learned the hard way how local laws are null and void when the federal behemoth decides they are. So when it comes to taking in “refugees”, there will be no limit, even if it destroys your hometown.

Posted in Living with Islam. | Comments Off on Wastin’ Away in Shariaville

Stop the Cheese Bailouts

27th October 2016

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Hipsters don’t eat American cheese anyway.

Large milk supplies are bringing down the price of milk. As a result, in August, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) purchased $20 million worth of cheese to reduce the cheese supply and drive up allegedly low milk prices. This discretionary authority to make such purchases exists as a result of Section 32 of the Agriculture Act of 1935.

Apparently, the first cheese bailout was insufficient. So earlier this month, the USDA announced it would buy an additional $20 million worth of cheese. This intervention is on top of the already existing federal programs to help dairy producers.

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Please Give Generously

27th October 2016

Posted in Think about it. | 1 Comment »

Social Security’s IOU Trust Fund

27th October 2016

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Social Security faces a $10 trillion funding shortfall. Since 2010, Social Security has been running a constant cash flow deficit, meaning that the taxes collected for the program aren’t enough to cover the benefits paid to beneficiaries. To fill the gap and keep the checks going out, the program has been drawing from federal trust funds. However, the government’s trust funds aren’t like trust funds in the real world. Trust funds in the real world contain assets; the government’s trust funds basically contain IOUs. What that means in simple terms is that the government already has to go further into debt to pay Social Security’s bills—and it’s only going to get worse.

The Social Security system is another example of the government doing something for which a non-government actor would go to jail — it’s basically a state-sanctioned Ponzi scheme.

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Thought for the Day

27th October 2016

Alice Takes On More Work - Dilbert by Scott Adams

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Streicher’s Last Laugh

27th October 2016

David Cole reminds us of some history.

I thought it would be a bigger deal. Last week marked the 70th anniversary, to the day, of the hanging of the Nuremberg trial defendants, and I have to admit, I was expecting to read a lot more about it in the press. After all, with only two weeks to go before an election in which “literally Hitler” is the GOP candidate, I expected the media to use the Nuremberg 70th as an excuse to dredge up fond nostalgic memories of the “noble exercise in justice” (well, I’ll be damned…I typed that line with a straight face) that concluded with ten nasty Nazis dancing at the end of a rope (not counting the one who, in the words of every uninspired narrator to ever give voice to a World War II documentary, “cheated the hangman”).

Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Streicher’s Last Laugh

Debt Without Deficits

27th October 2016

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According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal deficit in 2016 was $590 billion. But the federal debt in 2016 grew by $1.4 trillion. That means the debt grew by about $800 billion more than the deficit. How can that be?

The answer is that Congress uses all kinds of accounting tricks to pretend that money it borrows isn’t part of the deficit. You can read a complete list of those accounting tricks in an article by Dr. Lacy Hunt (you’ll have to get a free subscription to John Mauldin’s newsletter to read the article, which is well worth doing if you are at all interested in macroeconomic issues).

From the Antiplanner’s point of view, the most important accounting trick is that some spending from borrowed money is regarded as “an investment,” and so isn’t counted in the deficit. This includes student loans and highway and transit spending. In 2016, Congress borrowed $70 billion to pay for highways and transit, yet that isn’t included in the $590 billion deficit.

Someone needs to explain to Congress the difference between consumption spending and investments. Investments are supposed to produce a return. Assuming they are repaid, student loans produce a return. But no one expects that highway or transit spending will ever return money to the Treasury.

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Meet Some of Bill Clinton’s Best Ultra-Rich Friends

27th October 2016

Read it. And admire the photos.

Eleven billionaires and millionaires slipped into luxurious seating in the Clinton Foundation’s custom-designed Boeing 757 in the summer of 2014 as they prepared to fly across the Pacific for a five-nation foundation-sponsored trip, details of which were exclusively obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The group — which represented up to $34 million in donations to the foundation — went to India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia “to visit the work of the Clinton Foundation,” according to a July 3, 2014 press advisory.

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‘Republican’ in Hillary Clinton Ad Was Registered Democrat Until 2012

27th October 2016

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And yet Trump is the liar.

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Obamacare Premiums Skyrocket as Insurers Flee the Program

26th October 2016

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Whenever the government gets involved, you can count on two things:

  1. The price will always go up.
  2. The supply will always go down, meaning long lines and eventually a ‘black market’.

Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Obamacare Premiums Skyrocket as Insurers Flee the Program

LASER RAT FENCE Wins €1.7m European Commission Funds

26th October 2016

Read it.

Ours is not the only government that wastes taxpayer money on stuff that is really none of its business.

Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | Comments Off on LASER RAT FENCE Wins €1.7m European Commission Funds

Looking for the Beach Boys

26th October 2016

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The New York Review of Books makes it to the second paragraph before descending into Social Justice Warrior territory:

The story of the Beach Boys is a kind of philosophical problem. Not that they didn’t make some albums still eminently worth hearing, if we go by the unit of the album: Pet Sounds, from 1966, is the prize pony, full of confident hits as well as deep-purple self-absorption (“God Only Knows,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “Caroline, No”). For anyone justifiably wary of the whole idea of the pop masterpiece, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), from 1965, is a great uncool record—cornball, hard-sell with its lists of proper nouns and tour-stop shout-outs (“Amusement Parks U.S.A,” “Salt Lake City,” even “California Girls”), but getting grand-scaled in tone and mass. SMiLE, started in 1966 and not really finished till 2011, is the art-song project, a kind of underground labyrinth of melody, exhaustingly effective in its final form.

But time and social change have been rough on the Beach Boys. Their best-known hits (say, “California Girls,” “Help Me, Rhonda,” “I Get Around”) are poems of unenlightened straight-male privilege, white privilege, beach privilege. It is hard to imagine that they helped anyone toward self-determination or achieving their social rights. Brian Wilson’s great integrative achievement as a songwriter and producer was absorbed in bits and pieces by others—Paul McCartney especially—but it mostly worked for him alone. In their rhythm and humor the Beach Boys sound squarer all the time compared to Motown, the Beatles, and the Stones, and a lot of Phil Spector. Of course, it comes down to individual songs.

Unbelievable.

Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | 2 Comments »

An Armed Heist to Finance the Syrian Jihad

26th October 2016

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Two culture-enrichers in Bavaria robbed a businessman who also happened to be the employer of one of them, and the authorities suspect that the money was intended to be used to finance the jihad being waged by U.S.-backed moderate terrorists in Syria.

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A Personalized Nutrition Company Will Use Your DNA to Tell You What to Eat

26th October 2016

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Dieting in the United States is a multi-million dollar industry. Over the past few decades, there have been diets that focus on increasing protein, eliminating fats, lowering calories—you name the food group, a diet fad has been centered around it. It’s clear that Americans want to lose weight, but we are far from mastering the art. A new California-based company is working to get at the root cause of why it believes diets fail: None of them focus on the dieter’s unique genetic makeup. Habit’s “personalized nutrition” program would analyze a person’s DNA to create an individualized food plan and deliver those ingredients to the user’s home. The company officially launches today, with its services beginning in early 2017.

Just what we need — somebody else telling what to do.

Hillary voters, your bus has arrived.

Posted in News You Can Use. | 1 Comment »

The Future of Medicine May Involve Music

26th October 2016

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Thirty years ago in Hope Duarte, California, a researcher by the name of Susumu Ohno wished to explore an intriguing parallel between two very divergent phenomenon. Both music and genes possessed repetition. While the number of options differed – twelve for music and only four for genes – he believed the two could be aligned such that we could make music from our genome.

In the years since, several researchers have undertaken the task of translating biological data into musical notation, known as sonification. Genes and proteins have now been transformed into audible passages. When played, they convey a unique perspective on the nature of the fundamental molecules of life.

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Malice in Blunderland

26th October 2016

Steve Sailer looks at the Rolling Stone fake-frat-rape-story trial.

If you want to understand Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president, a good place to start is the current libel trial against Rolling Stone for publishing Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s ridiculous hate hoax article, “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and a Struggle for Justice at UVA.”

Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Malice in Blunderland

Important World Series News

26th October 2016

No, I don’t care about the World Series.

Posted in News You Can Use. | 2 Comments »

There Is No God But Allah in Bavaria

26th October 2016

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The Christian religion has been cleansed from most public institutions in Germany, including the schools. But that doesn’t mean there’s no religion in schools — it’s just not the Christian religion.

Posted in Living with Islam. | Comments Off on There Is No God But Allah in Bavaria