Tax and Spend

Obama to lawlessly allow more Obamacare extensions.

Education

Tech is not the solution to poor government education.

Global Warming and Energy

Documenting the systematic corruption of temperature datasets around the world. More.

"As Paul Homewood reminds us here, it has been happening everywhere from Iceland, Greenland and Russia to Alice Springs in Australia. Also, it has been reported on, at least in the climate sceptical blogosphere, for quite some time. Among the first to spot the problem was Steve McIntyre who back in 2007 observed the curious fact that where NASA’s James Hansen had once acknowledged that the 1930s was the hottest decade in the US, he subsequently amended it – with the help of some conveniently adjusted records – to the 1990s. Anthony Watts of Watts Up With That? has been reporting on this for years; as have bloggers including Steven Goddard and journalists like Christopher Booker."

And me.

"As an example of the kind of superficially plausible excuse-making I mean, here is climate scientist Ed Hawkins claiming that the reason for the amendments to the raw data at Puerto Casado is that the weather station has been moved.
Well, fair enough, you’d think – and take his word for it. But blogger Shub Niggurath wouldn’t and has demolished this excuse by pointing out that there is no evidence for the weather station having moved. It’s just a handy excuse, that’s all. And in any case, it doesn’t explain why similar changes were made to the records of the other stations: were they all moved too?"

This is Watt's survey of weather stations was so valuable.

More on NOAA's phony claim that 2014 was the hottest year on record.

Misc

BICEP2 study claiming to have discovered gravity waves from the Big Bang was false.

Politics

Young people view NSA favorably while old people do not. That's because young people have been grossly miseducated.

Following Greece, Spain's anti-austerity party surges before election.

Merkel promises no debt cuts for Greece. They're headed for a showdown.

Regulation

Comcast employees routinely change names of customers in insults. They only get away with this because they enjoy a government-created monopoly.

Local

In a bit of good news, Montgomery County jail population was reduced 5.4 percent last year.

Policeman chasing vehicle crashes. Target vehicle crashed after another cop started chasing it.

War

US plans to send troops into Ukraine risks nuclear war with Russia.

"The US soldiers will just be for training, and the number of GI’s  will be modest, claim US military sources. Of course.  Just like those small numbers of American “advisors” and “trainers” in Vietnam that eventually grew to 550,000. Just as there  are now US special forces in over 100 countries. We call it “mission creep.”"

Even if the numbers remained small, it's still an outrageous risk.

Hoping for more US airstrikes on Syria because that helps them against Assad, ISIS credits US airstrikes with ousting them from Syrian town. The US does want ISIS out of Kurdistan because that fits its longtime plan to split Iraq into three parts.

Why would CIA and Mossad agents suddenly admit they killed a Hezbollah leader in Syria in a terrorist-style bombing attack in 2008?

"The United States has never acknowledged participation in the killing of Mughniyah, which Hezbollah blamed on Israel. Until now, there has been little detail about the joint operation by the CIA and Mossad to kill him, how the car bombing was planned or the exact U.S. role. With the exception of the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, the mission marked one of the most high-risk covert actions by the United States in recent years.
U.S. involvement in the killing, which was confirmed by five former U.S. intelligence officials, also pushed American legal boundaries.
Mughniyah was targeted in a country where the United States was not at war. Moreover, he was killed in a car bombing, a technique that some legal scholars see as a violation of international laws that proscribe “killing by perfidy” — using treacherous means to kill or wound an enemy."

Is this intended to make Hezbollah threaten the US so our rulers can use them to expand the war in Syria?

ISIS burns library books in Mosul.

Over 6,000 killed in Iraq in January.

Economy

The economic benefit of sports, including the Super Bowl is a lie.

"As for Super Bowl XLIX itself, its boosters claim that it will bring an estimated $500 million in “economic impact” to Arizona.
Economic impact.  Whatever that means.  The mayor of Glendale says his host city will lose money on the event, just like the $1 million it lost on the 2008 Super Bowl.
Numbers-crunchers who aren’t affiliated with the teams or their boosters report that what spending these big events generate comes from crowding out other spending.  One study has discovered that there is no measurable impact on a community when its teams are on strike or in a lockout."

The people lose.

Apple overtook Microsoft because Microsoft stopped at desktops. That's the real story. Apple didn't do anything special. Palm and others had already broken the pocket computer barrier. I remember saying 20 years ago if you put a phone and a camera in a Palm, you'd really have something big.

California resort sells for record high.

Federal Reserve

The ECB opens the counterfeiting floodgates.

With bonds earning near-zero to negative yields in Europe and the ECB cranking up the printing press, Joe Salerno recommends hoarding cash. That's not a bad idea here either.

Media

Seven lies in American sniper.

"One of the film's earliest reviews praised it for showing the “emotional torment of so many military men and women.” But that torment is completely absent from the book the film is based on. In the book, Kyle refers to everyone he fought as “savage, despicable” evil. He writes, “I only wish I had killed more.” He also writes, “I loved what I did. I still do. If circumstances were different – if my family didn't need me – I'd be back in a heartbeat. I'm not lying or exaggerating to say it was fun. I had the time of my life being a SEAL.” On an appearance on Conan O'Brien's show he laughs about accidentally shooting an Iraqi insurgent. "

It would impossible to tell a story about the negative affects of war if Eastwood portrayed Kyle as the psychopath he seems to be. I bet Eastwood is surprised the movie is considered a pro-war movie.

"Chris Kyle's Family Claimed He Donated His Book Proceeds To Veterans' Charity, But He Kept Most Of The Profits: The National Review debunks the claim that all proceeds of his book went to veterans' charities. Around 2 percent – $52,000 – went to the charities while the Kyles pocketed $3 million."

So he comes from a family of liars.

Immigration

Because California granted licenses to illegal aliens, wait times for everybody have exploded to three months.

War

State Department meets with Muslim Brotherhood, and they subsequently declare long, uncompromizing jihad. Talk about a case for non-intervention.

Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria attacks US backed rebels.

Tax and Spend

Senate investigation in IRS and White House links will be just as futile and politically motivated as the House one.

Government pays defense contractors well.

Sports

On the eve of the eve of the Super Bowl, Napoleon Goodell steals the spotlight for himself. This guy is a narcissistic freak.

"Whether the Patriots gained a competitive advantage is "secondary," Goodell said, to whether a rule was broken."

Spoken like a power-mad bureaucrat.

"Former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart told ESPN's Sal Paolantonio that he has been "working with the NFL for the past three to four months on public relations issues after the Ray Rice case surfaced." Lockhart is in Arizona and at Goodell's news conference to assess the commissioner's answers to questions and performance."

How fascist of him.

Misc

Claim J.P. Morgan intentionally sank the Titanic.

Police State

Cops lobbying to be an even more protected class via hate crime laws.

Justification for the surveillance state.

"Catch these comments from “a speech at Washington and Lee University,” where Hayden

opined on signals intelligence under the Constitution, arguing that what the 4th Amendment forbids changed after September 11, 2001. He noted that “unreasonable search and seizure,” is prohibited under the Constitution, but cast it as a living document, with “reasonableness” determined by “the totality of circumstances in which we find ourselves in history.”
He explained that as the NSA’s leader, tactics he found unreasonable on September 10, 2001 struck him as reasonable the next day, after roughly 3,000 were killed. “I actually started to do different things,” he said. “And I didn’t need to ask ‘mother, may I’ from the Congress or the president or anyone else.

Wow."

Nothing is unreasonable to this guy.

Mathematicians claim to be uncomfortable about the ethics of working with the NSA, but they keep doing it.

"This is perhaps due to the NSA's generous funding of mathematics-related research. " 

Ya think? Government money corrupts. This article documents how NSA is deeply embedded into universities.

Swedish companies embedding chips under employees' skin. This is ridiculous. Why would anybody stand for this?

Canada gives spy agencies new powers after first ever terrorist attack.

Whistleblowers say TSA abuses authority to cover up wrongdoing. They abuse their authority every time they touch somebody.

Global Warming and Energy

Somehow the 97 percent consensus suddenly changed to 87.

"So we are already dealing with a self-selected group of people, many of them not scientists, who read a magazine that for years has strongly supported the “anthropogenic global warming” (AGW) hypothesis."

Surprise. Pull another number out of the air.

The poll about global warming shows how polls can be manipulated because we know people don't care about global warming when asked to rank issues.

Economy

One of the hidden effects of inflation is toilet paper is getting smaller.

""A standard roll is much smaller than it used to be, so now they're selling double rolls. So, without being scientific, I think a double roll is pretty well equivalent to what a standard roll was perhaps a decade ago," a research analyst tells NPR."

Exactly. That's not economic growth. It's economic decline. Inflation forces people to make do with less.

Ohio's economy still stinks.

"The report found that 27.5 percent of jobs in Ohio are in low-wage occupations, and 20 percent of households have limited access to bank accounts — ranking the state 35th among all states for the overall financial security of its residents."

High taxes are the problem.

Health Care

I doubt the FDA considered the consequences of releasing GM mosquitoes into the Florida keys. Why not just drain the swamp?

Flu puts record numbers of elderly into hospitals.

Getting cold, even just your nose, makes you more susceptible to colds.

Politics

Government-funded scientists are corrupted into activists.

Bill Clinton now accused of being with underage women at hedonistic retreat.

Local

Water main break.

Massive power outage around Fairborn.

State reviews Dayton government schools, confirms they stink.

The only way government's purchase of property can spur development is by reselling it at a loss to a crony.

Tax and Spend

Claim US airports are the worst in the world.

"Insult to injury, airline tickets in America are taxed to the hilt. Overall flying is a lot more affordable than it has been in decades past, but if it feels expensive, one of the reasons is the multitude of government-imposed taxes and fees. There’s an excise tax, the 9/11 Security Fee, the Federal Segment Fee, the Passenger Facility Charges, International Arrival and Departure Taxes, Immigration and Customs user fees, an Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service charge, and so on — a whopping 17 total fees! Airline tickets are taxed at a higher federal rate than alcohol and tobacco.
Finally, you should know that the government-run Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank of the United States provides billions of dollars in below-market financing each year to carriers overseas, helping deliver hundreds of American-built aircraft at rates not available to our own airlines. This is one of the reasons Persian Gulf carriers such as Emirates and Etihad Airways have been able to expand so rapidly. U.S. taxpayers are in fact subsidizing the growth of carriers that compete directly with our own. Ex-Im’s assistance is helpful to Boeing, but it gives foreign carriers a strong competitive advantage and undermines the health of the our airline industry."

Thank's government.

Federal Reserve

Yellen secretly meets with Democrats to telegraph Fed policy. So much for Fed independence.

Politics

Hillary Clinton's crony flights could haunt her.

"Hillary Clinton took more than 200 privately chartered flights at taxpayer expense during her eight years in the U.S. Senate, sometimes using the jets of corporations and major campaign donors as she racked up $225,756 in flight costs. "

Big deal.

War

Just like every other government, Hamas trains teens for military. Why is this news?

Hillary Clinton lied about impending genocide in Libya to start war.

Russia courts Greeks. New Greek government criticizes Russian sanctions. That's because the Russian sanctions hurt Greece. EU fails to agree to new sanctions. Plus, with Russia cutting off the pipelines through Ukraine, that means oil may flow through Turkey to Greece.

Reminder of the second US siege of Fallujah.

Media

Indiana Governor Pence kills his own state-run media outlet plan after ridicule. Rulers aren't like us.

Regulation

FCC changes definition of broadband so it can say more homes are without it. Cable companies unhappy. This is probably a shot at Comcast before the merger with Time Warner is allowed.

Bill Gates jumps on the AI warning bandwagon. He's another guy who stands to lose a lot from AI.

Uber gets temporary license to operate in South Carolina.

Economy

Startup tackles weather forecasting.

"Spire's solution? Establish a linked network of over 100 shoebox-sized CubeSats, that will use GPS technology to gather 100 times the amount of weather data than is currently possible. The first 20 of those satellites are scheduled to launch later this year."

Simple and cheap. That's why government would never do it.

David Stockman on income inequality.

"Stockman's specific concern is gains in the stock market, which he say have contributed massively to wealth inequality. Since he maintains that stocks have been propped up by the actions of the Federal Reserve, he has a problem with the money that Americans have made from rising stocks.
Profits off of stocks are "totally ill-gotten gains," Stockman said Thursday on CNBC's "Futures Now."
"This is a massive windfall to the 5 percent or 1 percent" wealthiest American households, he said. "This prosperity we've had in the top 5 percent—and that's where most of the consumption growth has been—is entirely a function of artificially ballooning stock prices and other risk assets.""

Yep.

""We've had two huge bubbles that collapsed already in this century," he said. "When this third bubble collapses—and surely it will—I believe that will be the day of reckoning. The credibility of all this central-bank-dominated, Wall-Street-coddling policy will be totally repudiated, and maybe then we can clean the slate and start over." "

But the plutocrats will already have their money out of the market. The only people who will lose are the common people.

Health Care

New Ebola cases falling rapidly.

Local

We're supposed to get a dusting of snow later, but counties have already issued snow emergencies.

The never-ending chain of Beavercreek tax levies continues.

Socialism

Brazil's largest city considers cutting water supply to two days a week. Or they could just allow prices to operate freely.

Fascist utility says black, smelly water in California is safe.

It's not just Philly firefighters who engage in orgies on the job. This is normal for socialists.

Politics

Obama refers to himself 118 times in three minutes.

Immigration

Obama's attorney general nominee Lynch proclaims right for illegal aliens to work.

Global Warming and Energy

Even the frauds at the UK Met Office were forced to admit 2014 is not the hottest year on record and the pause continues.

Education

School tyrants force elementary school students to pull down their pants for underwear inspection.

Health Care

So far 107 children have exhibited polio-like symptoms from enterovirus D68, associated with illegal immigrants.

Further dividing society, California schools kicks out students who don't have measle's vaccinations. That's probably the best thing that ever happened to those students.

Fatal peanut allergies treated with probiotics.

War on Drugs

Mexican government blames disappearance of 43 students on drug cartel in cahoots with police.

I doubt the DEA really abandoned a plan to track cars near gun shows. I bet they rolled it into a bigger program.

War

After Israel killed Iranian general and Hezbollah fighters in West Bank, skirmishes have broken out. How come Israel is only on the brink of new war with Hezbollah after Hezbollah kills two soldiers and not when Israel kills a dozen Hezbollah fighters?

Israeli civil rights group accuses IDF with war crimes.

US aggression backfired in Ukraine like everywhere else.

"Prior to the coup d’etat in Ukraine, aided and abetted by the neocon expansionist strategies being implemented by its proponents in the U.S. government, Russia and Putin had no territorial designs on Ukraine or such countries as Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland. It had no designs to take over these countries politically or as satellites controlled by Russian stooges. It had no designs to resurrect a Soviet-style empire. Its wishes were the opposite. It wanted greater integration with Europe."

Now it's annexed Crimea and will almost certainly annex eastern Ukraine. After that, it may take other actions to defend itself.

The new Cold War with Russia.

US to send troops to Ukraine.

"Pentagon officials confirmed last week that US troops will deploy to Ukraine in the spring to help build the Ukrainian National Guard. In addition to sending US troops, Washington has already sent heavy military equipment and has earmarked $19 million for Ukrainian forces."

More of that fake training.

585 killed in Iraq.

Tax and Spend

Obama forced to drop plan to tax college savings accounts.

Red states lose more money from federal spending cuts. Imagine that.

16 million children on food stamps.

Federal Reserve

Like most, if not all, Austrians predicted, the Fed won't raise interest rates despite claiming the economy is going gangbusters. The Fed knows all this talk of an improving economy is baloney.

Yuan becomes fifth most traded currency.

"The yuan passed the Canadian and Australian dollars in popularity in December, according to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which provides communications between financial institutions and companies. It said the yuan now ranks behind the dollar, the euro, the British pound and Japanese yen."

The dollar's decline continues.

Economy

Stagnate McDonald's ousts CEO. They're being squeezed by bubbles. The shrinking but getting richer rich won't go there, and the growing poor don't have the money to go there.

Boeing, along with Apple, earns big profits, mostly from government.

Heritage Foundation ranks US 12 for economic freedom.

Misc

Spider spins electrically charged web. Scientists surprised.

Local

Huber Heights isn't putting its expenditures online to be transparent. They're doing it pretend to be transparent. I guarantee the data will be incomprehensible.

Bikeway meeting.

Regulation

Comcast buying off local politicians and regulators to approve merger with Time Warner.

"In seeking more support for its mega-merger with Time-Warner Cable, Comcast has been going across the country giving local governments a chance to ask for favors in exchange for approving a franchise transfer."

The blatantness of corruption is impressive.

Police State

DOJ claims default encryption creates zone of lawlessness. What does that mean? Does that mean every private conversation in history was lawless?

If you thought nice Canada wasn't spying on its citizens, you were wrong.

Treasure hunter arrested for cheating partners.

"The U.S. Marshals Service called him "one of the most intelligent fugitives ever sought" by the agency and said he relied on cash and employed other means to stay under the radar. Authorities gave no details on how they found him."

The dreaded cash.

"Federal marshals said that the pair had no vehicles registered in their names and that Antekeier used buses and taxis to get around."

The dreaded buses and taxis.

"After the arrest warrant was issued, Thompson vanished from his Vero Beach, Florida, mansion, where a search found prepaid disposable cellphones and bank wraps for $10,000 in cash, along with a book titled "How to Live Your Life Invisible," according to court records. One marked page was titled: "Live your life on a cash-only basis.""

The dreaded cash again.

"The 161 investors who paid Thompson $12.7 million to find the ship never saw the proceeds. Two sued — a now-deceased investment firm president and the company that publishes The Columbus Dispatch newspaper and had invested about $1 million."

The establishment strikes back. This story is a trojan horse for propaganda about the evils of cash, buses and taxis.

The police are really concerned about the Waze app because it costs them revenue.

Police killed hostage in Sydney, not terrorist.

Federal Reserve

Sudden doubts the Fed will raise interest rates, as if the economy isn't nearly as strong as our rulers say it is.

Mainstream media downplays banker deaths.

Tax and Spend

CBO director predicts unsustainable debt heightening risk a financial crisis. Does he know what the word unsustainable means?

Media

Reporter kisses New York City mayor on TV. No bias there.

War

Syria responded to Israel's attacks in the Golan Heights, and now Israel has responded to Syria's response. This sounds like war.

Politics

Texas judge claims authority over governor's veto power. Everybody in government claims power over everything.

Israel's arabs unite.

"The result is an awkward political marriage of communists, Palestinian nationalists, religious Muslims, feminists and even one Jew. But Arab politicians say it will improve chronically low Arab voter turnout and help block Netanyahu from forming the next government."

I thought they were excluded from political power. That doesn't sound like Apartheid to me.

Rupert Murdoch and Valerie Jarett love each other.

Sports

So now some attendant was seen taking two bags of twelve balls into a single stall bathroom for 90 seconds after the refs had approved them. But each team only gets twelve. Why did the attendant have 24? This sounds more and more like Napoleon Goodell set the Patriots up.

Misc

Astronomers discover solar system with five small planets orbiting a sun-like star, but they believe it's 11 billion years old. That contradicts stellar theory. Establishment theory claims the sun is only 4 billion years old and it will die in another 4 billion years.

Asteroid which just buzzed Earth is smaller than believed, but has its own moon, apparently tightly coupled despite the small sizes and close encounter.

Fake "Cuckoo for Coco Puffs?" article accepted by 17 medical journals.

Jawbone discovered 15 miles out to sea suggests a new, bigger species of humans.

Crowd-sourcing images discovers star formation. Why not crowd-sourcing them for electrical phenomenon?

Health Care

Famed Indiana conservative governor Pence expands Medicaid through Obamacare.

Americans on health care skyrocket because of mental health scam.

Regulation

Obama says new laws for drones necessary to protect privacy of Americans as if he gives a crap about Americans and wasn't motivated by a drone landing in his back yard.

Immigration

Our pathetic rulers have sunk so far they plan to file a lawsuit against Obama for his immigration tyranny. Hello. You're Congress. Use your power to check and balance. Granted, the Constitution was written to empower the president to be a king, forcing 2/3 of Congress to stop him.

Republican leaders aren't abandoning immigrations promises. Abandoning implies they where honest in making them. They weren't.

Rank and file force Boehner to withdraw Obama-esque immigration bill.

Obama's AG nominee Lynch will defend his executive amnesty, and Republicans will ensure she gets affirmed.

Economy

The decline of iPhone sales has been greatly exaggerated. Apple records record bubble profit.

Market falls because corporations report disappointing earnings. Except for Apple.

Stock fall. Gold gains.

Like the US bubble, the UK bubble grew most in seven years in 2014.

Record airline profits because of low fuel prices.

Saudi Arabia plans tallest skyscraper ever: 1 kilometer.

Stock market falls on strong dollar. That shows how upside-down government's markets have become.

Global Warming and Energy

After sticking his finger in the wind, Great Pharaoh opened up the Atlantic off southern states to oil exploration but closed Anwar in Alaska. More.

"A few years ago, President Obama outlined an “all-the-above” energy strategy. These days, his strategy seems to be “do no harm.” The plan outlined today, which would open parts of the eastern seaboard to offshore drilling while pulling back on new drilling in Alaska, seems more geared toward avoiding difficult political choices than laying down a coherent energy strategy for the nation’s future."

Sticking his finger in the wind.

Democrats filibuster Keystone, handing a big victory to Republicans on the economic front.

Police State

This EFF strategy for ending mass surveillance depends too much on government.

Texas exonerations for false convictions drove record US number.

Drunk intelligence agent crashed drone on White House grounds.

Europe to keep data of airline passengers for five years.

War on Drug

The DEA is behind the DOJ car tracking database.

Foreign Policy

Security experts link Regin malware to NSA and Five Eyes partners.

Alexander Litvinenko was killed by radioactive poison in 2006. The official inquiry starts today. You can't make this stuff up.

Bowing to the empire, S&P downgrades Russian bonds to junk.The Russians will respond, harming the US economy.

I'm glad Michelle Obama didn't wear a headscarf in Saudi Arabia, but is this unusual? I bet no first ladies wear them. The bigger question is: did Obama bow again?

Socialism

Tyrannical overreach for underwhelming storm. More on travel ban tyranny. When Jefferson wrote about liberty, it meant freedom to travel.

Some of government's meteorologists apologize for bad forecast of blizzard.

If you believe the socialist weather service is going to change its models, you're a fool. This is what socialists say to distract and delay until people stop caring, then they keep doing the same thing.

Local

Whaley doesn't understand the problem with socialist schools is socialism.

Feds intend to keep evidence secret in their entrapment of a Cincinnati patsy terrorist trial.

Bubble employment stalls and falls back in December.

Teachers in failing schools get raises.

Sports

Having no integrity, Napoleon Goodell allowed the Patriots to use underinflated balls, potentially compromising the AFC championship game, just to catch them in the act and act like a tough guy.

"Early reports suggested Indianapolis alerted the league of the issue after a second-quarter interception by D'Qwell Jackson, who gave a Patriots football to a Colts equipment man who, in turn, noticed a problem. Jackson has since told NFL.com he noticed nothing wrong. There's been no word from the equipment guy. Of course, that scenario could have happened and the NFL still could've been waiting for halftime to check the footballs. They aren't mutually exclusive."

But it sounds like the NFL made that story up to cover itself. I wouldn't put it past Goodell to have ordered the balls deflated himself. That guy's a narcissistic freak.

"In the end is this going to be bigger than just a doctored football and will it be Roger Goodell, not Tom Brady, answering the most uncomfortable of allegations?"

I hope so.

Kraft goes on the offensive.

"Patriots owner Robert Kraft made a surprise appearance at the team's opening news conference of Super Bowl XLIX on Monday, saying the NFL owed them an apology if its investigation over deflated footballs doesn't uncover wrongdoing." 

Good for him for putting the spotlight back on Goodell.

Economy

Housing lenders have lowered down payments to 3 percent again.

The mainstream noticed the plutocrats are buying escape properties to escape the coming chaos.

Health Care

Obamacare cost $50 grand for each person covered. That's some expensive insurance.

Nursing homes are using government to kidnap customers and steal their money.

Socialism

Indiana governor sets up state-run news outlet.

Sports socialism nearly bankrupted Glendale, Arizona, location of the Super Bowl. It will go bankrupt soon.

Politics

Koch network plans to spend nearly $900 million on 2016 election. No wonder candidates showed up to their conference.

Comcast ghost-writes letters from politicians to FCC in support of merger with Time Warner.

Obama's classic leftist class warfare rhetoric pushes his approval rating up to 50 percent.

The fallout from the Greek election.

"The new Greece of Alexis Tsipras will run out of money by early March. It will then face a series of escalating crunch points that will end in default and a return to the drachma unless it can reach a deal with EU creditors.

Greece must repay €3.4bn to the International Monetary Fund in February and March. Tax revenues have collapsed as Greeks preempt what they hope will be a repeal of austerity taxes. “There is only €1.9bn left in the cash kitty, and the government has spending costs of $2.5bn coming up. Somebody needs to lend the country money soon,” said Megan Greene, from Manulife Asset Management.

The Greek media reports that capital flight last week reached €10bn as it became the clear that the amalgam of Maoists, ex-Leninists and radical socialists known as Syriza would win the election. Barclays estimates the outflow at €20bn since early December, roughly 12pc of GDP.

The European Central Bank is for now stepping into the breach. Liquidity support for Greek banks spiked to €54bn at the end of December, and is rising fast. If the ECB were to pull the plug, Greece would spiral into a systemic crisis immediately."

The house of cards is starting to fall.

Tax and Spend

The lowest deficit of Obama's tenure is still outrageously high.

Global Warming and Energy

FOIA request reveals EPA's religious, green propaganda strategy devoid of science.

Arctic sea ice extent is within 5 percent of normal while Antarctic sea ice extent is much greater than normal. Global cooling?

Only halfway through, the 2010s are already the snowiest decade on record in the northeast.

"Meanwhile, As the snow piles up, climate change activists are already blaming the blizzard on 'global warming'"

What else can they do. They have to keep the stolen money flowing as long as possible.

War

Fighting the good PR fight, Putin labels the Ukranian army a NATO proxy.

Obama keeps taking steps, steps and more steps in Ukraine, and the situation keeps getting worse. Stop taking steps. Leave them alone.

Failure never deters the US which kills three Yemenis with drone attack.

Four months ago, Obama pointed to Yemen as a success.

Police State

Britain's GCHQ threatens to break into businesses and houses if it can't break your encryption, and it acknowledges its lack of ethics.

Critics may not have been impressed with the case against CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling, but the jury convicted. As I said, innuendo and fearmongering is all it takes.

"Sterling denied leaking anything to Risen, and said it was more likely Risen learned about the mission from Senate staffers who had been briefed on it." 

The Senate staffers might have leaked it, but this was a political prosecution, so blaming politicians was doomed to fail.

Cops want to track us, but they don't want to be tracked.

""The Register reports on a request from the US National Sheriffs' Association, which "wants Google to block its crowd-sourced traffic app Waze from being able to report the position of police officers, saying the information is putting officer's lives at risk." From the article: "'The police community needs to coordinate an effort to have the owner, Google, act like the responsible corporate citizen they have always been and remove this feature from the application even before any litigation or statutory action,' AP reports Sheriff Mike Brown, the chairman of the NSA's technology committee, told the association's winter conference in Washington....Brown called the app a 'police stalker,' and said being able to identify where officers were located could put them at personal risk. Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, said his members had concerns as well. 'I can think of 100 ways that it could present an officer-safety issue,' Pasco said. 'There's no control over who uses it. So, if you're a criminal and you want to rob a bank, hypothetically, you use your Waze.'""

If tracking cops endangers cops, then tracking serfs endangers serfs.

The US had a Cold War plan called Plan C to bring the entire US under martial law. I'm sure it has a similar plan now. This is what ubiquitous surveillance will end in.

DOJ spying on millions of cars in real time.

Local

Water mains burst.

An inch of snow and 20 degree temperatures are too much of hardship for the Air Force.

Special prosecutor files charges against police officer who illegally seized camera phone from bystander. One in a million. More.

Government creates homelessness by stealing people's money, then it pretend to fight homelessness by giving a small fraction of the stolen money back.

Immigration

Border agents oppose Republican immigration bill.

Failure of drones on the border.

"the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general recently audited the use of drones on the border and issued a scathing report, calling them “dubious achievers” and essentially declaring them an enormous waste of money, time, and personnel. At $12,255 a flight hour (when not simply grounded), military-grade drones turned out to cost way more than the CBP estimated or reported, flew far less often, and helped find a mere 2% of the immigrants crossing the border without papers. As Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post reported, “Less than one-tenth of 1 percent of border-crossing apprehensions were attributed to drone detection.” The inspector general suggested that the CBP should, among other things, shelve its plans to expand its drone fleet (at the cost of a mere $443 million)."

That's crazy expensive. I thought the point of drones was to be cheaper, not just fly longer. It makes perfect sense, from our rulers' point of view, to employ Israeli technology.

Politics

Anonymous claims it will expose complicity of politicians and government officials to child sex abuse.

Greeks elect leftists to end so-called austerity program. I doubt this is an endorsement of leftists any more than the US election was an endorsement of Republicans. This is a rejection of the status quo, but nothing will change.

Police State

Double standard behind the prosecution of Jeffrey Sterling and the reluctance to prosecute David Petraeus.

Google gagged from disclosing secret warrants against Wikileaks.

War

Video purports to show an American soldier in Ukraine decked out for war.

Former Vietnam sniper weighs in on American Sniper film and war in general.

"The job of sniper has nothing to do with the stories of movie and television, nothing related to the heavily fictionalized books foisted on the public decade after decade.  Snipers with high kill numbers shoot primarily armed American allies they “mistake” for enemy or unarmed civilians.  The best of them protect American bases and small units with precision fire and take great risks.
If you kill more than dozen people as a sniper and you aren’t guilty of murdering innocent civilians, I would be very surprised.  If you are insane enough to convince yourself, let’s say you are in Afghanistan or Iraq, countries where it is legal for any civilian to carry a weapon and no sane person would go outside without one, that shooting “armed Muslims” makes you a hero, you are both a liar and a fool.  You are probably also a psychopath."

Probably.

692 killed in Iraq.

Health Care

WHO accused of bungling ebola response. I'm sure it did, but it seems clear the disease only came under control when foreigners pulled back.

Girl dies from influenza strain she had been vaccinated against.

People who delusionally believe they are one sex trapped in the body of the other were encouraged to believe that, so I'm not surprised people are being advised to listen an interact with voices in their heads. This might actually be healthy if it isolates and compartmentalizes the voices.

FDA considering using Americans as guinea pigs in GMO insect experiment. The FDA has no concern for Americans. Only politics could stop this.

Local

Rising prices, not a rebounding economy, increases local sales tax receipts.

This is an incredible waste of money.

"Turning a brownfield site into a sparkling technology-focused business park hasn’t been easy, quick or even cheap. But city of Dayton officials say they’ve more than turned the corner on the $30 million Tech Town business park along the city’s Monument Avenue river corridor.
After more than a dozen years, the three-building development is filling up and branching out, with private companies putting their own money into relocating near the campus, which counts as its neighbors Fifth Third Field and the emerging Water Street commercial project.
Tech Town’s newest building, which took more than two years to find its first tenant, is now more than half occupied and emerging as a health care industry cluster, said Steve Nutt, senior vice president for CityWide Development Corp."

$30 million and twelve years, that's it? That's why no investor would voluntarily pay for that.

Police chase car into crash that injures two.

Local

Local governments set up catch-22s on taxes, where voting for the levy keeps taxes the same, but voting against it raises taxes.

Federal Reserve

More on the consequences of the Swiss central bank disconnecting from the euro.

"In a word, the Swiss Central Bank was on the verge of printing itself into oblivion. It had to stop pegging the CHF at 120 before the madman Draghi turned on the ECB printing presses and submerged the SNB’s vaults in a deluge of wasting euros that would have soon reached the tops of the Alps.
Here’s what it had come to. In about 84 months, the SNB’s balance sheet had expanded by 5X. It now stands at nearly 100% of GDP, towering far above even the lunatic monetary emissions of the BOJ.
Had the SNB not finally blinked, the Swiss economy would have been obliterated in a orgy of export sector malinvestment, virulent domestic speculation and incendiary asset-inflation. At length, even Swiss mountainside real estate would have become too expensive for cows and ski lodges alike."

They fixed it.

Inflation that's being hidden by falling gas prices.

Economy

China's GDP numbers hide economic problems.

Media

Ex-spies infiltrate Hollywood.

Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Prosecutor refuses to prosecute David Gregory for breaking firearms law because Gregory is a member of the elite and has the right politics.

Police State

Update on trial of accused CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling.

"There is only one thing wrong with the prosecution’s narrative about the dire consequences caused by James Risen’s book and Sterling’s alleged leaks – it is almost completely evidence-free.
Pressed by defense attorneys over the last two weeks, the various employees of the national security state could cite no one who had been killed or hurt as a result of the disclosures in Risen’s book, which came out nine years ago – more than enough time for the predicted cataclysm to occur.
No examples of prospective “assets” who had said no-thanks because of the Risen disclosures. No example of even one current asset who had quit over the disclosures. No alteration of U.S. nuclear weapons plans. And, no, Condi Rice, no one has yet been killed by non-existent Iranian nuclear weapons or in that scary mushroom cloud you falsely warned us about in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of WMD-free Iraq."

That won't stop a jury from convicting. Innuendo and fearmongering are usually enough. About the operation.

"The cables reporting the incident and “Merlin’s” testimony both indicate that what “Merlin” saw was not a flaw in the schematics of the device, but a discrepancy between the schematics and the parts list accompanying it that would cause the Iranians to doubt the asset’s cover story.
But the evidence also reveals a larger story of a half-baked operation dreamed up by weapons specialists and managers who were ignorant of the most basic facts about the Iranians and their nuclear program. They created a cover story or “legend” for the Russian émigré scientist “asset” now known as “Merlin” that was so questionable that he never believed the Iranians would fall for it.
The exercise was pointless, moreover. The CIA did not claim that Iran had a nuclear weapons program when the planning of the operation began in 1996, and continued to offer no firm conclusion about Iran’s nuclear intentions through 1998.
Only in mid-1999, when the CIA needed to justify the operation to get White House approval for it, did it insert one reference to “Iran’s nuclear weapons research and development program” into its regular half-yearly intelligence assessment of Iran’s WMD policy for the first time."

Self-serving for sure.

Snowden claims iPhones have a backdoor for government spies.

Foreign Policy

Indians deploy 45,000 security forces for Obama in Delhi. This article claims it's 100,000.

The Americanization of Cuba.

Iran dumps the dollar.

Actions have consequences. In response to US congressional threats to increase sanction on Iran, Iranian parliament draws up bill to increase nuclear enrichment.

War

Ukraine forces indiscriminately killing civilians.

Yemeni rebels wary of complex relationships in Yemen, but US central planners think they know it all.

US drone assassin quits in shame.

"What made him stop? "The actual breaking point happened when we were hunting an American citizen, and they were saying he was maybe the next bin Laden. This was an American citizen - these were the people that I swore to protect. I believe that at that moment we were doing the wrong thing and that was when I decided to turn my back and walk away.""

Better late than never, I guess.

Iranian general promises to attack Israel from west bank in retaliation for airstrike that killed another Iranian general.

Health Care

Catastrophic vaccine reactions.

Economy

The Uber economy is booming.

" Uber is such a great example of the market, freed from the regulatory state, creating jobs and offering better service and prices to consumers. Yes, some taxi drivers are now Uber drivers, but many are net-new drivers. As pointed out previously, Uber is actually creating demand for taxi-like services with Uber-level service. Uber just released some more internal numbers-they added 40,000 drivers in December alone. Driver are making more (before costs) than Taxi drivers."

That's why government wants to regulate it.

Housing hasn't rebounded to previous boom levels. Good.

War

Ukrainian president keeps lying about Russian involvement in war.

"There appears to be a problem, however. The 9,000 troops and heavy weapons and equipment that purportedly accompanies them have been seen by no one. There are no satellite photos of what would certainly be a plainly visible incursion. We know from incredibly detailed satellite photos of Boko Haram’s recent massacre in Nigeria that producing evidence of such large scale movement is entirely within the realm of US and NATO technological capabilities. Still there remains a lack of evidence."

Who needs evidence? All they need are headlines, and they got them.

Foreign Policy

Obama team threatens Netanyahu for bypassing him when coming to speak before Congress.

The reason Argentinian prosecutor was murdered.

"So what was Nisman's spectacular claim? That the attack was ordered by Iran after Argentina decided to cancel a nuclear technology transfer contract, that the attack was carried out by Hizbullah, and that the Argentine government had agreed to cover up this fact in exchange for oil. Nisman claimed that Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman had personally overseen the cover-up, and that he had wiretap recordings to prove it.
Nisman was found dead just hours before he was set to present his evidence to Argentina's Congress."

Sounds plausible.

Misc

Comet theory again falsified by comet 67P.

"Still far from the sun, 67P’s activity levels have been subdued. So far, most of the jetting has been seen around the neck."
"Nobody knows. Oddly, calculations show that the neck region receives the least sunlight (top) of any part of the comet. Even when reflections and reradiation of this heat is accounted for (bottom), the neck is still colder than the rest of the comet."

Electric universe theorists know.

Scientists slow down photons below the speed of light.

Misc

The Hubble Telescope didn't change the universe. It changed people's view of it, but it made no significant changes in theory.

Archaeologists aren't telling us the truth.

Why would anybody apologize for king Henry VIII by trying to lay his crimes at the feet of Cromwell?

On September 10, 2001, I was the smartest guy in the business. Everybody wanted to hire me. On September 12, 2001, I ceased to exist. Nobody wanted to hire me. I didn't change, but I lost everything.

War on Drugs

The impact of decriminalizing marijuana.

"Crime is down: Marijuana-related arrests, which made up almost 50% of all drug-related crimes as of 2012, plummeted in Colorado in the first six months of legalization in 2014. According to government data, serious crimes have declined in Denver: The murder rate has dropped 24.4%  from 2013 to 2014. Violent crime in general declined by more than 1%, and major property crimes are down 8.1% (without counting unresolved cases)."

The same will happen when all drugs are decriminalized.

Police State

The origin of states pertains today.

"The best historical explanation offered for the origins of political systems is found in ancient days of merchants traveling, in caravans, from one marketplace to another. These traders would be pursued by looters who would forcibly take some of the goods and money possessed by the merchants. The looters would never completely despoil the businessmen, lest they discourage such caravan practices altogether. To make the system more predictable – and less troublesome for the looters – the caravans would be required to pass through established checkpoints and pay a fee, doubtless rationalized as a way for the merchants to enjoy the “protection” offered by the looters. The practice is still with us, in the form of “asset forfeitures” by various police agencies. "

That's not the only way.

The Argentine president who butted head with the dead prosecutor, not admits his death was not a suicide.

We're all against terrorism, but what are we for? I'm for freedom, peace and prosperity.

Global Warming and Energy

Mitt Romney jumps on Al Gore's bandwagon.

Doomsday clock frauds advance clock two minutes citing unchecked climate change.

War

Despite waging all-out war, Ukrainian military retreats from airport.

Why Americans have become uncritical of a seemingly incompetent military.

The consequences of war.

"There’s one big problem with that mindset, however. The truth is that the troops, through what they’re doing over there, are indirectly destroying our country, our rights and freedoms, our safety and security, and our economic well-being." 

It's more accurate to blame our rulers than the troops though they share some responsibility.

US Navy fires chief of Gitmo for corruption.

US-backed Yemeni president resigns in not-a-coup.US war in Yemen: fail.

The Navy plans to trap enlisted women below seas in submarines for months at a time. I fear for them.

Washington's insidious love of war. This language is all wrong. Washington doesn't love war because collectives can't love. Groups don't love war because groups can't love. A group of individuals can profit from war, and they can dominate political power to incite more war in order to increase those profits.

Navy ship runs aground off Okinawa.

Federal Reserve

To hammer what's left of the European economy into the ground, the European central bank will cut interest rates to all-time lows.

Swiss and Chinese central banks agree to currency swap. That means trade without the dollar.

Politics

Somebody cut off internet access to blogger to reported KKK speech of Republican.

The Saudi king of torture and execution is dead. Long live the new king of Saudi torture and execution.

Regulation

Powerful engine noise in modern cars is fake because it's been regulated out of existence. The article doesn't mention regulation.

Government regulation has failed in the do not call list.

Local

The DDN publishes another article about Dayton's bad economy.

"A new report confirms what Daytonians have long known — that the recent recession was a body blow to the city — while also saying that Dayton has not recovered to pre-recession strength.
But local observers countered that the report from the Brookings Institution think tank does not take into account recent data and events — such as a Chinese auto glass manufacturer’s $360 million investment and the Proctor & Gamble distribution center that will bring a combined 2,300 new jobs."

One paragraph of truth immediately followed by the standard cheerleading. This ranking is pretty bad and rightfully so.

Apparently we have the worst schools in the state.

"Dayton and Trotwood public schools will be the first districts in Ohio this year to undergo on-site reviews because of their risk of “academic distress.”
The Ohio Department of Education’s district review team will spend next week studying the leadership, teaching, student support and more in Dayton Public Schools, and then will do the same at Trotwood-Madison the week of Feb. 23. The only other Ohio school district getting a detailed on-site review this school year is Lima."

Lovely.

Health Care

Fitness tracking wristbands monitor sleep showing transitioning to daylight savings time causes the worst sleep of the year.

40 year spending on cancer research.

"More than 40 years after the war on cancer was declared, we have spent billions fighting the good fight. The National Cancer Institute has spent some $90 billion on research and treatment during that time. Some 260 nonprofit organizations in the United States have dedicated themselves to cancer — more than the number established for heart disease, AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, and stroke combined. Together, these 260 organizations have budgets that top $2.2 billion."

But no vitamin D. National Cancer Institute budget.

"NCI’s budget for FY 2013 was approximately $4.8 billion. Overall, NCI’s budget has been relatively flat in recent years. During the period from 2005 through 2013, the NCI budget averaged $4.9 billion per year."

But no vitamin D.

The establishment is being forced to admit healthy fat is good for you and carbs are bad..

War on Drugs

Border patrol will have a hard time stopping drug-smuggling drones.

Immigration

Republican House immigration bill spend $10 billion, deports zero illegal aliens and removes border fence. No surprise.

Politics

Pat Buchanan considers race relations today.

"Race relations today seem in some ways more poisonous than in 1965, when there were vast deposits of goodwill and LBJ pushed through the Voting Rights Act easily, 77-19 in the Senate and 328-74 in the House. Only two Republican Senators voted against the VRA."

Democrats are the party of oppressing blacks.

"After 50 years of affirmative action and the greatest wealth transfers in human history, “equality as a fact” has not been achieved and will not be, absent a greater seizure of power by the U.S. government and larger and virtually endless transfers of wealth.
The reports of Karl Marx’s death have been greatly exaggerated."

Democrats get rich oppressing blacks and using claims of racism to promote communism.

Politicians didn't march with protesters in Paris as claimed. They staged their photo in a guarded side-street.

"Perhaps even more ironically, nine of those countries represented in the march are in the final third of the World Press Freedom Index, compiled annually by Reporters Without Borders."

So much for their concern for freedom of speech.

Drudge highlights Obama's hypocrisy: urges civility then taunts; criticizes constant fundraising then asks for donations.

Regulation

Government hates the poor, sharing and Uber.

Education

Illinois law forces students to give up social media passwords to school officials.

Just like Obamacare was the next logical step to fully socialized medicine, free community college is the next logical step to fully socialized higher education.

Tax and Spend

Vectren challenges its property values.

"The natural gas company has asked the state to reduce the taxable value of its pipelines, machinery, equipment and other personal property to $34.6 million from $87.2 million."

This the kind of problem you get into when the state determines values instead of the market.

War

Report claims US fighting shadow war with special forces in 150 countries.

"On December 6, 2014, approximately 36 of America’s top commandos, heavily armed, operating with intelligence from satellites, drones, and high-tech eavesdropping, outfitted with night vision goggles, and backed up by elite Yemeni troops, went toe-to-toe with about six militants from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. When it was over, Somers was dead, along with Pierre Korkie, a South African teacher due to be set free the next day. Eight civilians were also killed by the commandos, according to local reports. Most of the militants escaped."

What a disaster. I bet they don't make a movie about it.

"During the fiscal year that ended on September 30, 2014, U.S. Special Operations forces (SOF) deployed to 133 countries – roughly 70% of the nations on the planet – according to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bockholt, a public affairs officer with U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM). This capped a three-year span in which the country’s most elite forces were active in more than 150 different countries around the world, conducting missions ranging from kill/capture night raids to training exercises. "

That's crazy.

"In fact, aside from modest amounts of information disclosed through highly-selective coverage by military media, official White House leaks, SEALs with something to sell, and a few cherry-picked journalists reporting on cherry-picked opportunities, much of what America’s special operators do is never subjected to meaningful examination, which only increases the chances of unforeseen blowback and catastrophic consequences. "

It makes it easy for our rulers to lie about the causes of blowback events.

"“The command is at its absolute zenith. And it is indeed a golden age for special operations.” Those were the words of Army General Joseph Votel III, a West Point graduate and Army Ranger, as he assumed command of SOCOM last August. "

That shows how these people think. This is why standing armies are dangerous. They want to kill.

US general admitted in 2007 the head of ISIS was fake.

Yemen rebel actions might look like a coup from the outside, but not from the inside.

""I've heard it called a coup," said regional analyst and researcher Abdulwahab Alkebsi, "but I don't know what a coup looks like in Yemen.""
""Anyone who tells you they know where things in Yemen are heading is a liar or a fool," former Sana'a-based journalist Adam Baron posted on Twitter."

Sorry, central planners.

"The militia wasn't interested in total control, Yemen experts tell VOA. They wanted a voice in government. It was a show of power, but not a grab at the reins."

Politics.