Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Politics

Imagine a world without discrimination. You couldn't pick a wife, a schools, a store, a country or anything.

Federal Reserve

Funny how Fed officials, after they retire, suddenly criticize the Fed.

Socialism

Massive power outage in Turkey.

Health Care

1,000 year old Anglo-Saxon recipe kills superbugs created by hospitals.

Police State

Facebook tracks users who have logged out in violation of the law, proving once again that laws are for serfs, never rulers.

Providing a temporary handhold in a tsunami of tyranny, SCOTUS ruled GPS tracking violates the Fourth Amendment. That's like banning mosquito bites on people being stomped by elephants. On a metaphorical roll.

Thanks to Snowden, NSA is having trouble recruiting. He should get another heroic medal for that.

Media

It is a golden age of Star Trek: TOS, but it will never end. It will proliferate.

Economy

The laws of economics, supply and demand, mean actors in the new Star Wars movie won't make much money.

Local

Taxpayers funding $500 million in Mercy Health vacation homes, parties and upgrades.

As if power companies were unaware of trees, tree falls and knocks out power.

Education

The focus on STEM is misguided because it's political, not driven by the market.

Economy

Credit Manager's Index falls to worst since recession.
"The signal this sends is that many companies are not nearly as healthy as it has been assumed and that there is considerably less resilience in the business sector than assumed,” said Kuehl. “The year-over-year trend remains miserable and seems to be getting worse and thus far nearly all the blame can be laid at the feet of credit access,” Kuehl said. “There is just not a lot of confidence in those that are doing the credit offerings these days."
The crash is coming.

Tax and Spend

The Brits cut defense spending, and their economy improved. The US should do the same along with all other spending..

Foreign Policy

Iran is obeying the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The US and other nuclear countries are not.

Talks on Iranian nukes are extended. More.

Benefits of making Israeli nuclear arsenal public.

Monday, March 30, 2015

Police State

Intelligence agencies are always in a technological arms race, against us and each other.

Federal Reserve

The accusation from mises.org that the Fed is attacking old people who save their money brought Bernanke out of the woodwork to defend his insane policies.

Regulation

Restricted by the FAA, Amazon tests drone delivery in Canada.

Foreign Policy

Obama threatens Iran with fresh sanctions. That should help negotiations.

Americans support a deal nearly 2-1.

Feds sign agreements with Hispanic countries promising to teach immigrants how to unionize.

Environment

California snowpack at record low level.

Tax and Spend

IRS.gov is so broken, maybe by design, the government suggests you sign up before crooks sign up for you and steal your info.

War on Drugs

Former feds charged with stealing bitcoins.
"A Secret Service agent and a DEA agent are charged with stealing bitcoin during their investigation of Silk Road, an underground internet black market that required buyers and sellers to do business with the digital currency."
I'm surprised they were charged.

Politics

Corruption in US ally Nigerian vote count.

Apple CEO Tim Cook more worried about politics than business. That usually works for plutocrats.

Health Care

Killer copilot was treated for suicidal tendencies. More.

Government scientists want to use early brain development as a reason to interfere further in families.

CAFOs emit airborne antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

War

US airstrikes not helping Iraqis retake Tikrit.

US denies killing Iranians with drone strike.
The New York Times leaked the truth about the phony US war on ISIS.
"“We don’t trust the American-led coalition in combating ISIS,” said Naeem al-Uboudi, the spokesman for Asaib Ahl al-Haq, one of the three groups which said they would withdraw from the front line around Tikrit. “In the past they have targeted our security forces and dropped aid to ISIS by mistake,” he said.
Hakim al-Zamily, one of the leaders of the Sadr group, said his group had warned it would pull out of the Tikrit fight if the Americans were brought in. “We don’t trust the Americans, they have targeted our forces many times in so-called mistakes,” he said.
Mr. Sadr, whose troops fought bitter battles against the Americans during much of the Iraq war, said his group was pulling out because, in his words, “the participation of the so-called international alliance is to protect ISIS, on the one hand, and to confiscate the achievements of the Iraqis, on the other hand.”"
This report is a mistake. Somebody at the NYT is going to pay.

US strategy backfiring in Syria. They used ISIS as an excuse to attack Syria, but ISIS is getting stronger and Assad offers to negotiate.

Remember those WMDs that supposedly weren't in Iraq. Supplied by the US, they were used against US troops.
"During and immediately after the first Gulf War, more than 200,000 of 700,000 U.S. troops sent to Iraq and Kuwait in January 1991 were exposed to nerve gas and other chemical agents. Though aware of this, the Department of Defense and CIA launched a campaign of lies and concocted a cover-up that continues today.
A quarter of a century later, the troops nearest the explosions are dying of brain cancer at two to three times the rate of those who were farther away. Others have lung cancer or debilitating chronic diseases, and pain."
Bush and company decided it was better to wrongly be branded liars than to admit the weapons were US made.

Economy

Apple stores to require reservations for watch customers.

Deflation produces lower prices and higher interest rates, both important for economic recovery.

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Immigration

Unaccompanied children are still pouring over the US border.

Federal Reserve

It looks like "bail-ins" are coming to Greece and to the US soon after.

Health Care

Obama's $1.2 billion plan to eradicate superbugs is just the opening bid for Big Pharma. It will cost tremendously more and never succeed, always demanding more money.

Two doctors declared killer co-pilot unfit, but he didn't tell anybody.

Misc

Dark matter theory just got sillier.

War

US accused of carpet-bombing Tikrit and killing Iraqi forces.

Shiite militias threaten to quit fighting ISIS over US airstrikes, but change their minds.

Scary expansion of war in Yemen.

Arab allies create unified force to fight in Yemen.

Al Qaeda affiliate al Nusra Front takes key Syrian city.

It's funny how reliable red states Texas and Utah are considered hostile in this bizarre military exercise.
"The Houston Chronicle reports that, among the planned exercises, soldiers will attempt to operate undetected among civilian populations.
Residents, in turn, will be asked to report suspicious activity in order to gauge the effectiveness of the soldiers."
This is nuts. Somebody's going to get killed. It's like that's the goal, maybe so Obama can use it as an excuse to try and ban guns.

Florida joins the exercise.

Video from Ft. Lauderdale shows military practicing locking Americans into concentration camps.

Local

Two crashes knock out power.

Study to determine cost of fire service shows socialists can't do economic calculation.

Doolittle Raiders to donate Congressional Gold Medal to Air Force Museum.

Politics

Less than 1 percent of campaign finance fines paid. More hidden corruption.

Harry Reid won't seek reelection after having the crap beat out of him by his mobster buddies.

Michelle Obama declares black girls rock, stirring up more racial divisiveness.

Environement

NOAA demands $242,000 fee to turn over public data to thwart FOIA.

Police State

The origins of hate speech laws.

In a big load of propaganda, we're supposed to believe the NSA was going to stop collecting our phone call info until Snowden leaked the program, forcing NSA to keep it.

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Federal Reserve

Russia joins China's development bank.

Economy

A new debt crisis isn't suddenly in the making. It's been in the making since the last one.

Foreign Policy

Hillary wiped her email server clean.

More evidence Clinton was running a private spy network.

War

More on eight week military drill in seven US states.
"Seven Southwestern states will soon be infiltrated by 1,200 military special ops personnel as part of a controversial domestic military training in which some of the elite soldiers will operate undetected among civilians.
Operation Jade Helm begins in July and will last for eight weeks. Soldiers will operate in and around towns in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado where some of them wil drop from planes while carrying weapons loaded with blanks in what military officials have dubbed Realistic Military Training.
But with residents of the entire states of Texas and Utah dubbed 'hostile' for the purposes of the exercises, Jade Helm has some concerned the drills are too realistic."
Ya think?

Health Care

Killer copilot was on anti-depressants.

Local

Dayton police are still pushing that aerial surveillance program even though drones are so much cheaper. This is about making some crony rich. Part 1.

Friday, March 27, 2015

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Socialism

Rent controls and fascist gas delivery service intersect leading to building explosion.

Federal Reserve

Locked in a trap of its own making, the Fed fears raising interest rates by even 1/4 percent.

They're afraid they've lost control, and they probably have.
"The New York Federal Reserve officials tasked with prying interest rates off the floor have been meeting with bankers and traders to plot how best to do it, amid deep uncertainty over how much control they will really have over short-term lending markets."
The bankers and traders are making the decisions, but they're the smarter ones anyway.

Economy

Reasons why men, in general, earn more than women.
"Professor James Bennett found 20 differences between what men and women do in the workplace that influence income that aren’t found in the raw numbers — which is all the “77 cents on the dollar” takes into account. These reasons include,
  • Men go into technology and hard sciences more than women.
  • Men tend to take more stressful jobs that are not "nine-to-five."
  • Men are more likely to work longer hours, and the pay gap widens for every hour past 40 per week.
  • Women are more likely to have "gaps" in their careers, primarily because of child rearing and child care. Less experience means lower pay."
But there is a flip side to the gender wage gap.
"Indeed, when comparing never-married women with never married-men, the wage gap doesn’t just disappear, it flips. As far back as 1971, never-married women in their thirties have earned slightly more than similar men.[2] In 1982, never-married women on the whole earned 91 percent of what men do.[3] Today, among men and women living along from the age twenty-one to thirty-five, there is no wage gap.[4] And among unmarried college-educated men and women between forty and sixty-four, men earn an average of $40,000 a year and women earn an average of $47,000 a year![5]"
Funny how one size doesn't fit all.

Luddites fear technology in every generation.

Illegal immigrants taking white-collar jobs.

Millennial tech workers fall behind foreign tech workers.

War

US requires Iranian-allied Shiite militias pull out of Tikrit as condition of air support.

US interventions have drawn the Saudis into a war with Iran in Yemen. Lovely. Egypt to join war.

US troops to secretly infiltrate population in nine state training exercise.

Foreign Policy

Obama slams Netanyahu by declassifying information about Israel's nuclear program. More.
"In the declassified document, the Pentagon reveals supposed details about Israel’s deterrence capabilities, but it kept sections on France, Germany, and Italy classified. Those sections are blacked out in the document."
Ouch.

Politics

It's funny the same people who complained about Obama's birth certificate now back Cruz. I think he's a Canadian and is disqualified.

Appeals court throws out case against Argentine president as expected.

Gingrich admits he and his fellow Republicans don't want to repeal Obamacare.

Government statistics about food insecurity are as corrupt as other government statistics.

Tax and Spend

The bipartisan Medicare doc fix means more money stolen from taxpayers.

How big is government? Even the smallest measure is outrageous.

Northrop Grumman denies GAO accountants access to Webb Space telescope team.

The Feds collected record taxes so far this fiscal year.

War on Drugs

DEA agents hosted sex parties with prostitutes funded by drug cartel money.

Regulation

Amazon blasts FAA for being a typical bureaucracy.

Payday loans are a response to government regulation, and government wants to regulate them.

Police State

Co-pilot suspected of deliberately crashing German plane.

List of government spying and lawlessness and getting away with it.

Technique for generating strong pass phrases.

Australia requires Telcos to store customer data for two years for government to warrantlessly access.

Local

Montgomery County continues to shrink while Butler and Warren continue to grow. And yet people are building new housing in the bubble.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Misc

Genetic father of humanity lived 239,000 years ago.

Socialism

Secret Service in a tizzy over whistleblower leaks of damaging stories.

Politics

It's OK to leak government secrets for political gain, but not if you're a whistleblower.

Environment

Americans still not worried about global warming.

War

Prediction that US warmongering, specifically arming Ukraine, will result in the breakup on the EU and the loss of US allies.
"I think that the U.S. aristocracy are shocking other nations’ aristocracies at how evil they are, and that this will cause those others to distrust the U.S. aristocrats so much, that the American Empire will end in shame, disgrace, defeat, humiliation, and collapse."
The EU is already in trouble because of euro problems.

Saudi Arabia has been drawn into the war started in Yemen by the US coup.

Crashing drones and captured files expose US intelligence secrets to Iran.

US providing air support for Iranian forces in Tikrit.

Bergdahl charged with desertion. Obama's stooge Susan Rice said he served with honor and distinction even though they knew US troops died while searching for him.

Economy

Steve Wozniak joins the chorus fearing AI.

Police State

This bill repealing the Patriot Act won't pass.

TSA behavioral screening slammed as junk science.

Health Care

Sugar is poison, and the industry and government buried the evidence.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Police State

Feds already tracking Americans with drones.

Media

Reporters give Hillary standing ovation.

Immigration

Hispanic activists rally for tougher immigration laws. I've always said this.

Tax and Spend

Federal workers own more than $3.5 billion in unpaid taxes.

Greece raids public health programs to pay bills.

Economy

New Ford car won't break the speed limit. This is dangerous.

Ground beef hits record high price.

Environment

Mann's latest paper debunked in a day.

FEMA blackmails governors into promoting global warming fraud.

Politics

Republicans love the welfare state.

Google averages one white house visit a week.

Favoritism at DHS.
"A Department of Homeland Security watchdog report issued Tuesday blasted the agency’s No. 2 official for repeatedly intervening on behalf of well-connected participants in an investor-visa program, including Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-Va.) and Tony Rodham, a brother of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton."
This is what government is for.

War

The Iraq war never ends.

Defense spending is much higher than we're told.

War on Drugs

The war on drugs is destroying Mexico much like war destroyed Afghanistan.

Foreign Policy

Government experts seem to be wrong about everything.
"Having experienced several more weeks of mainstream media jingoism about the “Iranian threat,” culminating in the outrageous Joshua Muravchik op-ed advocating war with Iran as the “best option” for dealing with that country, one has to ask why it is that a gaggle of self-proclaimed “experts” has been able to capture the foreign-policy narrative so completely, in spite of the fact that they have been wrong about nearly everything?"
Not just war with Iran.

Israel accused of spying on negotiations with Iran.

Health Care

Measles vaccine more deadly than measles.

Recently vaccinated individuals spread disease.

Monday, March 23, 2015

Economy

Google's attempt to be arbiter of truth will backfire.

Politics

Since 2011, when Boehner became speaker, I've pointed out he's President Obama's best ally. The mainstream media is finally catching on as they report Democrats back Boehner. Obviously the press has known this all along. They're just now letting the cat out of the bag to undermine Republicans in the 2016 race.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Tax and Spend

Greece continues to claim Germany owes it money from WWII.

A month ago they were afraid Greece would run out of money in March. Now they're afraid it will run out of money in April. Yet it never runs out of money.

A Greek bank run was reported in January, yet it's business as usual.

Local

Stormtroopers line Kiefaber St. to intimidate UD students.

Dayton cops use obscure ruling to justify stealing cameras.

Dayton rejects court, continues to steal people's money based on illegal cameras.

Federal Reserve

The Fed is caught in a catch-22 of its own making.
"But unlike the financial media’s dopey dithering about “dot plots”, Yellen at least has something to hide behind all the gibberish.  Namely, she and her merry band of money printers are becoming more petrified each month that they will trigger a thundering Wall Street hissy fit if they move to “normalize” interest rates—-even as they are slowly beginning to realize that continuance of ZIRP much longer will only intensify the market’s addiction to rampant speculation, free money carry trades and the associated risks to financial stability."
Zero interest rates are unsustainable, so rates will rise.
"Needless to say, that has generated a dangerous and ever widening disconnect between the real main street economy and the nominal value of assets in the financial system. This rupture has been called “financialization”, but it amounts to this: Fed attempts at monetary stimulus are now short-circuited; added liquidity essentially becomes sequestered within the financial system where it generates persistent inflation of existing asset values. That is, stimulus never leaves the canyons of Wall Street."
This is always true. It's why the Fed gives money to banks, not people.

Foreign Policy

The US has no power over Israel.
"Not so long as Israel and its American advocates control both the Congress, the Republican and Democratic parties – and Hillary Clinton. The late Israeli PM Ariel Sharon reportedly said to an aide concerned about a negative US response, “don’t worry about the US, I control the US.”
Israel’s partisans hold important influence over France’s  government and ruling Socialist Party. France secretly supplied Israel with nuclear weapons capability in the 1950’s.
Both Britain’s parties are similarly beholden to pro-Israel donors. Germany remains very timid in foreign policy and does pretty much what Israel demands, even supplying Israel with submarines to carry nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.
Russia’s Vlad Putin is quite pro-Israel and never forgets there are one million former Russians now living in Israel. China has wisely stayed out of the Arab-Israeli dispute. So short of the US, no power can force Israel out of its annexed lands."
Israel has all the power of the US.
"As for the Palestinians, they don’t seem to have much hope. Chances for even a rickety, feeble Bantustan state on the West Bank are gone. Netanyahu declared no Palestinian state at the end of the elections race. He will, of course, continue flirting with the US and EU over this worn-out question, making small tactical concessions to allow his western allies to continue going along with the charade that “peace talks” are still alive. They are not and have not been for a decade. It just suits the western powers to continue this deceitful game while Israel relentlessly annexes the Occupied Territories."
This has always been true.Neither Israel nor Palestine's rulers wanted peace. They profit from war.
"Israelis have shown they don’t want to be part of the neighboring Arab world, any more than many white South Africans wanted to join black Africa. They want to stand alone behind their high walls, their restive Arab populations locked away in tribal reservations. Israel has the land, the water and now the energy, and intends to keep them all."
It worked in the US. I imagine that was the model.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, warning Israel should beware Obama.
"First he comes for the banks and health care, uses the IRS to go after critics, politicizes the Justice Department, spies on journalists, tries to curb religious freedom, slashes the military, throws open the borders, doubles the debt and nationalizes the Internet.
He lies to the public, ignores the Constitution, inflames race relations and urges Latinos to punish Republican “enemies.” He abandons our ­allies, appeases tyrants, coddles ­adversaries and uses the Crusades as an excuse for inaction as Islamist terrorists slaughter their way across the Mideast.
Now he’s coming for Israel."
This is a good litany of bad acts.

War

A Ukrainian oligarch bought a coup and war in Ukraine by donating to the Clinton Foundation.
"Although the Wall Street Journal didn’t play up the connection, I was stunned to see that of all the oligarchs connected to foreign governments who donated to the Clinton Foundation while she was Secretary of State, Ukraine was at the very top. I thought this to be strange, but as I read on I just couldn’t believe how connected the main donor was to the current regime in power."
I think there's more reasons the US instigated the Ukrainian coup. Most like the opportunistic Clintons just profited from it.

Ron Paul reminds us of the never-ending Iraq war disaster.

Police State

Former prosecutor apologizes to man he wrongfully convicted 30 years ago.
"Stroud, 63, was the lead prosecutor in Ford's 1984 murder trial. Even though it was a jury of 12 people who unanimously voted to convict Ford of the Nov. 5, 1983, shooting death of Shreveport, La., jeweler Isadore Rozeman then chose the death penalty as his punishment, Stroud takes responsibility for the decision — one he now admits was flawed with inaction on his part and coupled with the admitted "arrogant, judgmental, narcissistic and very full of myself" attitude of the attorney he was then.
In perhaps an unprecedented move by a former prosecutor, Stroud is offering a public apology to Ford in a three-page letter to The (Shreveport, La.) Times in response to the newspaper's coverage of Ford's plight."
The reason prosecutors don't apologize is they care about convictions, not justice.

UK government admits it has granted spies the authority to hack any device anywhere for any reason. It's like James Bond's unrestricted license to kill.

SWATting in front of a live audience.

Health Care

WHO claims glyphosate "probably" causes cancer, sending Monsanto on the war path.

Socialism

Socialists discover the function of prices in California drought.
"Today California exports about six trillion gallons of virtual water, or about 500 gallons per resident a day. How can this happen amid drought? The problem is mispricing. If water were priced properly, it is a safe bet that farmers would waste far less of it, and the effects of California's drought—its worst in recorded history—would not be so severe. "A free market would raise the price of water, reflecting its scarcity, and lead to a reduction in the export of virtual water," say Davidow and Malone."
But there will be no free market.

Misc

This article about the discovery of molecular nitrogen on comet 67P by Rosetta has many problems.
"“Identifying molecular nitrogen places important constraints on the conditions in which the comet formed, because it requires very low temperatures to become trapped in ice,” says Martin Rubin of the University of Bern, lead author of the paper presenting the results published today in the journal Science. "
What ice?

Regulation

FTC doesn't go after Google (and shouldn't have).
"Previous attempts to go after big companies — such as the Justice Department's long-running antitrust case against Microsoft in the 1990s — loomed large in regulators' minds at the time of the Google probe, according to a former official who worked at the agency then. "Even if we were in the right and could win," said the former official, "it could take a lot of resources away from other enforcement.""
Less burdensome regulation for the big guys, more for the small guys.

Environment

If Obama is so worried about rising oceans, why did he just buy a beachfront mansion?

Paris's rulers decree traffic must be cut in half because of pollution.so they will allow only even and odd license plates on roads on alternate days.

The predictions of severe weather from global warming are wrong.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Federal Reserve

This plan to take power from the New York Fed gives it to somebody else in the Fed. So what? This looks like another phony plan to make it appear Congress is doing something.

Police State

New York City installs microphones on streets, ostensibly to detect gun crime, but not really.

Foreign Policy

Government spies admit rulers fearmonger about cyberattacks.
"So it's interesting to note a recent statement by the U.S. intelligence community that pours a bucket of cold water over all of this. According to government spies the likelihood of a cyber Armageddon is "remote." And this raises some unsettling questions about our ability to trust government officials and why they might be tempted to fall back on such blatant hyperbole."
"Yet the 2015 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. intelligence community submitted recently to the Senate Armed Services Committee has explicitly conceded [9] that the risk of “cyber Armageddon” is at best “remote.” In other words, it’s entirely safe to ignore the hyperbolic bluster of the Cult of Cyberwar [10]. Despite what we’ve been told the Emperor is naked."
Did you just notice this?

Warmongers trying to undermine deal with Iran are succeeding.
"Iran’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei called for “Death to America” on Saturday, a day after President Barack Obama appealed to Iran to seize a “historic opportunity” for a nuclear deal and a better future, and as US Secretary of State John Kerry claimed substantial progress toward an accord. "
Hooray for warmongers.

Local

Police incite trouble after UD victory. There were no problems at 1:32am.
"UPDATE @ 1:32 a.m.:
Students are chanting and cheering as they line Kiefaber Street.
There are reports of fireworks igniting, but the students are celebrating in an orderly manner as officers in crowd control gear walk up and down the street."
But less than seven minutes later, the police, as if they've declared martial law and instituted a curfew, tell the peaceful and orderly celebrants to go home.
"UPDATE @ 1:39 a.m.:
Police are trying to disburse the crowd, which is lining both sides of Kiefaber Street.
Police are wearing crowd-control gear and are standing in the middle of the street asking students to go home.
Slowly, students are starting to leave the area. However, a couple students were throwing beer cans at police and the media."
This police order caused the problems.

War

The US is inciting wars around the world and Europe is following behind, trying to stop them.

Over 1,000 may already be dead in Tikrit battle.

More evidence ISIS is a western phenomenon if not a western creation.
"The latest announcement by Turkey’s foreign minister Meylut Cavusoglu of the arrest of a spy “working for the intelligence service of a country participating in the coalition against ISIS” – presumably Canada – allegedly for helping three young British girls join IS, was revealing. The accusation feeds into a growing discourse that locates IS within a western, not Middle Eastern discourse."
And we know MI5 tried to recruit Jihadi John.
"The conventional analysis on the rise of IS no longer suffices. Tracing the movement to October 2006 when the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), uniting various groups including al-Qaeda was established, simply suggests a starting point to the discussion, whose roots go back to the dismantling of the Iraqi state and army by the US military occupation authority. Just the idea that the Arab republic of Iraq was lead from 11 May, 2003 until 28 June, 2004 by a Lewis Paul Bremer III, is enough to delineate the unredeemable rupture in the country’s identity. Bremer and US military chiefs’ manipulation of Iraq’s sectarian vulnerabilities, in addition to the massive security vacuum created by sending an entire army home, ushered in the rise of numerous groups, some homegrown resistance movements, and other alien bodies who sought in Iraq a refugee, or a rally cry.
Also conveniently missing in the rise of “jihadism” context is the staggering brutality of Shia-dominated governments in Baghdad and militias throughout Iraq, with full backing by the US and Iran. If the US war (1990-1), blockade (1991-2003), invasion (2003) and subsequent occupation of Iraq were not enough to radicalize a whole generation, then brutality, marginalization and constant targeting of Iraqi Sunnis in post-invasion Iraq have certainly done the job."
I have no doubt the jihadists in the region have been aided and abetted by western governments. This seems part of the overall plan to reduce the entire region to the stone age.

Ron Paul asks why US weapons always end up in our enemies' hands.
"It happens so often you wonder whether it is due to total ineptness or a deliberate policy to undermine our efforts overseas."
I'm sure it's both. The US is always on both sides of every war because that benefits our war-profiteering rulers.

Friday, March 20, 2015

Politics

The story about a black man found hanging from bedsheets in a tree will be all about politics.

Immigration

Illegal immigrants changing demographics and therefore politics in the heartland just like Democrats long planned.

Foreign Policy

Petraeus tries to make a comeback by declaring Iran is more of a threat than ISIS.

Putin calls for Eurasia currency union.

Health Care

Children weighed in daycare thanks to Michelle Obama.

Obamacare covers only 65 percent of claimed people.
"Given that Obamacare’s supporters like to take the Congressional Budget Office’s overly optimistic scoring of the president’s signature legislation as gospel, it’s fun to look at how poorly Obamacare is actually doing in relation to earlier CBO projections.  When the Democrats rammed Obamacare through Congress in 2010 without a single Republican vote, the CBO said that the unpopular overhaul would lead to a net increase of 26 million people with health insurance by 2015 (15 million through Medicaid plus 13 million through the Obamacare exchanges minus 2 million who would otherwise have had private insurance but wouldn’t because of Obamacare).
Fast-forwarding five years, the CBO now says that Obamacare’s tally for 2015 will actually be a net increase of just 17 million people (10 million through Medicaid plus 11 million through the Obamacare exchanges minus 4 million who would otherwise have had private insurance but won’t, or don’t, because of Obamacare). 
In other words, Obamacare is now slated to hit only 65 percent of the CBO’s original coverage projection for 2015."
But that's considered a great success.

War

ISIS claims credit for terrorist attack that kills 137 in Yemen.

Local

Riverscape river run project contractor to be chosen next month with construction to begin in July. They started raising money for this project four years ago.
"“After a huge community input process, RiverScape River Run emerged as one of the priorities of the Greater Downtown Dayton Plan, and this project will create a long list of benefits for downtown Dayton and the region,” said Dr. Michael Ervin, co-chair of the Greater Downtown Dayton Plan and Downtown Dayton Partnership. “Downtown Dayton’s economic development strategy is focused on strengthening the core of our entire region. This strategy hinges on creating an exciting downtown environment that will attract and retain the young, talented workforce needed to build Dayton’s new economy.”"
Let's see how that works out.
"Fundraising for RiverScape River Run began last summer with a $1 million challenge grant from the James M. Cox Foundation. Contributors to RiverScape River Run to date are: The CareSource Foundation, The Connor Group, Cox Media Group Ohio, The Dayton Foundation, Dr. Michael Ervin, Greater Dayton RTA, Heidelberg Distributing Company, Jacob G. Schmidlapp Trust ― Fifth Third Bank Trustee, Kettering Health Network, KeyBank, Mrs. Judy Lumby, The Meadwestvaco Foundation, Miami Conservancy District, Montgomery County, PNC, Premier Health Partners, The Schiewetz Foundation, Sinclair Community College, Thompson Hine, The Vectren Foundation and The Virginia W. Kettering Foundation."
Half of these contributors are subsidized.

Maybe the city will shut itself down after a big fight and shots were fired at a fairgrounds party it hosted.

Economy

Recent economic data show that deflation is a good thing.

Environment

Fraud tries to link ice ages to CO2 instead of orbital changes. They're both wrong. They're probably caused by Saturn's repeating interactions with the sun's electrical environment before it was captured.

France decrees all new commercial rooftops must be covered in solar panels or plants. That will reduce the number of new commercial roofs.

Regulation

For-profit company Google is supposedly a bad company for altering its search results for profit - supposedly harming consumers - but every aspect of its algorithm is for profit. The FTC is claiming domination over Google's algorithm. Every website that does search engine optimization alters its Google result for profit. This is a smokescreen. Something bigger is going on here. Google seems to be a target of a coordinated attack. Google's search algorithms and results belong to Google. It can do what it wants with them.

The new narrative about this is the FTC allowed Google to get away with something.

Police State

At least 700,000 routers have security flaw that has gone unfixed for four years. That means spy agencies are exploiting it.

New Zealand Customs wants power to demand passwords and encryption keys. Coming soon to the US. Governments are turning electronics into a liability instead of a benefit.

Great quote:
"“The game is rigged, the network is bugged, the government talks double-speak, the courts are complicit and there’s nothing you can do about it.”—David Kravets, reporting for Wired"
Pithy.

Chevy Malibu will snitch on your teen if he breaks the speed limit. Foolish parents think this is a good thing. This will soon become mandatory for all drivers.

Ohio man exonerated after 39 years in prison received $1 million for his trouble.
"He and two brothers were convicted on the basis of the testimony of a 13-year-old boy who said that he witnessed the killing of Harold Franks. The boy, Eddie Vernon, was on a school bus a block away with other children at the time. He later recanted his account as an adult."
That's ridiculous. He should own the Ohio government. What this article doesn't report is how prosecutors pressured the boy to lie.
"Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said the case fell apart after witness Eddie Vernon recanted, The Plain Dealer reported, saying that Vernon said he had been fed details of the crime by police and kept quiet about his lies because investigators had threatened to imprison his parents."
This happens every day.

Foreign Policy

The US threatened Germany if it protected Snowden.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Tax and Spend

The real US government debt has reached $210 trillion.

Foreign Policy

Hacked emails suggest Hillary Clinton was running a rogue intelligence operation headed by Sidney Blumenthal.

Congress subpoena's emails of Clinton aides.

US allies apply to join China's international bank.

Pat Buchanan believes no US ally would survive a cost benefit analysis. I bet that's true.

Netanyahu is being slammed as a racist. I think he's just a fearmongerer, and very good one.

Local

Winter worse than most, but not as bad as last year.

Dayton pretends they care what residents think about police body cameras. Our rulers would love the people to reject them.

Walmart shooting investigation board recommends body cameras.

Education

Search "ohio students punished opting out common core"

War

Admitted false flag attacks.

List of six of high value terrorists killed in drone strikes. The thousands of other victims aren't worth mentioning.

Syria shoots down US drone operating in "sensitive" airspace.

Economy

Lyft CEO rejects self-driving car push. Smart, for the short run. Dumb for the long run.

Uber versus New York City's Yellow cabs.

Taxi companies sue Uber for false advertising about safety.

Politics

Pirate Party becomes biggest party in Iceland.

Obama proposes mandatory voting.

Congressman admits creating TSA was a mistake. That doesn't help us now.

Police State

Cisco to ship equipment to fake addresses to avoid NSA corruption.

Google tauts its facial recognition software.

Hertz joins big rigs with spy cameras watching the occupants.

Legalized theft via asset forfeiture.

Feds unleashing biometric test surveillance at Customs ports.

If you didn't realize government websites track you, you're an idiot.

Health Care

Big Pharma's deadly drugs.

The CDC is unsafe.
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recently had lab mishaps involving some of the world's most dangerous pathogens, does "inadequate" training, lacks leadership commitment toward safety and has a significant percentage of staff who are afraid to report accidents, according to the agency's own safety advisers."
Typical socialism.

VA retaliates against Alabama whistleblowers.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Federal Reserve

Swiss central bank cuts rate to negative 0.25 percent. I want to borrow some free money.

Germans violently protest ECB. They're tired of paying for Greece's debt.
"Violent clashes between anti-capitalist protesters and German police left dozens injured and a trail of destruction in Germany's financial capital as the European Central Bank opened its new headquarters Wednesday. "
Anti-capitalist. That's funny.

Immigration

DHS released 30,000 criminal illegal aliens in 2014.

Misc

The Welsh are the most genetically pure Britons. The English are 45 percent French and 25 percent German. Vikings and Romans left little genetic imprint.

Regulation

New Jersey lifts ban in direct sales of Tesla cars.

There are more Uber cars in New York City than yellow cabs.

German court bans Uber.

French police raid Uber offices.

Uber shut down and raided in Germany, France and South Korea.

California passes more water regulations.

War

Ukraine reneges on promise to give Russian separatists self-rule.

Police State

Judge orders Buffalo police to reveal details of Stinger usage.

Suggestions for self-defense against surveillance.

Environment

Thanks to that same questionable hot spot in Siberia, this winter was supposedly the warmest on record.

Economy

Apple stock has gone parabolic, the sign of a bubble.

Tim Cook responds to iWatch critics.

Uber unlocks system to any app can call an Uber driver.

California farmers selling water instead of crops.

Tax and Spend

UK confirms "Google tax".
"In 2012 it emerged that internet giant Google avoided tax on £10bn UK revenue in 2011 by doubling the amount of money put into a shell company in Bermuda. Doing so helped it avoid £1bn in corporation tax. Under the new tax regime, companies with an annual turnover of £10m will have to tell HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) if they think their company structure could make them liable for diverted profit tax. Once HMRC has assessed the structures, and decided how much profit has been artificially diverted from the UK, multinationals will have only 30 days to object to the 25% tax."
So companies will move out of the UK entirely.

Food stamps decline in Ohio for the first time in a decade.

Local

Dayton's greedy rulers file suit against law restricting speed and red-light cameras. They're using a states-rights-like argument.

Dayton police suddenly concerned about privacy when police body cameras are at issue.

cityhall@daytonohio.gov

Have you ever wanted to talk one-on-one with a police officer about what's going on in your community, or just get to know some of the men and women who serve your neighborhood? That opportunity is here, as the Dayton Police Department launches "Coffee with a Cop."
The series of face-to-face meetings is the local version of a program underway in 47 states. Coffee With a Cop is a chance to talk in a neutral, relaxed and comfortable environment, all while enjoying a cup of coffee courtesy of the Dayton Police Department. Watch for announcements of upcoming sessions in the next Dayton Extra and in the City's social media channels.


Crony bubble development on East Third.

No arrests, just a lot of harassment, at OVI checkpoint on 725.

Health Care

Statins neither safe nor effective.

Personal info of 11 million Premera costumers hacked.

Sloppy procedures at US bioweapons lab.

Comfort foods declared addictive.

Ohio launches drug awareness campaign. Apparently they haven't noticed everybody is aware of drugs.

War

369 killed in Iraq.

Economy

Shhh. Microsoft sells a smart watch too, but don't tell anybody.
"The aggressive expansion of the Band comes a month before the Apple Watch is expected to be shipped. And while consumers don’t appear to be excited about the Apple Watch, the Band has been an unexpected hit for Microsoft. Microsoft hasn’t disclosed sales numbers, but the product has been constantly out of stock in Microsoft Stores and available only for consumers who put their names on wait lists. Apple’s stock faltered after showing its watch last week."
The hype machine may have reached its limit.

Environment

EPA to monitor how long guests stay in hotel showers.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Sports

Rookie retires after first year in NFL because of concussion concerns. Even this won't convince Napoleon Goodell to admit battering ram football helmets are the problem and pillows are the solution.

Regulation

FCC watchdog investigates process of writing internet rules as if that matters.

New York City taxi monopoly goes bankrupt thanks to Uber.

Politics

Netanyahu wins reelection.
"Polls from the end of last week had left options open for a tight race. The TV exit polls were published at 10 p.m., as polling stations closed, after which official results began to roll in. The official final results won’t be publicized until Thursday.
Netanyahu, vying for the role for his fourth time (third consecutively), had made a last-ditch attempt over the past days to win back voters mainly from the right-wing bloc, vowing Monday night to block a Palestinian state should he remain in office.
Unlike years past, analysts had said the race between Likud and Zionist Union, the two leading factions, was too close to call with confidence, but the exit polls showed Netanyahu clearly better placed to build the next coalition."
Fearmongering pay. Supposedly, the election was not close.

Local

OVI checkpoint in Washington Twp.

The Water Street development has begun about a dozen times. You might think it could only begin once. 37 DDN stories for "'water street' begins".

Another story on development on east Third downtown.

Health Care

What caused measles outbreak at Disneyland.

McDonald's puts an end to factory chicken.

Because breast feeding makes babies healthier, breast-fed babies earn more in life, and the longer they're breast-fed, the more they earn.

Industry lobbies against sugar labeling proposal.

Politics

The perversion of feminism and science has produced a study that claims nice guys are sexist. The alternative is violent guys are sexist. Wait...

Socialism

The Onion doesn't understand socialist water allocation.

Immigration

ICE is secretly using drones, but not to stop illegal immigrants.

Tax and Spend

We're supposed to feel bad that NASA has to be subjectred to congressional restraints, as if that's real, to do science. This is ridiculous, as if NASA should have no restraints.

Police State

Congressional committee rubber stamps FBI request hack, hack and hack more often.

Barbie is spying on you.

Hertz puts cameras in rental cars for NSA.

Alan Parsons was the Eye in the Sky and could read your mind 30 years ago. Ahead of their time.

Monday, March 16, 2015

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Environment

Boston breaks snowfall record.
"More snow fell on Boston on Sunday, enough to make this the snowiest season ever on record there.
The National Weather Service said 2.9 inches fell by 7 p.m., pushing total snowfall for the winter of 2014-2015 to 108.6 inches.
That is a full inch over the previous record set during the winter of 1995-1996, the service's Boston office tweeted, and the most since record books started in 1872."
Ouch.

War

Good for Iran for helping defeat ISIS.

Israel supporting al Qaeda affiliate al Nusra Front in Syria.
"We are told by the Israelis that they don’t check the identities of these injured fighters: "We don’t ask who they are, we don’t do any screening… Once the treatment is done, we take them back to the border and they go on their way," says one Israeli military official. This from a country one can’t enter from the United States without an extensive interrogation at the airport. "
Right.

Media

Liberals are losing control of media.
"Adults do not go to movies often. They are watching less cable television. They are watching less network television. They are reading fewer newspapers. Demographics are against liberals in all four media. This means that the future of liberals’ control over the media is being called into question."
This is why government - liberals - wants to take over the internet.
"Here is the universal rule of the Internet: bandwidth gets cheaper. In three words, the liberals’ control over American media is being challenged. As bandwidth gets cheaper, more producers can afford to enter the field of digital entertainment. This siphons off adults’ viewing time. Consumers can buy the kind of entertainment they want."
The FCC's takeover of the internet, like all regulation, is guaranteed to drive up prices on content and bandwidth, restricting this advantage.

Economy

How can we be experiencing a bourbon shortage when all producers need to do is raise prices? There's probably a bubble in demand.

Criticism of Apple watch.

Misc

Map of interconnection of local supercluster galaxies looks like a lightning bolt because the universe is organized by electricity.

Genetic information is not just passed along from parents. It's also absorbed from other organisms like bacteria.

Most of our DNA may be garbage.

Both boys and girls use more genes from their fathers.

Croatian Neanderthals made eagle claw jewelry 130,000 years ago.

Tax and Spend

NASA wasting billions on super-rocket (SLS) with no market while the Russians are upgrading their smaller rocket for commercial payloads.

Police State

Democrat Senator warns government collects far more information than Americans know about.

Prison program wants to teach prisoners to code. What could go wrong?

Missouri Lt. Governor accuses AG Holder of inciting the Ferguson mob many times.

The New York Times has finally discovered the Stingray.

Health Care

How FDA and Big Ag pushed GMOs on Americans.

Statin use linked to Parkinson's.

US government is still against saturated fat. Real science is overcoming government pseudo-science, but it's slow.

The sugar industry shaped dental research.

AIDS research is as corrupt as any other government activity, so I wouldn't be surprised if HIV does not cause AIDS.

Widespread olive oil fraud.

Foreign Policy

US shuts down embassy and consulates in Saudi Arabia but doesn't evacuate them.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Health Care

Bird flu strikes in the plains, which is suddenly being called the Midwest.

Another American with Ebola brought to NIH.

Tax and Spend

The Federal government is far deeper in debt than Greece.

The Feds sold oil high and now are buying it low.

Federal Reserve

The dollar is rising because of flight to security. The big foreign governments are adopting even stupider policies than the US as hard as that is to believe.
"Japan is a bankrupt old age colony. China is the most monumental credit and construction Ponzi in human history. Europe is a terminal victim of socialist welfare and statist dirigisme. All three are attempting to defer the day of reckoning via resorting to a final spasm of money printing and central bank manipulation that is so desperate and crazy that it can only end in disaster. So there is no global convoy of inexorable economic growth and progress. Instead, we are entering a new era of spectacular financial disorder and credit fueled booms turning into unprecedented deflationary busts. And it is the three big economies outside the US which will hit the wall first, causing the US dollar to thrive on a relative basis."
There is no safe haven.

Environment

Record low snowpack in Cascades and Sierra Nevada, meaning California is still hurting for water.