Foreign Policy

South Korea believes North Korea conducted a third, wimpy, nuclear test. I'm not trying to make fun of nuclear tests. But there must be a scale. The Wall Street Journal concurs. We're supposed to be very scared even though government experts, who have been wrong about pretty much everything, say it was a nuclear bomb. People who are for starving for attention come up with specular ways to gain it. I'm not saying NK doesn't have a nuclear weapon. I'm saying its rulers want attention. How about we be proactive and end the war and normalize relations and trade? It ain't 1950.

Local

Investigation shows local doctors are paid by Big Pharma.

"An investigation by the journalism website ProPublica shows how much money pharmaceutical companies paid to doctors in our area.  We found several physicians whowere paid more than $100,000 over the course of two years.  The payments ranged from $109,000 to $191,000."

I think it's more. Doctors get free phony vacations to attend conferences sponsored by pharmaceutical companies.

Misc

Pope resigns. How does one resign from having direct communication with God? I guess God allowed him to step down.

"The questions reverberated from the Vatican to every corner of the Catholic world and left a billion members scratching their heads over something not seen since 1415 - why is the pope resigning now?"

Why did the Pope resign then? This article cites health reasons, as if no other Pope has ever been frail. This article cites scandal, as if no other Pope has ever had scandal. We'll never know the real story.

Hackers send emergency alert about the dead rising from graves. You can't make this stuff up.

War

Former SEAL credited with shooting Osama bin Laden doesn't have health care.

"Bronstein also catalogs what the Shooter lacks: pension (he left service 36 months short of the necessary 20 years), health care (though he battles arthritis, eye damage, tendonitis, and blown disks), protection for his family (from a retaliatory attack), disability benefits (he's waiting), a healthy marriage (he and his wife have split, under the pressure of a job that took him away as many as 300 days a year), and communication from the Department of Veterans Affairs (computer-generated form letters aside)."

While I have no doubt the government can screw this man and other veterans royally, I'm skeptical. Why would the SEALs allow a disabled man to go on missions? Why did he leave the service 36 months before he would received a life-long pension?

"Bronstein catalogs the absent opportunities, like the $25 million bounty on bin Laden's head that won't go to the team and the movies and books from which it won't benefit; and the single offer from SEAL command that he could drive a beer truck in Milwaukee under a new identity. And while a private security job might be a valid route, "many of these guys, including the Shooter, do not want to carry a gun ever again for professional use," he says."

That sounds like guilt.

Your tax dollars are paying for same sex military couples to live together. War is the ultimate exposition of socialism, the belief that one collective wages war against another. That's absurd enough. but using war as an excuse to steal people's money in order to pay for the co-habitation of homosexuals in order to wage war is even worse.

Police State

First confirmed use of spy drones in the US in California manhunt for ex-cop turned cop killer.

Clueless Fedcoats are afraid Dorner fled to Mexico. I'm not Fedcoat, but I disagree. I bet he's positioned himself to kill some other government agent or his family.

Reason questions the LAPD's version of events, but recognizes Dorner is no hero. I see this as government on government crime. Our violent government produces violent agents and sometimes those violent agents turn back on their masters. It's important to realize the source of the violence is the government, and, along with the self-interest of protecting themselves and their families, this is why government agents are unusually motivated to find this guy.

Education

Education: Free and Compulsory.

The Prussian Connection.

New Ohio reading requirements could cost local Ohio taxpayers millions. There's so many things wrong with this story, I can't count.

Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Americans purchase a gun every 1.5 seconds.

Global Warming and Energy

Smallest ozone hole over Antarctica in a decade. It has nothing to do with CFCs. This was understood as a pseudo-scientific hoax from Al Gore in 1994 when freon was banned.

"Even though the theory that CFCs are destroying the earth's ozone layer is seriously flawed, it is worthwhile asking how much ultraviolet radiation is reaching the earth's surface compared to the past. Surely, if the earth's oxygen/ozone protective shield against ultraviolet radiation is being compromised — whether due to CFCs alone or some combination of natural and/or man-made phenomena — more ultraviolet radiation should be reaching the earth's surface. And yet, as Dr. Ray pointed out, citing studies by such scientific organizations as the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Cancer Institute, "ultraviolet radiation levels at the earth's surface are going down, not up." This simple fact speaks volumes, which perhaps explains why it has been all but ignored by the major media."

Apparently that's changed in the last decade of unusually quiet solar cycle 24.

Global warming has stalled according to NOAA's standard.

"The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate."

Done and falsified.

Misc

Divorce rate lowest for couples who drink the same amount.

Tax and Spend

Black doctor advocates flat tax at presentation with President Obama. The president was not happy.

On NASA and the corruption of science by government. I love the idea of a separation of science and state.

"The space program above earth’s gravity is a Darwinist boondoggle. The money spent by the government does not pay a positive rate of return, unless you are a Darwinist who thinks life on Mars or in a nearby solar system will prove that life is not unique, mankind is not unique, Jesus is not unique, and therefore Darwinists will not go to hell. They operate in terms of a scientific formula: Life in outer space = there is no hell."

While there may be some truth to this for some people, NASA isn't looking for life. That's propaganda they use to steal our money.

"Of course, the same statistics would apply without the Kepler. But funding the Kepler is crucial. If we did not have the Kepler, we would have less compelling press releases from NASA.
Here is what the Kepler really funds: NASA’s press releases."

Now he gets it.

"They are spending us blind. They will continue to do so until the Great Default. The spending is astronomical. (Sorry. I could not resist.)"

The spending is way more than astronomical. 

War on Drugs

Wine production increased during prohibition because of homemade wine. The same is probably true for marijuana.

War

It takes four years and $92 million, at least that's what was budgeted for 2012, to refuel the aircraft carrier Lincoln. And we wonder why our military costs so much.

Health Care

Why in the world would the "experts" have thought soup was invented only 5,000 years ago? They suddenly discovered soup is older. I bet soup is as old as control of fire.

"It now looks like waterproof and heatproof containers were invented much earlier than previously thought. Harvard University archaeologist Ofer Bar-Yosef and colleagues reported last year in Science on their finding of 20,000-year-old pottery from a cave in China. "When you look at the pots, you can see that they were in a fire," Bar-Yosef says."

You don't need clay pots to resist fire. Wood and reeds soaked in water resist fire. Reeds may leak, but water can be added while soup is cooking.

"But Speth says boiling, and soup, could be even older.
He started thinking about ancient boiling after watching an episode of the television show "Survivorman," in which host Les Stroud boils water in a plastic container. "You can boil without using heated stones," Speth realized. All you need is a waterproof container suspended over a fire — the water inside keeps the material from burning."

Exactly.

"Putting a date on the world's first bowl of soup is probably impossible. Anthropologists haven't been able to determine for certain when man was first able to control fire, or when cooking itself was invented (though it was likely more than 300,000 years ago, before Homo sapiens first emerged, Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham says in his book Catching Fire)."

Don't trust the "experts".

Now the CDC wants to vaccinate every pregnant woman against whooping cough because 5-30 children die from it every year.

"The Tdap vaccine is a combination vaccine that is supposed to protect against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis. Does the Tdap vaccine protect against pertussis? The answer is probably yes. What do I mean by probably?  There have not been definitive studies on the efficacy and safety of this vaccine. There is no question that the incidence of pertussis has declined over the last 70 years. However, the CDC’s data shows that the pertussis illness was declining well before the onset of the vaccine.(1) "

No thanks.

More on the connection between Big Pharma and mass murderers.

"I find it interesting that random mass murders were never an issue up until the last 20 years or so – roughly coincidental with a substantial portion of the US population, especially kids, being put on meds for all kinds of imaginary psychological disorders... things that used to be considered just part of life."

I wonder if statistics back up the 20 year claim.  More. 

Local

Warren County is going to pay to build their racino then lease it to the gambling company. This illustrates how deeply government is in bed with gambling companies.

Mobile meth lab in bag. How's that war on drugs working out for us?

Police State

The TSA is pulling the Rapiscan backscatter nude scanners out of airports and replacing them with some other unsafe nude scanner, but the Fedcoats want to put the Rapiscan machines in federal buildings. I guess the Fecoats are giving themselves a dose of their own radiation.

The Paterno family releases a report critical of the Freeh report. Isn't it funny how the Freeh report matched the agenda of Freeh's bosses and the Paterno reports matches the agenda of the Paterno family? It's like the people making the report were following their own self-interest.

"“We conclude that the observations as to Joe Paterno in the Freeh report are unfounded, and have done a disservice not only to Joe Paterno and the university community,” the family’s report said, “but also to the victims of Jerry Sandusky and the critical mission of educating the public on the dangers of child sexual victimization.”"

I wrote something very similar to that.

"Mr. Freeh said he respected the right of the Paterno family to conduct a media campaign “to shape the legacy of Joe Paterno,” but the coach should have done more to stop Sandusky. Mr. Paterno died in January 2012."

The media campaign conducted by the Paterno's is nothing compared to the media campaign conducted by the Pennsylvania Attorney General and Freeh against Paterno and Penn State.

"“Paterno reported the information to his superior(s) pursuant to his understanding of university protocol and relied upon them to investigate and report as appropriate,” the family’s analysis said. "

I wrote something very similar to that too. But the media didn't care that Paterno did the right thing. They smelled blood in the water, and they destroyed his career and ultimately killed Paterno.

Petition to stop CISPA, a bill that would give government legal access to all internet information.

Definition of police state.

": a political unit characterized by repressive governmental control of political, economic, and social life usually by an arbitrary exercise of power by police and especially secret police in place of regular operation of administrative and judicial organs of the government according to publicly known legal procedures "

That's pretty accurate.

The war on terror has completed the police state.

"Trevor Aaronson in his book, The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s War on Terrorism, documents that the FBI has so far concocted 150 “terrorist plots” and that almost all of the other “terrorist cases” are cases unrelated to terrorism, such as immigration, with a terror charge tacked on. The presstitute American media doesn’t ask why, if there is so much real terrorism requiring an American war against it, the FBI has to invent and solicit terrorist plots."

But it everybody scared.

More on FBI entrapment of pseudo-terrorists.

Obama's secret spy network.

Secret arrest of reported illegal immigrants.

SWAT teams searching for former cop turned cop killer surround another building and order people to stay inside while ordering people out of one unit and searching it. I wonder if they had a warrant. I doubt they bothered. The cops look like clowns searching for this guy, but the locals are paying the price.

"A $1 million reward has been offered for the arrest and conviction of the 33-year-old former polilceman officer and Navy lieutenant who was fired by LAPD for making false accusations of police brutality against his training officer."

So that's what this is all about. The rookie exposed his training officer, and that cannot be tolerated, so they ousted him. He saw the violence inherent in the system, and he's responding in kind in revenge.

Now the guy is a domestic terrorist.

Local

TIF is a government name for a new tax on productive areas.

Misc

New Austrian critique of Keynes's General Theory.

"Keynes's distorted version of Say's Law in TGT states that supply creates its own demand. Rallo vindicates Say's Law in its original version: In the long run, the supply of a good adjusts to its demand. Ultimately, goods are offered to buy other goods (money included). One produces in order to demand, which implies that a general overproduction is impossible.
Say's Laws leads us straight forward to the most innovative argument in Rallo's book that addresses the old argument against hoarding. Even harsh critics of Keynes, for example from the monetarist or neoclassical camp, admit that Keynes was at least right in that hoarding is a destabilizing and dangerous activity.
Rallo, however, proves and emphasizes the social function of hoarding. To demand money is not to demand nothing from the market. Hoarding is the natural response of savers and consumers to a structure of production that does not adjust to their needs. It is a signal of protest to entrepreneurs: “Please offer different consumer and capital goods! Change the structure of production, since the composition of offered goods is not appropriate.”
In a situation of great uncertainty, it is even prudent to hoard and not immobilize funds for the long run. Rallo provides us a visual example. Let's assume that uncertainty increases because people expect an earthquake. They start to hoard, i.e., they increase their cash balance, which gives them more flexibility. This is completely rational and beneficial from the point of view of market participants. The alternative is to immobilize funds through government spending. The public production of skyscrapers is not only against the will of the more prudent people; it will also prove disastrous if the earthquake is realized."

Here's the mises.org wiki definition of Say's Law.

"Idle resources are another important topic in Rallo's book since Keynes recommends inflation in the case of idle resources. Rallo asks why factors are unemployed and comes to the result that their owners demand a price for their services that is higher than their discounted marginal value product. In these circumstances, inflation implies a redistribution in favor of the owners of those factors, or a frustration of attempts to restructure, i.e., the economy suffers from forced saving or capital consumption.
In contrast, when factors of production adjust their prices, i.e., wages fall back to their discounted marginal value product, aggregate demand does not fall as Keynes suggests. On the contrary aggregate demand increases, because total production increases."
"As Rallo points out, society does not get richer if the government induces or forces people to buy goods they don't want. Thus, for Rallo the essence of TGT is the following: when people do not want to buy what is produced, the government should force them to act against their will. "

Nice review.

War

These military training exercises in which helicopters shoot blanks over US cities like Miami and Houston are training US troops to fire on us in a civil war.

Foreign Policy

The conflict between China and Japan over a couple of islands with oil under them.

Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Armed citizens show up at city council meeting to protest law banning firearms in government parks and in support of a wounded veteran a council member previously tried to bar from the meeting because he carried a firearm. The council overturned the ban. Gun ownership and the peaceful exercise of the right to keep and bear arms is enough to get our rulers to do the right thing.

Education

Former Columbia student claims the school falsely arrested him, forced him into a psychiatric prison and medicated him against his will for a month because he called his Spanish teacher a bad name. This wouldn't surprise me at all.

Police State

More on the sentencing of the Amish beard-cutters to prison.

Apparently the ex-military, ex-cop being hunted in California has declared war on the police, killed one and also killed the daughter of the former police captain who represented him in his failed discipline hearing. The subsequent manhunt has produced violence against mundanes.

""Emma Hernandez, 71, was delivering the Los Angeles Times with her daughter, Margie Carranza, 47, in the 19500 block of Redbeam Avenue in Torrance on Thursday morning when Los Angeles police detectives apparently mistook their pickup for that of Christopher Dorner, the 33-year-old fugitive suspected of killing three people and injuring two others," according to a Los Angeles Times blog. "Hernandez, who attorney Glen T. Jonas said was shot twice in the back, was in stable condition late Thursday. Carranza received stitches on her finger."
The quotation from Jonas was priceless: "The problem with the situation is it looked like the police had the goal of administering street justice and in so doing, didn't take the time to notice that these two older, small Latina women don't look like a large black man.""

Talk about being bluntly honest. That could get him killed.

""About 25 minutes after the shooting, Torrance police opened fire after spotting another truck similar to Dorner’s at Flagler Lane and Beryl Street." Fortunately, no one was hurt at that one. If there were injuries, the cops would just shrug it off. The second shooting reminds us that this is how police will routinely behave. Police officials will then adamantly defend this behavior even in the federal court system."

Police brutality is not a bunch of isolated events. It's systemic.

DHS buys 7,000 real - full auto - assault rifles.

"The juiciest part of this bid is the use of the phrase “Personal Defense Weapons” to describe the full-auto AR-15s being purchased by DHS.
Apparently, when YOU hold an AR-15, it’s an “assault rifle.” But magically, if you hand that same rifle to an armed government homeland security enforcer, it instantly transforms itself into a “personal defense weapon.”"

I not surprised by the hypocrisy. The government knows riots then civil war are coming. From its point of view, DHS agents will need to protect themselves.

"The request for bid actually says:
“DHS and its components have a requirement for a 5.56x45mm NATO, select-fire firearm suitable for personal defense use in close quarters and / or when maximum concealment is required.”"

More. If this doesn't tell you that civil war is coming, I don't know what will.

On the government's trained killers.

"The US government in its role as the nanny state, and in cahoots with big pharma, now doles out medications in an attempt to control the behavior of many young minds. Often the most energetic minds, and those least willing to sit still to listen to government propaganda all day long, are the ones pumped with drugs. But just as with government's training of killers and the way the training has different impact on different minds, the medications to force students to sit still all day, doesn't have the same impact on all the same way. The medications will turn some into killers, as witnessed by the killings at Columbine, Aurora and Newtown. Force medications on some students to make them sit still for hours, and some will find ways to break through those mental prisons, sometimes with guns blazing."

Nice job exposing the link between government schools, Big Pharma and mass murderers.

Global Warming and Energy

Nemo dumps three feet of snow, kills five and cuts power to 700,000.

Where does the Massachusetts governor think he gets the power to ban people from driving because of snow?

Local

2,300 people lost power again today.

Kettering police officer on paid vacation despite being convicted of assault.

"Kettering City Manager Mark Schwieterman said Stewart has been on paid administrative leave since the event took place.
“At this point, the situation is still under investigation,” Schwieterman said."

He's already been convicted. What is your investigation doing? It's good to be the king.

Regulation

USPTO grants Amazon patent on recurring deliveries.

"Perhaps unfamiliar with the concept of the Milkman, the USPTO has granted Amazon.com a patent for the Recurring Delivery of Products , an idea five Amazon inventors came up with to let customers schedule product deliveries to their doorsteps or mailboxes on a recurring basis, without needing to submit a new order every time. 'For instance,' the filing explains, 'a customer may request delivery of one bunch of bananas every week and two gallons of milk every two weeks.'"

You can't make this stuff up.

Police State

Ring leader of Ohio Amish beard cutting group gets 15 in prison. Whatever happened to the punishment fitting the crime?

Tax and Spend

EU officials cut spending in upcoming budget and agree to cap spending. I doubt this is as significant are reported, but it shows even EU politicians are less evil than American politicians.

A competitive marketplace provides higher quality products at lower prices, but switching between a monopoly socialist prison food supplier and monopoly fascist prison food supplier in Ohio prisons is unlikely to provide any benefits because both are monopolies and both are controlled by government.

Global Warming and Energy

Somebody is now naming winter storms, and they've named the storm heading towards New England 'Nemo'. That's a better name than they give hurricanes. Get ready for the global warming frauds to go off the rails.

Another fraud blames Nemo on warm oceans.

Anthony Watts is saving forecasts for Nemo so he can compare them later. I love this idea. I've long considered creating a crowd-sourced website to track the accuracy of weathermen around the country. You could do it with robots, but outlets change their websites all the time.

Politicians grandstand before the storm. You can bet that government will make any problems worse.

New Zealand paper acknowledges Steve McIntyre has yet to be proven wrong.

Global warming to bring both colder and warmer winters. Too funny.

Freedom of Speech

The DOJ has sued major ebook suppliers over collusion to keep prices high, but they can only do this because government artificially limits supply with copyright. Five companies have settled, but Apple continues to fight. This another case of government creating a problem, then stealing our money in order to combat the problem.

Health Care

Imagining working out provides benefits of working out. That's crazy.

Misc

Why do I care if Google code reads my emails to provide targeted advertising to me? That's doing me a service. Google isn't using my info against me like the government.

Federal Reserve

The government is supposedly investigating the banks and ratings agencies for the 2008 crash, five years after they fact. Emails show bankers knew the loans were bad. Of course they did. The government forced them to make bad loans through the Community Reinvestment Act. And Moody's lost business if it didn't play along.

Misc

Chinese embrace invention of British engineer ridiculed in Britain to develop radical new space drive. I'm with the skeptics.

Global Warming and Energy

Global warming frauds already blaming predicted east coast blizzard on global warming, or in this case, ocean warming. The only problem is the ocean is colder than normal.

Record of climate alarmists including top politicians debunking the climate change pseudo-science.

Police State

Court rejects the indefinite detention provision of the NDAA.

Health Care

Thanks to Obamacare and Kasich's budget, Ohio's Medicaid costs are likely to explode.

Local

Years after the fact, Congressman Turner sets up a fake congressional task force to resolve - read that whitewash - Obama's wipeout of pensions for non-union workers at Delhi.

"Turner said the task force will serve as “an informal group of Members” dedicated to resolving the issues related to the pensions."

What a charade. I'm sure Turner will win political points, and I'm equally sure nothing will come from this.

Kasich's budget proposal boosts school funding for 10 local districts including Kettering while leaving the rest flat.

"Under their theory, we’re seeing an increase because of our large number of students with disabilities, large number of economically disadvantaged students and … average income of the residents in the area,” said Clark, adding that 41 percent of Kettering’s students receive free or reduced lunch. “Those (property) values in the area have declined over time, and we have a lower average income per resident."

Apparently Kettering is getting poorer.

Federal Reserve

The Fed's counterfeiting is artificially inflating the stock market.

War

Walter Williams asks some questions about women going into combat including will they be required to register for the draft.

"In a January report titled "Defense Department 'Diversity' Push for Women in Land Combat" (http://tinyurl.com/axn9l93) Elaine Donnelly, director of the Center for Military Readiness, points to U.S. Army studies showing that women are twice as likely to suffer injuries and are three times more undeployable than men. Women are less likely to be able to march under load – 12.4 miles in five hours with an 83-pound assault load – and to be able to crawl, sprint, negotiate obstacles with that load or move a casualty weighing 165 pounds or more while carrying that load. Plus, there are muscle-challenging feats, even for men, such as field repairs on an M1A1 Abrams tank."

These are fine points, but they compare averages. If the military established one set of standards for every test, as it should, and a few women passed them, it still wouldn't be a good idea put women in combat. Injecting sexual tension into the most stressful situation known to man, and woman, is a recipe for disaster. Rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment are already rampant in the military. Why adopt a policy that will make these things more common and worse. Can you imagine two men on the front lines fighting over a woman in their platoon? It's insane.

"Here are a couple of what-if questions. Suppose a combat unit is retreating in mountainous terrain in Afghanistan, where a person's aerobic capacity really makes a difference, and the women in the unit can't keep up with the men. What would you propose, leaving the women behind to possibly be captured by the Taliban or having the unit slow down so the women can keep up, thereby risking causalities or capture? What if a male soldier is washed out of the Army's Advanced Infantry Training program because he cannot pass its physical fitness test whereas a female soldier who can't perform at his level is retained? Should male soldiers be able to bring suit and be awarded damages for sex discrimination? How much respect can a male soldier have for his female counterpart, who is held to lower performance standards?"

These are fabulous questions.

"There's another issue. The Selective Service System's website has the following message about draft registration: "Even though the Secretary of Defense has decided to allow women in combat jobs, the law has not been changed to include this. Consequently, only men are currently required to register by law with Selective Service during ages 18 thru 25. Women still do not register." How can that, coupled with differences in performance standards, possibly be consistent with the Defense Department's stated agenda "to provide a level, gender-neutral playing field"?"

Rhetorical question.

Federal Reserve

Anonymous hacks the Fed.

Local

It seems the paper's discussion of Dayton's plan to put a surveillance plane over the city had an effect. Our rulers delayed implementing the plan. Here's a couple of juicy quotes:

"At Wednesday’s work session, Police Chief Richard Biehl showed actual photos taken from a 2012 test run of the technology, which is effective only during daylight hours."

That's rather limiting, but it assuages people's fears about a nighttime Peeping Tom.

"PSS President Ross McNutt said technicians watching the video would not be able to make out a person’s face or a car’s license plate, and the very blurry images shown Wednesday confirmed that. But Biehl explained how the cameras did help solve a crime during last year’s test. Police reviewed video from a burglary site and tracked the suspect vehicle to its eventual destination, where police made an arrest."

They're trying to have it both ways. It sounds like pathetic technology. Government can read license plates from space, but these guys can't from 10,000 feet? But this is more on the slippery slope. Better cameras would be implemented within weeks of purchase because they would be more valuable. This bad camera is about fooling people into believing this surveillance won't actually invade privacy.

The original story on this said the plane would only be used on active investigations. It seems the proposal has already advanced down the slippery slope.

"With fewer resources, police need new tools. That’s one rationale Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl offers for asking the city to spend $120,000 for an airplane to monitor crime hot spots from high above the city.
The idea is to focus on areas where “patterns” of crime are developing — a spike in the number of neighborhood break-ins, for example. Finding an “emerging crime pattern that we think is going to continue” is the key to intelligently using airborne surveillance, the chief said.
“This isn’t just a needle in a haystack,” Biehl said. “Once a crime pattern has has been identified, we will arrange flight times during times we think crimes may be committed.”"

Patterns aren't active investigations. Our rulers and their propagandists at the DDN are really pushing this.

"The surveillance flights would happen mostly during daylight or daybreak and twilight, Biehl said. The piloted planes are equipped with high-definition cameras and would fly at roughly 10,000 feet above the city."

Mostly? High definition? Get your story straight.

"Some crimes may be discovered after they have been committed, Biehl said. When that happens, the department can examine recordings from above to track notable “comings and goings” at a reported crime scene, he said."

Here's another contradiction to the active investigation claim.

"Biehl said he’s aware of potential objections. But no one who commits crime in public should have any expectation of privacy, he said. And he said the department has “no interest” in law-abiding activity."

Straw man. Nobody claims criminals have an expectation of privacy. And we're supposed trust them about everything else.

Fourteen school districts want to steal more money to hire more bureaucrats.

Ten local governments want to steal 36 million more dollars to hire more bureaucrats.

Local gas prices jumped 50 cents and continue to rise. Thanks, Obama.

Police State

Miami-Dade police officers fired for failure to respond to emergency calls. This is news because it's outrageously unusual.

Media

Foxnews drops Dick Morris for his inaccurate prediction that Romney would win. It's nice to see a so-called expert canned for being wrong. Too bad the government and the other networks don't do the same.

Misc

Electric sun theorist prediction that solar minimums produce more earthquakes, and weak sunspot activity as in the Maunder Minimum produce even more, deadly earthquakes. With solar cycle 24, we seem to be entering a similar period now. Last April I wondered if earthquake activity was on the rise, so there may be something to this, but I hope not. We don't need more deadly earthquakes.

Politics

Senator Rubio to respond to Obama's State of Union. A big part of this is both parties push towards amnesty for illegal immigrants. The other is Rubio's position as the establishment's Republican candidate of choice for 2016.

Do you hate the state?

Tax and Spend

I doubt that ending Saturday delivery will end subsidies for the Post Office.

Thomas Sowell explains why the CBO's budget estimates are always wrong.

"In a worldwide context, during the 20th century, economic central planning by governments — prophecy at the grandest level — led to so many bad consequences in countries around the world that even most socialist and Communist governments abandoned central planning by the end of that century.
The failures of governmental prophecies in so many different contexts cannot be blamed on stupidity. Most of the people who made these prophecies were far more educated than the average person, had far more information at their fingertips, and probably had higher IQs as well.
Their intellectual superiority to others may well have given them the confidence to venture into areas where no human being has what it takes to make prophecies, especially prophecies that lead to policies that override the plans and actions of millions of other human beings.
As John Stuart Mill said back in the 19th century, “even if a government were superior in intelligence and knowledge to any single individual in the nation, it must be inferior to all the individuals of the nation taken together.”"

This is Hayek's fatal flaw of central planning.

"People competing with each other, and being forced to make mutual accommodations with each other in the marketplace, are operating in a trial-and-error process. Human beings are going to make errors in any kind of economic or political system. The question is: Which kind of system punishes errors more quickly, and more effectively in terms of forcing errors to be corrected?"

That's not the only question. The other question is: who pays the price for the errors?

"A market economy with many competitors has incentives and constraints that are the opposite of those in a government monopoly."

A market economy has incentives and constraints that quickly punish errors which leads to correction, and the losses are localized around the actor who made the mistakes.

Boortz claims that federal debt interest payments will top $1 trillion in four years, but the link he gives is to the previous article. Here's what I find from the CBO:

"In CBO's most recent projections, which assume that current laws remain the same, annual deficits decline from the $1.3 trillion recorded in 2010, but the cumulative deficit from 2011 through 2020 exceeds $6.2 trillion. Borrowing to finance that deficit--in combination with an expected rise in interest rates--would lead to a fourfold increase in net interest payments over the next 10 years, from $197 billion in 2010 to $778 billion in 2020. As a percentage of GDP, net interest outlays would more than double during that period, rising from 1.4 percent to 3.4 percent."

That doesn't match Boortz's claim, but it's still insane.

Obama asks for higher taxes and smaller spending cuts to replace sequestration. Republicans quickly say no. They'll cave. The economy shrunk in Q4. It's going to shrink again in Q1. From an official point of view, we've entered a double-dip recession, and that will be officially announced, probably sometime in Q2. If Republicans resist Obama, he will blame them for the recession. They're going to use this as an excuse to raise taxes and avoid cutting spending, which is what they want to do anyway. They're resistance is political theater.

Freedom of Speech

In an impressive example of how government spawns corruption, a new website copies data from other websites, then uses government's copyright regulations to shut down the original site. Government turns everything upside down.

Health Care

Another consequence of government's control of our food supply: horse meat in ground beef. Imagine if we had a free market in food. All our meet would come from local farmers and local processors. If anybody put horse meat in ground beef, they would instantly go bankrupt. The harsh consequences of the market would prevent this fraud. But since government controls our food supply through heavy regulation and subsidies, it has established giant corporate agents that face very little competition to carry out its edicts. So we end up with horse meat in ground beef, and the corporation that committed fraud will suffer no real penalty for it.

Federal Reserve

Two economists from the St. Louis Fed join the Austrian economists in calling to abolish patents. The same argument applies to copyright.

Local

Shelby County school teachers and administrators get gun training.

Global Warming and Energy

I always get a kick out of alarmist stories like Moscow gets heaviest snow in a century which is blamed on global warming. Guess what? As Anthony points out, the snow was heavier over a century ago when CO2 levels were lower.

We're also experiencing the lowest sunspot cycle in a century, so there's a correlation, unlike with CO2.

Police State

The Super Bowl reported attracts more pimps and prostitutes than any other event in the world. I wouldn't call this human trafficking. I would call it prostitution. This is another example of a problem created by government that government uses as an excuse to steal our money to combat.

"According to Forbes, 10,000 prostitutes were brought to Miami for the Super Bowl in 2010 and 133 underage arrests for prostitution were made in Dallas during the 2011 Super Bowl.
Prostitution of minors is considered trafficking under federal law." 

I don't have a problem with calling prostitution of a minor trafficking from a prosecution point of view, but it still implies kidnapping, which is not necessarily true.

"Greenlee, a former sex trafficking victim who was abducted and raped by her captors at 12, told the Times-Picayune that she was shuttled around cities in the South to work as a prostitute at large-scale events. The 53-year-old, who now works as an advocate for sex trafficking victims in Louisiana, said there was immense pressure to meet her traffickers’ demands at events like the Super Bowl. "

That's what I think of when I think of trafficking.

War

The Justice Department writes a 16 page rationalization of why the president can assassinate Americans with no due process in contradiction to the plain language of the Constitution.

Obama declines to explain his strategy for assassinating Americans with drones.

Tax and Spend

The New York Times prints this headline:

"Obama Will Ask Congress for Budget Cuts to Head Off Automatic Reductions"

But the article is all about avoiding cuts. This is a lie.

How Nordic countries with Sweden in the lead cut government spending and debt to improve their economies. Canada did the same.

New Jersey Governor Christie calls FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program a disgrace. What else would you expect from the most corrupt institution in the world?

"The governor said excessive paperwork, inadequate staffing, cumbersome audits and the threat of financial penalties to carriers and adjusters is interfering with the timely issuance of payments, prolonging the suffering of many New Jersey residents hurt by Sandy."

Yet I guarantee fraud is rampant. What else would you expect from an institution funded by theft and based on violence? 

Study estimates government roads cost Americans billions.

"The nation’s commuters are adapting to increasing traffic congestion by building delays into their schedules, but at a cost of $121 billion in wasted time and fuel, an annual study of national driving patterns released Tuesday said."

What about the accidents? The fatalities? The stress?  I'm sure the total cost is much higher.

Highlights of Kasich's budget plan. 

Misc

HR departments are giving (selling?) salary information to Equifax so it can build and sell a giant database of salary information.

"Its database is so detailed that it contains week-by-week paystub information dating back years for many individuals, as well as ... health care provider, whether someone has dental insurance and if they've ever filed an unemployment claim."

That's ridiculous.

The era of groundbreaking science isn't over, but government's control of science has powerfully hampered any dissenting voices.

Super Bowl ads.

Regulation

Amazon patents "maintaining scarcity of goods". Since information is a non-scarce good, only threats of violence - ip laws - can limit it. 

Foreign Policy

The real history of relations between the US and Iran.

"The U.S. government, operating out of the same embassy despised by many in Iran since 1953, explored possible means of keeping the Shah in power, but some in the CIA worked to facilitate what they saw as the second best option: a theocracy that would substitute religious fanaticism and oppression for populist and nationalist demands.
When the U.S. embassy was taken over by an unarmed crowd the next November, immediately following the public announcement of the Shah's arrival in the United States, and with fears of another U.S.-led coup widespread in Tehran, a sit-in planned for two or three days was co-opted, as the whole revolution had been, by mullahs with connections to the CIA and an extremely anti-democratic agenda."

The CIA supported the Mullahs? I've never heard that before. Another article:

"Despite the propaganda by Islamic fundamentalists, the hostility of the conservative religious forces against Americans was not due to the 1953 coup. Actually, Islamic fundamentalist forces were among the groups that were either mobilized by the CIA and the Shah supporters for the coup, or publicly supported the Shah after the coup. The fundamentalists opposed Mossadegh and collaborated with the CIA in 1953 as well as with the subsequent regime until 1961. Among those who closely worked with the CIA and the Shah during and after the coup are: Ayatollah Abolqassem Kashani, Kashani’s son who was one of the very first persons who talked at Radio Tehran as soon as it was captured by the coup plotters, Ayatollah Mohammad Behbahani, Hojatolislam Mohammad Taqi Falsafi, and Grand Ayatollah Brujerdi.1"

Everything government tells us is a lie. Here's an article about the 1979 revolution.

"A few weeks ago, after a period of inner soul searching, I finally mustered up the courage to accept the alternative version of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, and wrote an article called, “The British And U.S. Governments Installed Khomeini Into Power In 1979.”
After further excavating, I became even more convinced that Khomeini exploited the anti-Shah uprising in 1978-79 for his own personal quest for power and hijacked the mass revolutionary movement with the aid of the anti-American traitors in the shadow CIA and MI6.
In my excavation, I came upon the research into the real origins of the Islamic Revolution and the Iranian-American hostage crisis by Fara Mansoor through an article from 1995 called, “The real Iranian hostage story from the files of Fara Mansoor,” by Harry V. Martin.
Fara Mansoor is an Iranian revolutionary who took part in the 1963 anti-Shah uprising as a university student in Tehran that was crushed by the Shah’s forces. He witnessed firsthand the hijacking of the popular Iranian revolution in 1979 by Khomeini and the Islamic fundamentalists, who were catapulted into power by the shadow CIA-MI6 network."

This article gets pretty far out there.

Global Warming and Energy

French government to enforce a lights out policy at night to reduce light pollution and reduce CO2 emissions. Can you imagine the crime wave that would follow if this really happens?

The head of the IPCC, supposedly an organization of scientists, is a green activist. Like I keep saying, these aren't scientists. They are pseudo-scientists. They are political activists posing as scientists.

NPR admits polar bears are thriving. Another fraudulent story about endangered polar bears. That's funny.

Debunking the claim of a new kind of rain in Britain.

Right to Keep and Bear Arms

The killer of the former SEAL was a veteran with PTSD. This still sounds very convenient for Obama and his cronies. The victim is a hero, which will outrage most people. The killer is a veteran, which promotes his agenda to cut the military. The killer was mentally ill, which promotes his agenda to make every American do a background check before selling a firearm. I'm skeptical that government had no hand in this murder. More info.

"Chris Kyle, a former Navy SEAL and the U.S. military's most lethal sniper, was fatally shot yesterday on a gun range by another veteran. Kyle and a neighbor had taken a veteran on an outing to help him deal with post-traumatic stress disorder. The guy then reportedly turned on the men and shot them in the back."

Tell me that doesn't sound like a setup.

Obama threatens people who photo-shop the image of him shooting a shotgun. Website devoted to the best photo-shop of the picture. I love it.

Politics

I've long proposed that libertarians take over the Republican party. Ron Paul supporters did that in several states, only to have the party establishment reject the democratically elected officials, like in Alaska. So much for that idea.

I like this comparison of government to a volcano. It may not have exploded on us recently, but we shouldn't be lulled into a false sense of security. It will.

War

Gulf War veterans still sick.

Economy

Ohio's big city downtowns are booming. Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus are all big enough that their downtowns can thrive despite the burdens of city government.  Dayton isn't big enough for that.

Education

48 percent of college graduates are underemployed. Tell me about it.

School system wants to copyright work of students, teachers and staff so it can own it.

The consequences of student loan debt.

"According to that study, the growth in those colleges’ debt and rate of spending on new buildings and equipment rose far faster than did their spending on actual education itself. Said Bain, "Boards of trustees and presidents need to put their collective foot down on the growth of support and maintenance costs. In no other industry would overhead costs be allowed to grow at this rate — executives would lose their jobs.""

Sounds like government.

Tax and Spend

Ohio Gov. Kasich wants to cut income taxes and raise energy taxes, but we need to abolish the income tax and cut spending. This revenue neutral stuff is for the crooks.

Local

Last summer, somebody told me MetroParks was drowning in money. Now they want to charge for the parks. I think they abolish park taxes and charge for them.

In bad news for the local economy, local counties report investment income declined last year and will continue to decline this year. That's because the government is stealing so much of our money.

Article exposes the baloney about the proposed assault weapon ban.

"The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office has investigated more homicides involving frying pans in the past three years than firearms labeled as “assault weapons” in proposed federal gun bans."

The government wants to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines to make it easier to kill Americans when it's agents begin their hot war on us.

Health Care

Kobe Bryant's secret to high performance and longevity is a primal diet.

How a free market might deal with an epidemic.

Misc

Skeleton of Richard III identified.

Baptists threaten to leave Boy Scouts if they lift the ban in gays.

Can you imagine how crappy a government run, nationwide wireless network would be? Supposedly it would be like cell phone networks. The problem with that comparison is cell phone networks were built by the private sector in response to market demand. There's obviously no market demand for a nationwide wi-fi network. But if the government did this, it could control the internet, and that's what this is ultimately about.

I'm skeptical of this claim the earth is on the edge of the habitable zone. The implication is if the earth heated a tiny bit, it would become uninhabitable. This sounds like a new direction for global warming propaganda, especially since it comes from Mann's university. It was supposedly based on greenhouse gas databases.

Strong connections between the Bush family and the Hinckley - Reagan's would-be assassin - family.

Tax and Spend

There's no notable difference between Republicans and Democrats at the national level, but there is a a real difference at the state level. The worst fiscally responsible states and therefore the worst economies are Illinois, California, New York, and New Jersey. All those states are dominated by Democrats. The most fiscally responsible states and therefore with the best economies are Texas, Wyoming and South Dakota. This isn't hard to understand. Government always harms the economy. But if you thought that because of this, Republicans were actually for budget cuts at the state level, obviously they're not at the federal level, you are wrong. Republicans never support spending cuts at any level, as this article shows that Republican governors are advocating spending increases. There are lies, damned lies, government statistics, and Republican claims to smaller government.

Right to Keep and Bear Arms

A former government agent shot and killed another former government agent who had written a book about his exploits shooting other people for the last ten years. If that isn't complicated enough, the shooter killed a second former government agent too. If you're think the government is drugging people up and prompting them to shoot other Americans in order to advance the anti-gun, anti-resistance to domestic war agenda, you're not alone.

Sports

Roger Goodell and his officials stole a victory from San Fransisco in order to make Ray Lewis look good. Maybe Ray Lewis helped Goodell bury some bodies a while back because I can't think of another reason the league would embrace a participant in a double murder. Here's my late game analysis:

"The NFL looked like the NBA the way its officials rigged the game for Baltimore. Last I heard, hitting a receiver before the ball got there was a penalty, but the refs refused to call it over and over against Denver, and they refused to call it on what would have been San Fransisco's winning drive in the Super Bowl. What a bunch of crap. The NBA is no longer a major sport. The NFL travesty of a sport is on the same declining trajectory. Nobody likes cheaters. My Spurs know exactly how this corruption feels."

Those who didn't know it before learned the NFL is rigged. Ray Lewis was a participant in a double murder, yet the league was willing to rig a football game to promote him. Why? Because ESPN is the primary sports marketing organ in the world, and they want Lewis. The only thing we don't know is how long until Lewis is convicted of another violent crime. Unable to take focus his violent nature on other football players and unprotected by the NFL, Lewis will attack somebody, and ESPN won't protect him like the NFL did twelve years ago. This scumbag will get what he deserves, but the 49ers I hate so much, will never get back the win the NFL stole from them.

I'm having a hard time expressing how much I loath Ray Lewis. Bret Favre is one of the worst quarterbacks I ever saw. If he hadn't lost so many games for the Packers, they might have won three or four Super Bowls during his era. But Favre was a grossly selfish player. He didn't care about wins. All he cared about was his personal stats. Because of that, he threw more interseptions and lost more games than anybody other than Testiverde. But my disgust with Favre cannot be compared with my antipathy for Ray Lewis. As far as I know, Favre never killed anybody, let alone two people. He never got away with it. The NFL never covered up for his crimes. The NFL never promoted him despite his crimes. But at least he was a great players, unlike Favre.The only good people I know in sports play for my Spurs, and the NBA hates them.

Global Warming and Energy

Alarmist scientist turned skeptic admits the truth about his collegues:

"Interestingly, one of them stated quite openly in a meeting I attended a few years ago that he deliberately lied in these sort of elicitation exercises (i.e. exaggerating the probability of high sensitivity) in order to help motivate political action."

Did I mention the word fraud? This is evidence that would convict.

Global Warming and Energy

The media is unhappy Al Gore sold out to oil producers.

Another climate scientist admits IPCC alarmist predictions are way overestimated.

The four major temperature records, but the Japanese record sees much less heating since 2000.

Government awards millions, possibly billions, for duplicate climate studies. This is great for the hockey stick team pseudo-scientists controlling money and the politicians they work for, but it sucks for the rest of us.

Wind turbine collapses in high wind.

Regulation

San Diego removes red light cameras. Good for them.

Government pressures Google, Microsoft and Apple to protect people's privacy on mobiles, but the problem of privacy was created by government regulation. Government regulation, especially IP laws, drastically limit competition in the mobile market. Because of that, vendors don't have to protect privacy. This is another case of government purporting to solve a problem it created. But government doesn't really want people to have privacy. This is just political cover. The government wants all your information.

Education

Another consequence of government control of education is mass cheating like happened at Harvard.

Local

Our predatory local government is forcing the Greene to retrofit housing for handicapped people and to allow access to RTA's giant buses. There's more wealth wasted on government regulation. The Miami Valley Fair Housing Center masquerades as a private organization, but it's actually a fascist government bureaucracy.

"MVFHC is governed by a volunteer board of directors and is supported in part by the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development. MVFHC also receives financial support from Montgomery County, Ohio; the City of Kettering, Ohio; The City of Dayton, Ohio; and The City of Springfield, Ohio; through their Community Development Block Grant funds."

What a scam.

If send mail from Dayton to Dayton, the USPS will send it to Columbus first, then send it back. This is supposed to reduce costs. No lie. You can't make this stuff up.

Freedom of Speech

Study claims violent video games can make people more aggressive, but...

"A new Ohio State University study shows that playing violent video games can make people more aggressive over time, but the report’s co-author said it is impossible to link such games to violent criminal behavior like the recent Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings."

I like that 'can' part. In other words, maybe they will, maybe they won't. That tells me this study isn't scientific. It's pseudo-science designed to advance government's agenda of transferring blame for violence from the ubiquitous government violence we all suffer under.

"The new study provides the first experimental evidence that the negative effects of playing violent video games can accumulate over time, said Brad Bushman, an Ohio State professor of communication and psychology who researches factors that can influence aggressive behavior. People who played a violent video game for three consecutive days showed increases in aggressive behavior and hostile expectations each day they played, he said."

There's the 'can' word two more times. Amazing how this study was the first to find this connection.

"Video-game publishers are facing growing pressure from Washington and advocacy groups concerned about possible links between violent games and tragedies like the recent mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo."

There's the political agenda behind the story. What a farce.

"The makers of “Grand Theft Auto” announced Friday that the latest chapter in the best-selling crime simulator video game series will be delayed until September."

There's the negative impact on the economy.

"President Barack Obama last month called for the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to renew scientific research into the relationship between “video games, media images and violence.” He also urged Congress to support a bill that would grant the CDC $10 million to conduct this new research."

There's Obama's plan for the generation of more pseudo-scientific propaganda funded by our tax dollars.

Health Care

Study discovers that 30 percent of health care costs are waste, adding up to $750 billion a year. That's what we get for allowing government to control our health care.

Right to Keep and Bear Arms

A school shooting in Atlanta was stopped by an armed officer, so the media won't cover it.

Regulation

We're supposed to be upset that royalties for music streamed on the internet are small. Some musicians will have to find other work. But that's what happens in every industry. If you try to sell snow to an Inuit, you're probably not going to make much money. Making money is about providing goods to others. If you provide little, you make little. If you make too little, you need to find another job. I'm sure musicians believe they're being underpaid, but everybody believes that. If it was true, a competitor would come along and offer to pay them more.

Tax and Spend

Why should people be forced to pay for the contraception of women or any other good?

Economy

The economic news for January was so bad that no stories of it appear on aggregator. Unemployment increased back to 7.9 percent and 169,000 workers dropped out of the work force.

"The latest unemployment data comes just two days after it was announced that the US economy unexpectedly took its biggest plunge in more than three years, contracting last quarter at an annual rate of 0.1 percent and indicating a new level of vulnerability for the economy."

It looks like the double-dip recession is finally going to be official.

Politics

It's ironic to read about a politician who calls bankers parasitic.

Socialism

Mises on the process of civilization:

"There must be an inequality of wants and skills among people. This is a necessary condition for people to want to seek cooperation. "

Holy crap. Mises just killed egalitarianism with two sentences.