Health Care

Scientific fraud in medical research.

"I have enormous respect for the scientific method, and I believe, when properly applied, it can provide us with profound and valid truths that can guide and direct our treatment strategies.
But what many people fail to appreciate is that much of the research published has been deeply influenced and severely tainted by tremendous conflicts of interest and profit-driven motives.
Shockingly, according to a British poll from last year, more than one in 10 scientists and doctors claimed to have witnessed colleagues deliberately fabricating data in order to get their research published.¹"

<sup>A lot of people blame the market for scientific fraud because corporations engage in it. What that analysis fails to understand is that government creates, cartelizes and controls corporations, so the root cause of corporate pseudo-science is government just like fraud is rampant in science funded directly by the government.

Hospitals start offering healthier food. Healthier doesn't mean healthy.</sup>

Freedom of Speech

The report of the Pirate Bay moving to North Korea was a prank. Too bad.

Police State

Apparently something happened to small pocket knives that suddenly make them safe to carry on airplanes. I don't know what changed. It seems to me the pocket knife that was unsafe yesterday is the just the same today, but according to TSA, it changed. The TSA fairy must have waved a magic wand and transformed them all while we were asleep.

"Speaking at a security conference in New York, TSA Administrator John Pistole said the new rules would allow airport officials to focus on the biggest threats instead of holding everyone to the same standards.
But unions representing flight attendants fired off immediately that the plan is an “outrageous” and dangerous idea that makes TSA’s job easier at the peril of workers on the planes.
The groups said they would fight right up to April 25 to get the TSA to rescind Tuesday’s announcement."

I feel warm and cuddly all over knowing my TSA big brothers have magically transformed small pocket knives to be safe. What would we do without these magic, benevolent molesters... I mean protectors?

"“As the last line of defense in the cabin and key aviation partners, we believe that these proposed changes will further endanger the lives of all flight attendants and the passengers we work so hard to keep safe and secure,” the Association of Flight Attendants said in a statement."

Last line of defense in their egos. I seem to remember passengers thwarted the Christmas underwear bomber, not flight attendants.

Misc

Best Buy follows Yahoo down the tubes by banning work from home. It's so funny to see tech companies going backwards like this. Sell those stocks.

War

North Korea threatens to break the 1953 cease fire over new US led sanctions. How's that Korean war still working out for you?

Education

State school employees spent $150,000 on travel last year.

"SERS, which represents school bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers and others, is second smallest of the five systems yet it spent $158,488 last year on board member travel and education, including reimbursing school districts $35,340 for the cost of the board members missing work."

Here's how the government responded.

"State lawmakers on the Ohio Retirement Study Council planned to fire off a sternly worded letter on Tuesday, urging the three School Employees Retirement System board members to cancel their $11,232 trip to a conference in Hawaii in May."

I bet that sternly worded letter will fix this corruption.

Government regulations on school lunches promote hunger and poor health.

"It makes one long for the bygone days of the 1960s-era welfare state when liberals actually thought that children performed better when they were well fed rather than starved."

The 1960s look pretty good right now.

Local

The obscenely cozy relationship between Warren County and Racino owners gets cozier with Racino owners donating $3 million to redevelop the country fairgrounds. This is a good example of how public-private partnerships are like a wolf and sheep getting together to decide what's for dinner.

Gas prices have dropped 30 cents.

SUV hits pole, cuts power to 3,000.

Former Delphi employees want their pensions.

The organization Huber Heights spent $100,000 to rubber stamp their music arena plan rubber stamped their music arena plan. What a surprise. This article says they only paid $40,000, but the article from several months ago said they were paying $100,000. TIF money.

Politics

The Chinese communist party uses dead soldier as propagandist to cover up for corruption.

"China is so rife with corruption it could bring down the ruling Communist Party.
That is not the opinion of a Chinese dissident, but of new Chinese Communist Party boss Xi Jinping. And the party is looking to a man who died a half century ago to steer them straight."

China is due for a fall.

"They could start by cleaning up their own act, said Lei fan Ma Shuiquan, an agriculture entrepreneur who also runs a Lei Feng Memorial Museum in east China's Hangzhou city."

Never. Coercive government is inherently corrupt because coercive power corrupts.

Pharaoh Obama generously shares info on Libya and drones with Senators in order to win confirmation for Brennan as CIA chief.

Somebody says the next Pope mus be "Jesus Christ with an MBA". Talk about setting a guy up for failure.

Former congressman busted for corruption attacks Boehner in book. One corrupt congressman attacking another corrupt congressman is not news.

Economy

Dow surpasses intra-day record high.

"The benchmark Dow Jones industrial average reached an all-time high Tuesday on news that China was pledging to plow more money into its economy, returning the markets to highs not seen since before the 2008 financial crisis.
By noon Tuesday, the Dow was up more than 145 points, or 1.03 percent, to 14,273.70, blowing past both an intraday record and a closing record that were both set in October 2007, during a time when the economy was just peaking and headed toward disaster. The previous intraday trading high was 14,198.10; the closing record was 14,164.53."

The stock market loves the money printing.

"A little more than five years later, the crisis seems a distant memory for a number of big U.S. companies that are reporting record profits, even though many Americans remain jobless and wages have stagnated."

Forget the real economy. As long as the Fed is printing, Wall Street is happy. It's a big party until the market crashes and the phony wealth people thought they had is wiped out. Dow closes at all time high.

Police State

When I was a kid, flying radio controlled airplanes was a cool hobby.

"An aviation expert tells the Post it's possible the unverified flying object was an enthusiast's model aircraft. However, the expert – also unnamed – said he couldn't recall any other incidents in which such a model veered so close to a commercial aircraft.
Even if it was a remote-controlled recreational model, FAA guidelines say such objects may only fly to 400 feet high and must alert air traffic control if they are going to fly within three miles of an airport, according to CNN."

Now they're drones and they're very very scary.

"CNN adds that "flying unmanned aerial vehicles is illegal for most business purposes; however, governments and public entities such as police departments can apply for permission to operate them.""

Of course. Laws are for serfs, not our rulers.

Health Care

The dangerous consequences of mono-crop farming culture.

Foreign Policy

Extreme drunkenness is the norm at the UN. And why shouldn't it be? What are the incentives for it to be otherwise?

Venezuelan government kicks two US Air Force embassy personnel out of the country, blaming them for giving Hugo Chavez cancer.

"Mr. Maduro said that Col. David Delmonico and a second air force attaché with the embassy had approached members of the Venezuelan military and tried to recruit them into plans to "destabilize" the oil-rich South American nation. He did not offer further details on the alleged plot. "

That sounds more plausible than giving Chavez cancer. Chavez died.

Right to Keep and Bear Arms

It's free to download 3D printable guns from the internet. For now.

Over 100 companies are boycotting sales to police forces. This is getting to be a movement the politicians must accommodate.

Tax and Spend

The rich and powerful use the state to take more money from the people than poor welfare recipients. Of course. Poor people have no access to the levers of power. The plutocrats also benefit from regulations.

The New Yorker wants us to believe that the man who can assassinate Americans with impunity is powerless. Doesn't your heart break for the pitifully powerless man?

Police State

Eric Clapton blames TSA as one of the reason he plans to retire.

DHS buys 2,700 lightly armored tanks.

Regulation

Swiss vote to allow stock holders to impose payment restrictions on executives. Why couldn't shareholders do this without the government? Do the executives own too much stock? This is warning for anybody who thinks Switzerland is a free market paradise.

What's wrong with this sentence?

"Ohio businesses would able to prevent layoffs and instead temporarily reduce their employees’ hours while letting them keep benefits and collect unemployment, under a bill proposed in the House."

Why did the government make it impossible for this to happen before?

"The program — SharedWork Ohio — is similar to initiatives in 25 other states, including two nearby: Michigan passed its version of the program last June, and Pennsylvania created a SharedWork program last March."

How did Ohio go so quickly from being one of the most innovative states in the union to being one of the most oppressive and backwards? And we wonder why our economy is so bad.

War

Observer describes Bradley Manning.

"As I sat in court last Thursday at Fort Meade, watching Bradley Manning take responsibility as the Wikileaks whistleblower, two things struck me: (1) his thorough intelligence fueled by intellectual curiosity and (2) his empathy for other people when so many in war had lost their humanity."

Sad.

Gleen Greenwald calls Manning a hero. I said the same a couple days ago.

Battle on Iraq-Syria border kills 57. As if the wars in Iraq and Syria weren't chaotic and destructive enough, now the war in Syria is bleeding into Iraq.

Economy

Story on China's ghost cities.

"Some economists, like Yale's Stephen Roach has said, however, that China's modernization is "the greatest urbanization story the world has ever seen," and that these ghost cities will soon become "thriving metropolitan areas.""

I doubt it. Remember how well urban renewal worked out here? This is urban renewal on an unimaginable scale. This is malinvestment fueled by printing money and directed by central planners. Some economists always think that's a good thing, but it never is.

Local

Local Walmarts install solar panels. The article doesn't mention they only did this because it was subsidized by taxpayers.

The starting salary for Dayton cops is over $50K a year. These numbers show had bad the economy in Dayton is:

"The median household income from 2007 to 2011 in Dayton was $28,843, according to the United States Census.
It was $48,071 for Ohio and $52,762 for the nation. "

Dayton's median household income is almost half what it is in the rest of the state.

The local surveillance state.

Boil advisory.

Timeline of events for Delphi pensions.

Politics

Somehow the most divisive president in our lifetimes and his media propagandists have convinced a large plurality of Americans he's a uniter.

"As Neil King Jr. writes, “By a more than 2-to-1 margin, poll participants say Mr. Obama is doing more than the GOP to unify the country in a bipartisan way. The poll found 48% of respondents saw Mr. Obama as trying to unify the country, compared with 22% who said that of Republicans and 37% who said that of the Democratic Party.”
That the electorate believes the president to be a unifying force for the country, and by no small amount, is completely incongruous with his actions on the campaign trail, through the fiscal cliff dispute, his inauguration speech, his State of the Union speech and now during the sequester negotiations."

It's disheartening so many Americans are so easily fooled, but then again, if they weren't easily fooled, we wouldn't be experiencing catastrophic economic collapse under the burden of government.

The showing of Italy's enough is enough party which surprised the so-called experts shows that government and its media propagandists are rapidly loosing power to control the people.

"The spectacular showing by Beppe Grillo’s Movimento 5 Stelle, which just won more votes in Italy’s general election than any other single party, represents a brand new, powerful, double-barreled trend that will reshape the way political campaigns are run and, in so doing, will reshape the future."

This is no great prediction. America's rulers have known this for a long time, and it's why they are arming DHS to wage war on us.

"The resurgence of the embattled and disgraced media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi was also unanticipated. But his strong showing was less a sign of popular support than the consequence of the mogul’s overt multi-media-vote-buying campaign, promising amnesty for tax evaders and a $5 billion tax refund to property owners."

Catering to tax revolutionaries buys votes.

"Trend 1: Media Doesn’t Matter Beppe Grillo, unlike all the other candidates, spurned Italian TV and instead built his personal presence and party strength via a 73-stop barnstorming tour and a brilliantly orchestrated Internet campaign. Nine months ago he was polling only 5 percent nationally. With the largest social media following of any politician in Europe, Grillo’s "head on the Internet, feet on the ground" rise to prominence was generated through his one million Facebook and Twitter friends and followers.
This is the trend of the future!
It is also a new millennium megatrend Gerald Celente forecast in detail in the December 1999 Trends Journal. Moreover, in terms of presence, platform and personality, it is as though Beppe Grillo had been invented for the role of the Italian version of the "Internet Candidate" Celente predicted:
The Internet Candidate
Starting in 1999, the opening salvos will be fired in the battle against the hegemony of America’s two-party political system. A combination of technological advances and seething public opinion has set the stage for the Internet candidate – a political newcomer beholden to no one and able to reach everyone."

I hate to tell Mr. Celente, but this was common knowledge in the electronics world before then. I'm amazed that after all this time, the internet has yet to overcome the mainstream media in the US. I predicted the opposite over a decade ago. It's a testiment to the power of government that it's been able to so powerfully resist the progress of civilization, and, with all the attacks government is making on the internet, it might just continue.

Freedom of Speech

Designers have powerfully ridiculed DRM, which is supposedly a way of enforcing copyright restrictions, by building a chair that self-destructs after eight uses. The video is awesome. This also lampoons the economic fallacy that the destruction of wealth stimulates the economy.

In one of the most ironic stories I've read in a long time, the Pirate Bay claims it is operating out of North Korea. This is one of the most spectacular examples of the conflicts and contradictions government aggression forces upon us.

Education

Government schools are building a database of students including disabilities and test scores and selling the database to corporations. Selling it to the corporations is least of the problems. We shouldn't allow the most corrupt and violent institution known to man to collect and use such information at all.

Global Warming and Energy

I've long warned that the government's war on CO2 was about controlling our lives and ultimately our breathing. Now a Seattle Republican admits it.

"The fact that Rep Ed Orcutt (R — WA) wants to tax bicycle use is not extraordinary. The representative's irrational conviction is. SeattleBikeBlog has confirmed reports that Orcutt does not feel bicycling is environmentally friendly because the activity causes cyclists to have 'an increased heart rate and respiration.' When they contacted him he clarified that 'You would be giving off more CO2 if you are riding a bike than driving in a car...' "

There you go.

When Japan shut down all its nuclear reactors, I said that wouldn't last. It hasn't. The government plans to restart many.

The New York Times shut down it's environmental desk and blog, and now the Washington Post has fired its environmental reporter.

Plague of locusts in Egypt blamed on AGW. Like there was never a plague of locusts in history.

Michael Mann may have graduated from evil, lying pseudo-scientist to outright loon. This guy sounds like he's a danger to himself and others.

Just a few years ago we got 4-6 inches of snow in April. I don't want to hear crap about a late season storm.

Misc

Dogs may have domesticated humans, not the other way around. This analysis seems like conjecture. It ignores the idea that humans may have adopted abandoned puppies. Everybody loves puppies. And puppies would learn human gestures.

Cardinals investigate corruption before picking new Pope. The plot thickens.

Propagandists are giving NASA credit for the inspiration of a billionaire to fund a manned mission around, not landing on, Mars.

"Unfortunately, the flyby never happened."

That's the key. Crediting NASA is a mistake. People besides NASA can come up with ideas independently.

The newly discovered third ring of the Van Allen Belts is populated by electrons. In other words, it's a band of electric current.

How to deal with culture shock from expatriation.

Investor is building a replica Titanic scheduled to sail in 2016. No matter how bad the economy is then, this is going to make a fortune.

Health Care

In a great reminder that government science spending is about advancing the economic interests of the politicians, bureaucrats and their cronies, not about advancing science or technology, a 15 year old boy develops a cancer test that costs pennies.

"Yes, a 15-year-old boy named Jack Andraka has done what scientists with millions of dollars-worth of research grants at their disposal have failed to do. He invented a dipstick-type sensor to detect pancreatic, ovarian, and lung cancer that is:

• 168 times faster
• 26,000 times less expensive, and
• 400 times more sensitive than the current standard of detection

And he did it using Google and Wikipedia as his primary research tools — online resources that are available to virtually anyone on the planet with an internet connection. What’s more, the test costs three cents, takes five minutes, and has a 90 percent accuracy rate. Compare that to the current standard, which employs 60-year-old technology, costs about $800, and misses 30 percent of all pancreatic cancers."

Thank goodness he didn't believe what he learned in school.

War on Drugs

Supreme Court upholds the use of drug sniffing dogs as probable cause for a search. One problem is the police interpret whether the dog alerted or not. The dog could just sit there, but if the cop says it alerted, that's probable cause for a search. Another problem is the dogs aren't as accurate as claimed.

"Drug-detecting dogs are much less reliable than widely believed, with false-positive error rates as high as 96 percent in the field. A 2006 Australian study found that the rate of unverified alerts by 17 police dogs used to sniff out drugs on people ranged from 44 percent to 93 percent."

Those numbers make them useless. Here's another big problem.

"So does the possibility that a dog will react to smell-alike odors from legal substances, distractions such as food, or cues from their handlers."

Cues from handlers can make it appear the dog is alerting on drugs when he's actually responding to his handler. Here's what this is really about:

"Instead of requiring police to demonstrate that a dog is reliable, this decision puts the burden on the defense to show the dog is not reliable through expert testimony and other evidence that casts doubt on the training and testing methods used by police. But experts are expensive, and police control all the relevant evidence."

Now only rich people can afford to challenge the dog. But you can't count on police to keep accurate records anyway. Every dog should be challenged in the courtroom, but judges don't want to take time to do that. Here's another terrible effect.

"The Court previously has said that police may use drug-sniffing dogs at will during routine traffic stops and may search cars without a warrant, based on their own determination of probable cause. Now that it has said a dog's alert by itself suffices for probable cause, a cop with a dog has the practical power to search the car of anyone who strikes him as suspicious."

All it takes is for a cop to show up with a dog, and they can search any and all cars they want.

"Even the question of whether a dog did in fact alert may be impossible to resolve if there is no video record of the encounter, which is often the case. As Florida defense attorney Jeff Weiner puts it, the justices "have given law enforcement a green light to do away with the Fourth Amendment merely by uttering the magic words, 'My dog alerted.'""

That's right.

Police State

A police officer who chased then killed an unarmed man is fired seven months later, but not charged. This is nuts. The officer claimed he feared for his life. If he true, he should have ended the chase. He was the aggressor.

Just what we need: electrified handcuffs. I never read about people in handcuffs hurting anybody.

War

Government refuses to publish the transcripts of Bradley Manning's trial.

Economy

Ohio government's casinos haven't created as many jobs as promised. What a surprise. These casinos are just a new way of taxing us. Because they pay such a high tax rate, these casinos destroy wealth instead of creating it, so the jobs there destroy wealth like other government jobs. Better to have fewer than more.

The Dow and S&P are near the all time highs they set in 2007 and 2000, the last two bubbles. But you can't predict they will collapse because of the numbers. In 2000 and 2007, the Fed started raising interest rates because the CPI went up, and that triggered the collapse in both cases. There's nothing magic about the currently levels. Something will have to trigger the collapse. Bernanke may not cut rates regardless of CPI because he knows doing so will bring a collapse in the markets.

"In Part II: How the Market Failure Will Happen, I detail how the pattern I expect to see will play out – and why I expect the fall in equity prices to happen within the May-September window.  This downdraft will be characterized by lots of volatility, formed by market routs and Fed-inspired rescues, alternating until some form of bottom is reached.  Along the way there will likely be a flight for "safety" into the dollar and Treasury paper, but only during the first stage of the next crisis.
Once a bottom is reached – again, this might be anywhere from 40% to 60% lower than the current ~1500 level on the S&P 500 – the process will begin to be dominated by rising government borrowing, which will cause interest rates to begin to rise. 
When that happens, expect capital to flee the paper market for hard assets.  In particular, that's when the upwards price revolution in the gold and silver markets will kick into high gear."

That's why you want to buy them now.

The only reason consumer spending is up is inflation. This is another lying statistic.

Right to Keep and Bear Arms

When push comes to shove, police will not support gun rights.

"Police Chief Ed Flynn of Milwaukee believes that his department is at war with the gun-owning public. In his February 27 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Flynn claimed that "in the last 20 years we’ve been in an arms race" with private citizens who supposedly out-gun the police.
Flynn testified in support of a proposed federal ban on so-called assault weapons. But in the past he has made it clear that he considers a Mundane carrying a firearm of any kind is an unlawful enemy combatant subject to detention and forcible disarmament."

This illustrates the us versus them mentality that permeates every police force in the world.

Politics

The establishment trotted Mitt Romney out to promote the myth he lost because he didn't connect with minorities. He lost because he was pro-spending, pro-taxing and pro-warring, but that's what the establishment wants, so they need to created a different narrative.

Hillary Clinton has a huge lead on all contenders for the presidency in 2016.

Tax and Spend

Boehner admits he wants to close tax loopholes to raise revenue, but he claims he wants to lower rates to keep revenue even. This is political doubletalk. We know what's going to happen: loopholes will close but rates won't be lowered. Boehner isn't believable because Obama would have happily agreed to avoiding the sequester as long as Boehner agreed to closing loopholes.

Education

Government school suspends seven year old because he accidentally bit his pastry into the shape of a gun. He was trying to shape it into a mountain.

"Children at Park Elementary School went home with a letter today explaining there was a disruption in school. Seven year old Josh Welch, and his father, say the disruption lead to a two day suspension for the second grader in Brooklyn Park."

The student didn't cause the disruption. The teacher did. Then the administrators escalated it. They turned a non-event into an ordeal that involved the entire class and their families. There are no words to describe how absurd this is. There's a lot going on in this article. Why was the child being fed a pastry? Maybe he's ADHD because he's being fed sugar and grains for breakfast, sending his small body on a major carbohydrate roller coaster. Why was he eating breakfast at school instead of at home with his family before school? And why would his dad send him back to this terrible school? If he didn't know the school was bad for his child before, he surely does now. And so does every other parent of a child in that class. I know people are happy their child's government school isn't this bad, but they're wrong. It is. Here's another piece of info:

"School officials declined to comment due to privacy issues."

How private was it if they sent letters to the other students?

Nineteen year old arrested for using the Fresh Prince theme song on his voicemail, and his school goes on lockdown.

"While trying to confirm an appointment with 19-year-old Travis Clawson the receptionist thought the message said "shooting people outside of the school." The line is actually "shooting some b-ball," a reference to basketball."

You can't make this stuff up, but it gets worse. Police put all schools in the county on lockdown.

Local

Local government blames chilly temperatures for a water main break in Washington Township as if there have never been chilly temperatures before.

Music people hired by Huber Heights to evaluate using $18 million of other people money to build a music venue will present their findings Tuesday. The outcome is a fait accompli. The only question taxpayers need to ask is, if this is such a great investment, why aren't investors lining up to build the arena with their own money?

Englewood trying to destroy another person's property.

Global Warming and Energy

Michael Mann busted for manipulating data again.

Claim that billionaires funnel $120 million to climate skeptics. Even if that was true, it pales in comparison to the billions the US government spends every year promoting the global warming fraud, let alone how every many more billions other governments spend doing the same.

Federal Reserve

The unreported Greek bank run waned with the ECB secretly flying euros into Greece. This isn't the end of the story.

Economic suicide by the G20. 

"People forget that in 1971, when Nixon devalued the dollar, the Swiss franc was $0.23, and the German mark was $0.25; today they're $1.08 and $1.31, respectively. The Japanese yen was 300 to the dollar; today it's about 90. The success of these countries was partly because of strong currencies. A strong currency helped them become rich and prosperous. Of course, most governments are now deeply in debt, and that's a powerful incentive to destroy their currencies."

Where does the German mark exist? I thought it was replaced by the euro. I guess people could have held them.

"L: So Doug, the G20 declared that there will be no currency war. Other than a belly laugh, any reactions?
Doug: First, we should define what a currency war is. I'd say it's a competition between governments to devalue their respective currencies, accomplished by creating lots more new dollars, euros, yen, or what have you. The idea is to increase exports and decrease imports, with the supposed bonus of stimulating the economy. It's an idiotic idea, proof that the people struggling for control of the world's economy are both knaves and fools. The worst part is that people apparently think somebody actually can and should try to control the economy. The world is imitating Argentina.
I believe that Argentina is still a member of the G20, although hanging on by its fingernails. It would be interesting to see the transcript of the meeting and see what the Argentine representative said, because they're inflating the currency down here at a rate of about 30% per year, even while they're trying to maintain an artificial exchange rate. My suspicion is that the general level of economic knowledge, competence, and ethics among the participants of that conference is not much above that of Argentina.
L: That may be, but it strikes me as being... just so ridiculous. I mean, the US is printing money by the helicopter load and sending much of it abroad, which prompts other countries to try to do the same. Bernanke says it isn't so, but everyone can see it is. How can they say there's no currency war? Is this an attempt at a Big Lie?
Doug: The new Japanese prime minister has come out and said that the Bank of Japan needs to redouble its efforts to create new yen. The Chinese are creating yuan in hyperdrive. The Europeans are doing the same with the euro. In the US, they're printing new dollars at a rate of about 100 billion per month. And that's just among the four big players. It's as though they believe their own lies and think that the driving force of an economy really is public opinion. Believing that, they have no problem admonishing people to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain; everything will be fine as long as people believe it will be.
This reminds me of the story of the guy who jumps off a 100-story building and yells as he passes the 50^th floor, "So far, so good!"" 

It would be funny if it wasn't so destructive.

Health Care

Establishment magazine names top 10 diets. Paleo isn't mentioned.

Summary of the science behind junk food.

"On February 24, 2013, just a few days ago, the New York Times published an extremely disturbing article written by Michael Moss, titled The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food. If you have read it, then you know what we are talking about. If you haven’t, we urge you to do so now. The article takes the reader inside the rarely disclosed underworld of food manufacturing and exposes the ugly truth about food science and the deliberate intentions of big food conglomerates to create unhealthy, addictive foods in the name of greater financial gain regardless of the health consequences to us - their consumers. It explains how armies of food scientists are instructed to get as close as possible to what is considered to be the “Holy Grail” of addictive junk food, something industry insiders refer to as “the bliss point.” By dialing in the exact flavor, color and texture that creates the greatest amount of crave, food scientists work to push consumers to ingest as much of their franken-food as humanly possible, by making it nearly impossible for them to put it down. The article directly reveals that these well known manufacturers are not only guilty of producing these addictive junk foods, but also knowledgeable as to how these foods are adding to the health conditions and obesity epidemic that is limiting the lifespan of our youth, and yet still relentlessly press their companies toward increased profits and market share no matter the human price."

But the last thing we need is a war on junk food like the war on drugs. We don't need more violence and more criminals. The solution is to get the government out of our food supply and our schools so competition and education can work.

Chronic lack of sleep switches off genes that repair our bodies.

Doctor claims to have cured baby of HIV, but I'm skeptical.

"A doctor gave this baby faster and stronger treatment than is usual, starting a three-drug infusion within 30 hours of birth. That was before tests confirmed the infant was infected and not just at risk from a mother whose HIV wasn't diagnosed until she was in labor."

I'm skeptical of all of this. How did they miss that the mother was infected until she went into labor. Why did this doctor break protocol and begin an atypical treatment before the baby was even diagnosed? This sounds doctors screwed up with the mother, then have been doing CYA ever since, and now they're locked in. If doctors cured this man of AIDs six years ago, why is there no cure for everybody today? A number of doctors believes the whole HIV-AIDS story is a lie.

Obamacare to reduce health care costs by cutting payments to doctors. That'll go over well.

Police State

Investigator believes 9/11 conspiracy theorist and his family were executed, not killed in a murder-suicide as claimed. This 9/11 conspiracy theory, told in the book "The Big Bamboozle" sounds much more plausible than the theories that say the twin towers were wired with explosives.

Will Republicans Cave and Raise Taxes on Sequestration Again?

The last time Republicans caved and raised taxes to avoid sequestration, they kicked the date of the spending cuts down the road until March. March is coming, and Obama has called for raising taxes again and getting rid of those spending cuts. Republicans have said no. Of course they said the same thing last time before they raised taxes. The question is:

Will Republicans cave and raise taxes again?

Sequestration pseudo-cuts have kicked in, and Republicans didn't raise taxes. But this is just jockeying for position ahead of the government shutdown scheduled to occur at the end of the month.

Misc

Microsoft to release Office updates every 90 days. This happened right as Google is preparing Quickoffice for the Chromebook. Microsoft's most valuable feature was stability. It's gone now. They might have just kissed their office advantage goodbye.

Education

Scary analysis of student loan debt.

Politics

Around the world, government's are stoking nationalism while using the gun to remain in power.

A hundred year war on freedom started in 1913.

"Robert Nisbet once observed that in 1913, the year he was born, the only contact that the average US citizen had with the federal government was the Post Office. For Veryser as well, 1913 was a pivotal year. "Before World War I," he writes," government based public policy on so-called classical economic theories about money and trade." But that quickly changed, as reality-based economic policy quickly gave way to revered abstractions and their constant companion, government power.
One seldom hears an economist cite Aristotle’s dictum that a science can be only as exact as its subject matter permits. Human beings are not equilateral triangles. Veryser recounts how, for the last hundred years, several generations of self-appointed whiz kids routinely manipulated the political economy, causing the "boom and bust cycle" and making the 1913 dollar worth one penny today.
Oh – and they never apologized."

Never.

Reuters explains why Republicans didn't cave on taxes this time.

"Spending cut showdown threatens Obama's second-term agenda"
"Obama's approval rating dropped to 47 percent in a Gallup poll on Friday, down from 51 percent in the previous three-day period measured."

It's all about politics on both sides.

Only government's crony capitalists wouldn't know whether they bribed a government agent or not.

"In its annual regulatory report published by the commission on Friday, the Sands reported that its audit committee and independent accountants had determined that “there were likely violations of the books and records and internal controls provisions” of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. "

This isn't limited to gambling companies.  

Foreign Policy

The US military dominates US foreign policy, and the brass don't like Hagel because he puts America first and that means he resists foreign wars more than the standard neocon.

"Since the 9/11 attacks, US foreign policy has become highly militarized. The Pentagon today dominates US relations with the rest of the world, not the State Department or CIA.
The Pentagon’s 2013 total budget will be $800 billion when all programs, including "black" projects, are included.
This mammoth sum represents almost 50% of the world’s total military spending. Add close US allies in Europe, the Mideast, and Asia, and the figure is 80%.
Contrary to what most Americans believe, the US Defense Department is not really about defense of America’s shores, but about offensive operations abroad. The US has some 1,000 bases and powerful air, naval and land forces scattered across the globe enforcing the Pax Americana."

We're paying for our government's aggression with blood and treasure.

"But something remarkable has just occurred in Washington, a place that rarely produces much good news.
President Barack Obama, now in his last term and freed of many political constraints, has challenged powerful vested special interests by naming former US Republican Senator and decorated war veteran Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. Hagel, wounded twice in Vietnam, is the first former enlisted man to head the Pentagon.
On taking office, Hagel called on the US to resume being a "force for good" in the world and avoid "dictating" to other nations. These were breathtaking words after all the Republican claims of "American exceptionalism" – code for world domination."

Obama is not going to make the US a force for good.

Health Care

The dairy industry wants the FDA to allow it to add artificial sweeteners to milk so milk can compete with all the other sugar drinks. The FDA looks like the good guy in this, but in reality the FDA created this problem with its regulations that cartelized this business to begin with.

War

Chad forces claim they killed al Qaeda leader in Mali. The leader recently took hostages at an oil facility in which 37 hostages were killed during a raid by Chadian forces.

Local

Owner files suit to stop the Harrison Township from stealing his hotel property and giving it to a Kentucky developer. Everything about this process is corrupt, and it starts with taxation. If not for taxation, there would be a thriving business, maybe not a hotel and maybe with a different owner, but a thriving business nevertheless at this location. Updated.

Tax and Spend

Obama must think he's winning the debate over sequestration cuts because he's really making them as painful as possible.

"The OMB issued a stark analysis of the impact of the cuts in a letter to Congress that was issued with the report and signed by Jeffrey Zients, deputy director for management. "The cuts required by sequestration will be deeply destructive to national security, domestic investments and core government functions," Zients wrote."

The joke is on us. There no cuts. The government will spend more this year than last year. All that was cut was the rate of increase in spending. I think this has been well covered by the media for once, so I think Obama is losing this debate. Somebody called Obama's application of the cuts the Washington Monument Syndrome.

"The Washington Monument syndrome, also known as the Mount Rushmore Syndrome,^[1] or the firemen first principle,^[2][3] is a political tactic used in the United States by government agencies when faced with budget cuts. The tactic entails cutting the most visible or appreciated service provided by the government, from popular services such as national parks and libraries^[1] to valued public employees such as teachers and firefighters.^[2] The name derives from the National Park Service's alleged habit of saying that any cuts would lead to an immediate closure of the wildly popular Washington Monument.^[4] Critics compare the tactic to hostage taking or blackmail.^[5]"

^{That description fits Obama perfectly. Here's one way Obama is using the cuts to spark outrage:}

^{"Public schools everywhere will be affected by the government's automatic budget cuts, but few may feel the funding pinch faster than those on and around military bases."}

<sup>Obama is intentionally targeting the children of the military to spark outrage. I think it's going to blow up in his face. What's interesting is that our supposedly adversarial system finally did something positive. Neither sided wanted these cuts, but they wanted to punish the other side more, so they happened anyway. That's the first positive development in politics I can ever remember. The bigger issue here is the upcoming government shutdown. This is all just posturing.

Obama is also grounding the wildly popular Air Force Thunderbirds. 

Newly appointed Defense Secretary Hagel immediately championed Obama's baloney.</sup>

^{"Half of the cuts will fall on the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the reductions put at risk “all of our missions.”"}

<sup>That's absurd. Hagel stood up to the Israel lobby and fellow Republicans, but he's an Obama yes-man.

Democrats are afraid nothing bad will happen because of the cuts.</sup> 

Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Anarcho-capitalist designs 3D printed gun that can fire over 600 rounds. Government will ban this. This is a real plastic gun, not like the phony claims when Glocks first came out.

Company produces scope that turns anybody into an expert shooter out to 1,200 yards. Government will ban this. Right now they're expensive, but they won't stay that way.

Economy

Automation replacing service, white collar workers. While nobody wants to lose a job, this is a good thing for people over all. It means people are creating wealth at lower price. That means more productivity and more wealth for everybody.

In another sign that it's 2007 all over again, the jobless rate in Ohio is lowest since 2008.

Lew Rockwell praises David Stockman's upcoming book entitled "The Great Deformation". He explains how the Fed and government intervention created the 2008 bust, and he goes back to the New Deal for his explanations. The New Deal is still harming Americans today. He explains the 2008 crash was a culmination of bad policy that had been predicted for a long time.

"If the monetary central planners have been trying to create jobs through the roundabout method of "wealth effects," they ought to be profoundly embarrassed by their incompetence. The only thing that has happened on the job-creation front over the last decade is a massive expansion of the bedpan and diploma mill brigade; that is, employment in nursing homes, hospitals, home health agencies, and for-profit colleges. Indeed, the HES complex accounts for the totality of American job creation since the late 1990s."

Yikes. I look forward to

"The sudden emergence of enormous budget deficits in recent years, Stockman explains, simply made manifest what the bubble conditions of the Bush years had concealed. The phony wealth of the housing and consumption booms temporarily lowered the amount of money spent on safety-net programs, and temporarily increased the amount of tax revenue received by the government. With this false prosperity abating, the true deficit, which had simply been suppressed by these temporary factors, began to appear."

Stockman also shatters the myths about Reagan's military build-up.

"At the heart of the Reagan defense buildup…was a great double shuffle. The war drums were sounding a strategic nuclear threat that virtually imperiled American civilization. Yet the money was actually being allocated to tanks, amphibious landing craft, close air support helicopters, and a vast conventional armada of ships and planes.
These weapons were of little use in the existing nuclear standoff, but were well suited to imperialistic missions of invasion and occupation. Ironically, therefore, the Reagan defense buildup was justified by an Evil Empire that was rapidly fading but was eventually used to launch elective wars against an Axis of Evil which didn’t even exist."

"What would actually bring the Soviet Union down was its command economy itself – a point, Stockman notes, that libertarian economists had been making for some time. "

That's a point I've made for some time, but I didn't realize it in advance. Now I realize we could have ended the Cold War as soon as it started by shrinking the burden of government instead of growing it.

"Thanks to The Great Deformation, not a shred of the regime’s propaganda is left standing. This is truly the book we have been waiting for, and we owe David Stockman a great debt."

I'm buying this book as soon as it's published.

Entertaining lessons in economics.

Tom Smith and His Incredible Bread Machine.

Freedom of Speech

The new copyright alert system is being criticized from all sides. Another government fail.

Media

Former Obama spokesman Gibbs laughingly admits he lied to cover up Obama's drone program because Obama told him to. I say over and over again that these politicians lie without conscience. Gibbs backs me up.

Regulation

Government bans on innovation have created chaos in the marketplace as this appeals court cutting damages Samsung must pay to Apple shows.

War

US to directly intervene in Syria.

"Secretary of State John Kerry has long urged increased US support for Syria’s Islamist rebels, and now he has his wish: shortly after being confirmed, he announced the US would now directly aid rebel groups, rather than "indirectly," as we’ve supposedly been doing. Not only that, but the definition of "non-lethal" aid is being stretched to include armored vehicles and body armor: in addition, US "advisors" will be sent to the region – an ominous development that historians of the Vietnam war will observe with a high degree of skepticism. That’s another war that started with sending American "advisors," you’ll recall."

This is very bad news.

"It’s worse news for the Syrians, who have seen their society destroyed by fanatics in league with al Qaeda – the real fighting forces who dominate the rebel "army." Initially domiciled in Turkey, and having taken over a good part of the country, seasoned jihadists from all over the Middle East and points beyond are imposing sharia law wherever they gain a foothold, destroying centuries-old churches and slaughtering any "infidels" unlucky enough to be in their path. These are the West’s vaunted "allies" in this latest "humanitarian" war – the very same people who brought down the World Trade Center and hit the Pentagon on 9/11. "

This is terrible news.

"With (mostly sketchy) reports of Iranian Revolutionary Guards already in Syria aiding government forces, the West (and its Sunni allies, Saudi Arabia and Qatar) is putting their own proxy army in the field. But that army consists primarily of two Salafist groups, al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, the former linked to al Qaeda and the latter to rich sheikhs in Kuwait. These groups are carrying out car-bombings against civilian targets, murdering Christians and Alawites, and waging a ruthless terrorist campaign that has wreaked havoc in all major cities and killed many. The irony is that the West is now pointing to the success of these groups as a reason to intervene: we cannot permit them to gain a foothold in "post-Assad Syria." "

I recently pointed that out.

Human error causes drones to crash much more often than manned planes. Hey, how about we fly them over the US then?

Global Warming and Energy

Compilation of stories from the 1970s which scared people about a new ice age. Apparently the internal combustion engine caused global cooling then and global warming now.

Dust from the Sahara ends its journey in the Sierra Nevadas.

Why is the State Department - the foreign policy department - passing judgment on the Keystone Pipeline? Greens are unhappy the judgment is positive.

Tax and Spend

The Pentagon wants to close and consolidate bases, but Congress won't allow it.

Spanish, Greek and Portuguese bonds rally despite Italy's election, but not for a good reason.

"An inconclusive election in Italy sparked concern lawmakers will fail to form a government, hampering the progress of austerity measures put in place by the previous administration. Yet as Italy’s 10-year yields climbed to a three-month high, similar-maturity Spanish, Greek and Portuguese bonds fell on speculation the ECB will support Italy if borrowing costs surge to unmanageable levels. "

Printing money is no solution.

Politics

Obama tells people he is not a dictator while he fires a missile and assassinates a random American and rounds up others and holds them indefinitely. He also one of only a handful of people in America who doesn't know the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek. These top politicians are not like us.

Italians reject their political parties and the bankers.

"Consider this. Almost half of those Italians who cast their ballots for one of the traditional parties switched their vote this time. You think Americans are fed up with Congress? In Italy, trust in the government stands at 5 percent, and trust in Parliament at 8 percent. The rate of abstentions is high. The party holding the majority of seats in the Chamber of Deputies -- 54 percent, as required by law -- won the support of just 20 percent of the electorate. "

They can't form a government after the election. The collapse continues.

On a related note, political violence in Greece grows.

Local

Despite, or more accurately because of, over 80 years of the war on drugs, area heroin deaths doubled.

Misc

Ohio ranks 44th among states for well-being. Ouch.

"That is an improvement.
Ohio ranked 46 for 2011.
It seems to be steady improvement.
In 2009, Ohio came in 47th just a head of Mississippi, Kentucky and West Virginia, even then the sickest and saddest state in the union, the survey said."

Double ouch.

Surprised NASA scientists find a third belt of charged particles around the earth. The only people surprised more often than NASA's supposed experts are government's supposed expert economists.

New NASA and NOAA satellite to monitor lightning in storms. I bet NASA scientists will be surprised at what it discovers, like usual.

Not that I trust government research, but it just makes sense that psychopathy is related to an exaggerated brain reward system.

Police State

States banning aerial photography except by government. Sorry National Geographic.