Guess which county has a 124 percent registration rate

The American Civil Rights Union wants local election officials to clean up voter rolls in Mississippi. Last Friday, the group filed suit against two counties that have more registered voters than the Census says they have voting-eligible citizens.

The ACRU is stepping into the breach left by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department. Under Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez (now nominated to head the U.S. Department of Labor), the division has refused to enforce Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act, also known as the Motor Voter law. Section 8 requires states to remove ineligible voters from their registration lists.

Filing the ACRU lawsuits against Jefferson Davis County and Walthall County were three former Justice Department lawyers: Christopher Coates, Christian Adams (the legal editor of PJ Media), and Henry Ross. As the complaints outline, the U.S. Census says Jefferson Davis County has only 9,536 residents of voting age. Yet the county has 10,078 registered voters, giving it a registration rate of 105 percent. (The national average hovers at about 70 percent.)

Walthall County rolls are even more astonishing. The Census counts only 11,368 voting-age residents there, but the county boasts 14,108 registered voters — a 124 percent registration rate.

Duck Commander Phil Robertson - How It All Started

Duck Commander Phil Robertson - Deciding To Follow Jesus

"Diploma Addiction"

Congresswoman’s Round-the-World Trip Cost Taxpayers $23K

The House Judiciary Committee reported Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, traveled around the world on an official trip in February that cost $23,646. The Feb. 16-22 trip on commercial flights was to Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia.

It's only your money

Pigford Forever

At the time of his premature death, the great provocateur Andrew Breitbart was more than a year into a grinding crusade to bring attention to a little-known class-action settlement called Pigford, which had begun with plausible accusations that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had discriminated against a small number of black farmers, but which had spiraled into a billion-dollar, open-ended government kickback machine for untold thousands that showed no signs of letting up. The Pigford case represented everything Breitbart raged against in the American political order — large-scale cronyism, corrosive and cynical identity politics, unrepentant hypocrisy, and the predictable indifference of the mainstream media. A handful of conservative outlets reported on the story at the time — including NR — and a handful of liberal outlets dedicated only as much ink to these stories as it took to dismiss them. But in Breitbart’s lifetime, Pigford never cracked into “the conversation”; it never came to be seen as emblematic of a deeper corruption endemic in Big Government.

Perhaps that will now change with the publication, by no less an arbiter of “the conversation” than the New York Times, of a deeply reported 5,000-word piece on Pigford and its descendants that, if anything, reveals the truth to be worse than was previously thought.

Due to the pliability of the Clinton Justice Department and the dogged efforts of a few highly incentivized trial lawyers, the original Pigford settlement made $50,000 payments available to any African American who could merely claim to have been discriminated against by the federally deputized administrators of USDA bridge loans (loans designed to get farmers from the planting season to the harvesting season). And “claim” might even be too strong a word; since administrative records for the loan program were poor, the courts set the bar laughably low. To establish oneself as a farmer for the purposes of Pigford, it would all but do to establish that you had once bought a seed and passed within a country mile of a USDA office. And to establish that you were discriminated against there, it would all but do to affirm on a form that you found that experience less than satisfactory — and to have your second cousin affirm that you told him as much at the time.

Unsurprisingly, this cash bonanza spawned a cottage industry of mountebanks and small-time frauds, including a few who toured the churches of the rural South recruiting “farmers” to stake their claims in lieu of reparations. And the number of claims exploded. Some claimants were as young as four years old; others had their forms filled out by lawyers just to “keep the line moving.” There were many reports of duplicative, even identical forms written in the same hand. In some towns, the number of claimants exceeded the number of farms there operated — by individuals of any race. The Times quotes several USDA employees whose job was to process — and ultimately rubber-stamp — these claims. “You couldn’t have designed it worse if you had tried,” one says of the process. “You knew it was wrong,” says another, “but what could you do? Who is going to listen to you?” “Basically, it was a rip-off of the American taxpayers,” says a third.

But as the Times reports in great depth, instead of closing the spigot, in 2010 the Obama administration did not just acquiesce to, it spearheaded the expansion of, the Pigford con on the taxpayer’s dime, and saw to it that not just black Americans, but any woman, Hispanic, or Native American who could so much as gesture at discrimination had access to a billion-dollar pool of easy money.

It did this over the objections of career lawyers in the Justice Department. It did this by dubiously tapping a Justice Department fund reserved for court-ordered, not politically dispensed, payouts. And it did this, in most cases, under evidentiary standards even looser than the ones governing the original settlement.

The administration claims that it was worth settling the Hispanic and Native American cases to avoid the potential of adverse court rulings. But the Times quotes parties familiar with the litigation who say that the government would have easily prevailed had the trials run their course, rendering the administration’s decision inexplicable. In the suits brought by women and Hispanics, courts found the potential pool of legitimate claimants to number 91 in total, a “class” so small that the government could have dealt with them one at a time. The Native American settlement allocated $760 million, of which only $300 million could be awarded to claimants deemed legitimate. The rest will be distributed to Native American “nonprofits” that may or may not exist, and to trial lawyers, who admitted to the Times they were pleasantly surprised by the size of their cut, but “absent a court order” had no intention of returning any of it.

None of this sorry, shameful, and outrageous mess approaches the realm of “justice.” Pigford and its spawn instead resembles in organization and aim a criminal conspiracy of breathtaking proportions, and one in which the federal government was first complicit and then ultimately responsible. The Times report exposes — as Dan Foster did in his piece for us two years ago — Senator, Candidate, and President Obama’s advocacy for the settlements as barely alloyed quid pro quo, in which Pigford profiteers promised to help Obama run up the score against Hillary Clinton in the rural South in exchange for his work on their behalf. Similarly, the Hispanic case was negligently settled at the urging of the polluted Senator Robert Menendez, who threatened to make noise if the Department of Justice did not give Hispanics the same deal the president gave blacks.

At a minimum, a congressional investigation is needed, as is congressional intervention in the continued administration of the payouts. Representative Steve King (R., Iowa) has long called for such measures, and it is time his calls are heeded. It is shame, to the tune of billions in taxpayers’ dollars, that it has taken this long for the mainstream media and its readers to catch up to the reality of Pigford. But now that they have, perhaps they can be shamed into helping put an end to it.

OK so we know that the Obama administration is corrupt on a scale that the Clinton administration may only marvel at. But what now? The money has been given away, millionaire lawyers have become richer yet. There is absolutely zero chance that the man who arranged a pardon for Marc Rich, Eric Holder, and his boss Barack Obama will do anything about this multibillion dollar fraud. Until recently, Americans thought that this only happened in Mexico or the corrupt banana republics in South America. Today it's happening right here, an in-your-face example of political corruption. And that's not even discussing the multi billion dollar frauds like Solyndra and Fisker.

This kind of thing sets a precedent for other office holders unless someone is made to pay. Publicly. And sent to jail.

Election Fraud in a Presidential Election

Last week a jury in Indiana found that “fraud put President Obama and Hillary Clinton on the presidential primary ballot” in the 2008 election. The fraud was spearheaded by Butch Morgan who as the Democratic-party chairman of St. Joseph County.

... according to evidence produced by the prosecutors, all the signatures on nine of Obama’s petition pages were forged. Without those 90 fraudulent signatures, Obama would have fallen short of the 500-signature threshold. Had those signatures been challenged when they were submitted, he would not have been on the ballot for the primary....

Political momentum is a very delicate thing. It’s certainly possible that such a setback for Obama could have changed the outcome of the 2008 Democratic nomination contest. But of course, we will never know. All we do know for sure is that Indiana experienced election fraud committed by party activists that may have affected the 2008 election. But of course, according to some, there is no election fraud in the United States.

This is news that won't get reported by the Virginian Pilot becaaue votrer fraud never happens. Never. Ever. Voter fraud is a myth, as we all know. It's also conventional wisdom that voter ID is just a way to keep black people from voting.

Americans fear government more than terror

When a powerful institution like government,  armed with guns tries to deny constitutional rights while lying and failing to perform its basic duties even the slowest among us fears them. 

Virginian Pilot Priorities

Two newsworthy events took place the other day

1. There was riot in Virginia Beach
2. (Nothing)

So the Virginian Pilot decided to headline the possible sale of an old hotel at the beach.  The riot was below the fold and gave no information other than what had already been reported on TV and radio.

Tell me again why this newspaper is needed.

UPDATE:  'Beach week' draws black crowd - and violence

WNIS talk show host Tony Macrini insists that the mobs were not black.

The race and diversity scam

Sultan Knish

Diversity creates a wonderful snafu in which there can be a black guy in the White House and double digit unemployment for other black guys. Sorry guys, the quota has been filled. There can only be one Obama. Everyone else is out of luck.

The double vision isn't accidental. It looks equal, but it's not. The game is rigged and diversity rigged it. And there's plenty to be angry about for everyone because in a rigged game everyone has just cause to be angry; except the people on whose behalf the game has been rigged. And those people aren't white people or black people. They are the people that the system uses to perpetuate itself.

The system isn't white power or black power. It's just the system. It's a bunch of white guys who despise the South and wish they had a black friend, deciding which black guy to use for their diversity quota. They're doing it for the same reason that they display books they never read and invite interesting people over for boring dinner parties. Because it makes them seem smart. Because it makes them feel like something more than the overseers of the same repressive dreary system that exists to implement unfairness for the benefit of a few.

Black people are interesting, the white guys think, Asians aren't. Besides the Asians are more threatening because they can compete with all those white kids in retro black framed glasses. They are what the Jews were a few generations ago. And the quota stick is good for them too. But everyone gets hit with the quota stick by the system. Except those who are truly inside the system.

 

Read the whole thing and think about it. There are some really courageous things being said here.

The Sixties are never going away. They are the establishment. The people responsible for that mess run everything and arranged society so that you can experience their social failure over and over again. Racism and the fight against it is one of the things that they want you to experience, so you will experience it again and again, as they create and destroy racism like some strange racist gods.

And ...

Congressman John Lewis, who on the day when he can no longer stumble forth to mumble something about his time fighting for civil rights, will have to be stuffed as a mummy and wheeled around to meetings organized by white guys in retro glasses who want to experience what their grandfathers felt when marching along the street in Alabama or Mississippi, serves the same purpose as Buffalo Bill's traveling exhibition did. He's there to remind us all of something that no longer exists.

 

And ...

 

The civil rights movement is dead. In place of any real urge for equality is a determination to perpetuate inequality in order to keep the movement going. It's as if everyone wanted to keep the great feeling of winning WW2 alive by landing at Normandy, shelling random tourists and then invading Paris to liberate it from the Nazis while refusing to listen to the Parisians when they insist that the Nazi armies are long gone and all that's left are a bunch of skinheads listening to bad music.

Obama Manipulates the GDP Number

The GDP number is already BS, but Obama's making it worse. Here's an example of the way the books are cooked today.

Scenario 1. Tomorrow, ExxonMobil spontaneously hires an unemployed petroleum engineer for $100K per year. She spends a year looking for new oil, finds nothing.

Scenario 2. Tomorrow, the federal government spontaneously hires an unemployed petroleum engineer for the same $100K. She spends a year looking for new oil, finds nothing.

So, how do these two alternative scenarios impact the official GDP figures?

Scenario 1 has zero impact on GDP: No oil to sell=no extra consumer purchases=no extra GDP. As the Bureau of Economic Analysis says, “Personal consumption expenditures…is goods and services purchased by persons…”

Scenario 2 raises GDP by $100K. As BEA says, “Government consumption expenditures…consists of…compensation of employees…”

Hiring a worker who (through no fault of her own) accomplishes absolutely nothing raises GDP if the government does the hiring. Hiring a worker who (through no fault of her own) accomplishes absolutely nothing does nothing to GDP if the private sector does the hiring.

Why? Because GDP counts government salaries as “government expenditures” as soon as the government hires a person. But the “consumption” and “investment” parts of GDP only count genuine purchases by the private sector (leaving the oddities of imputed spending for the coda below).

Here's the way the GDP is going to be calculated tomorrow ... making it "bigger" without ANY real increase in production.

In March 2013, the U.S. government invented a new way of calculating GDP. The Financial Times reported that starting from July 2013, U.S. GDP would become 3% bigger due to a change in statistics. [GDP] now includes R&D spending, art, music, film royalties, books, theatre. This change in GDP statistics has not been implemented elsewhere in the world. So the U.S. is the first to accomplish this rewriting of the GDP number.

From the comments:

8.The US government is becoming more like the central government of China. It is churning out numbers that one cannot and should not believe. This is like having a thermometer on which the only number on the scale is 98.6 degrees.

15.While interesting this is nowhere near as manipulative as the great inflation calculation change. It took a real genius (or something) to come up with removing the price of things people buy (gasoline, food and such) from inflation because their prices are too volatile, and they’re too volitile because people buy them.

24.I have long since ceased to believe anything coming out of the Federal government. Let me be perfectly clear: Every bit of information coming from the United States federal government is a bald-faced lie unless and until proven otherwise.

Invisible paint. What parking tickets and amnesty for illegal aliens have in common.

 

Have you ever gotten a parking ticket or been stopped for speeding? I have.  The thought of simply ignoring it never occurred to me. It appears that about three-quarters of the people in Virginia just rip them up. 

According to the AP, Nearly half the fines and fees levied by Virginia courts went unpaid over the past five years, according to a state audit.  And for traffic cases, it was much, much worse.

District courts assessed more than 80 percent of the total fines and costs because that's where traffic cases go.  The collection rate for the traffic court was 27%. Think about that.  That means that about three quarters of the people who get traffic tickets simply ignore them.

And what happens when you don't pay? Pretty much … nothing.  

The attitude of the legal system is that they don't have the manpower or time to actually go after the people who simply ignore them.  They also claim that some of the scofflaws are either in jail or too poor to pay the fines.  So if you're poor you quicly learn that you can speed or park anywhere without worrying about the consequences.  Gaming the system can involve just ignoring fines, or it can involve calling 911 over 100 times to get a ride to town in an ambulance, figuring it's just part of your Medicaid benefits at a cost to taxpayers of about $400,000.  Which makes paying fines sort of like the income tax.  If you have some money and grow up in an environment where you are taught to obey the law you pay all the fines, if you're poor the government lets you skate.  Welcome to America.

Just after reading about this I read this heartfelt story about the son of legal immigrants, Ray Tranchant, who lost his daughter to an illegal alien. Here's part of what he wrote.

Alfredo Ramos, the illegal immigrant who killed my daughter Tessa and her friend Allison Kunhardt as he blindly drove his car at 70 mph through an intersection in Virginia Beach, was invisible. He had been stopped many times by local law enforcement, brought in front of judges, released.

It reminds me of the recent releases of deportees due to sequestration, authorized by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE Secretary John Morton. They must not have known about Ramos and his kind, whom the system brushes with invisible paint.

Imagine, Homeland Security has enough confidence in these deportees that they would trust them to return to court for their hearings. Do we have any idea what it cost to catch them?

We trusted that, after several stops and arrests for DUI, Ramos would just be deported. He was only stopped after he killed those beautiful girls.

This is what brings these two stories together. I have zero confidence that even if the amnesty program is implemented and works as designed, the criminals who don’t bother with background checks and fines will be painted with invisible paint.  Just like it does the three-quarters of those who don’t pay their parking tickets and the 40% who don’t pay the fines assessed by District Courts.

 

Ray Tranchant again: 

It reminds me of the gun laws that we are so desperately trying to change. America can sure track the people that follow the law, but the ones who don't stay invisible until a heinous crime is committed.

There were close to 500 gun deaths last year in Chicago by criminals with "invisible" guns, who somehow didn't bother to register the weapon or take National Rifle Association gun safety courses. I wonder why?

Meanwhile the rest of us are the victims, like Ray Tranchant and his daughter, of people who the government doesn't want to see.  Just as ObamaCare is now viewed by its main Senate sponsor, Max Baucus, as a train wreck, “Illegal Amnesty II” could well be America’s Hiroshima.

Ben Affleck And The Disease Of ‘Feel-Good Limousine Liberalism’

Ben Affleck and his wife are worht over $100 million but he's shaking his tin cup in our faces and thinks living on $1.50 per day is his contribution. What a moron.

On Monday, Ben Affleck, actor, director, and producer, announced he will join a campaign to fight poverty in the Eastern Congo by living on less than $1.50 a day.

One isn’t sure whether to laugh, cry, or scream.

To be sure, Affleck’s pledge of living on less than $1.50 will only be for the requisite five days (after all, let’s not get crazy now!) and, naturally, he will still drive around one of his several luxurious cars and sleep in one of his luxurious homes, all during this five-day ‘poverty’ pledge.

How about giving away some of that loot instead of grandstanding for the crowd. Nobody gives a shit about you.

So Ben: How about, instead of your silly five-day pledge and your self-aggrandizing tweet, you write a big ole’ check instead? Will it solve the problem? Not permanently, but I can guarantee you some mouths will be fed and some lives in the Congo would be changed instantly. C’mon, isn’t giving up just one of your Range Rovers worth a few kids’ lives? You sit on millions in the bank and yet, typical limousine liberal, with a straight face you purport to care about poverty, poverty you could address in seconds with a single check. How about at least a compromise: donating a chunk of your income (not even a majority!), ala Mitt Romney‘s 30%, to this Eastern Congo endeavor? He-llo? Why do I hear crickets, Ben?

About the UCon Feminist raped by a cartoon dog

In an open letter to UC President Susan Herbst, self-described feminist student Carolyn Luby wrote that the redesigned team logo will intimidate women and empower rape culture.

Not realizing that she was being over-the-top ridiculous, and claiming that she was threatened with rape, she went to he campus police and was told by a UConn police officer to keep a low profile and wear a hat.

We get an insight into what Luby views as rape by this comment:

Luby, who openly shared her experience as a survivor of rape and sexual assault at Take Back The Night, an event organized to discuss sexual violence, said the abuse went beyond the Internet.

“My ex-boyfriend, who I literally have not heard from in years, who used to abuse me and rape me on campus, texted me and said, ‘I see you made it big on Barstool,’” she said.

She had a boyfriend who used to rape her on campus?  She actually tells us that her "boyfriend used to abuse and rape me."  "Used to" means that it happened more than once; it was a habit. "I used to smoke but don't any more" makes sense, but "I used to get raped by my boyfriend but I gave it up" doesn't.  People do not habitually get raped unless they are imprisoned and the last time I checked UConn was not imprisoning its female students so that their boyfriends could have their way with them.  She made it sound like it was a routine.  He: "Friday night ... rape and abuse?"  She: "OK." 

She seems to have been influenced by Andrea Dworkin whose life as a gay feminist, prostitute and abused spouse may have contributed to her belief " ... that all heterosexual sex in our patriarchal society is coercive and degrading to women, and sexual penetration may by its very nature doom women to inferiority and submission ..." If we use that definition of sex and assume without proof that we live in a patriarchal society, then Luby may actually have been raped regularly by her boyfriend. Of course that means that everyone who participates in heterosexual sex acts are also involved in rape, which then erases meaning of the word as we have understood it.

 

Sort of like the word  "marriage."

Strangely enough, the Left lacks understanding of the power of ideas.

Of course the Left uses words, criticism, sarcasm, ridicule and other forms of verbal warfare when they attack and demean their opponents on the Right, but they are helpless when the attack comes from the world of multiculturalism.  It's both their creation and their weakness. 

The manifest power of ideas over things makes the indifference with which radical Islamism is regarded by the left even more puzzling. Radical Islamism does stuff, no less than Nazism as an ideology did. Yet many on the liberal side of the aisle appear to ignore it as a harmless, childish, essentially unserious notion.

The Nazis as well as the Islamofascists are more powerful than their mere physical presence would indicate because of the power of their ideas. The idea comes before everything.

The Tsarnaev’s were showered with a huge amount of things. And did they like it? No they hated it. Hated the whole idea of the dirty, degenerate, corrupt West. They hated the idea and took the goodies without a thought. Despite this the mainstream culture is set to respond to their attack with more things. More drones, detectors, armored vehicles, barriers, restrictions, weapons, armor …. more items the list of which goes on and on. But omitted from the catalog of responses will be any campaign to mentally engage radical Islam — to debate against it, denounce it or render it uncool — because that would be bigoted.

It is often forgotten that Freedom of Speech means debate. It means patches on software, not paint on the equipment box. It means fixing the insubstantial. It means mental action. This is important because in the case of radical Islam Freedom of Speech has been redefined as the obligation to remain silent. That obligation has even been given a special term: it is called Tolerance. And no one seems to have noticed that Tolerance is essentially the opposite of Freedom of Speech. It means don’t program. Don’t unhack the hack. Do nothing. Pretend it’s all a joke. Watch the whole system melt down. Tolerance is a rejection of the manifest truth that information matters because it can cure or it can kill.

In ancient times the word often used to describe the power of information over man was “spirit”. And the old ones knew that though the spirit moved in us, it could be of two kinds. There could be angels and demons. And they still can be, though we give them other names.

And perhaps that is why terrorism is so hard for the modern post-western, multicultural elite to confront. We don’t cast out demons any more. They’ve joined the operating system.
 

Terry McAuliffe, who has had four kids going to a $30,000-per-student tuition private school opposes the use of vouchers to send poorer kids to private schools.

But of course.  He made his tens of millions on a phone scam.

Fixing the Obamas’ Finances

Interesting article on the Obama's taxes, finances and investment decisions.

Bitter Clingers Have Taken Over Your Television, or How America Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Duck

Like all great television, Duck Dynasty works because it follows a proven formula. In the case of Duck Dynasty, that formula is the roadmap to realizing the quintessential American dream. Have a clever idea. Sacrifice. Work harder than the next guy. Make it happen. Earn your wealth the old fashioned way. Pass the business and its blessings along to your children and grandchildren. Have fun. Never forget where, or what, you came from. Give thanks to God. Repeat.

 

These are the "Bitter Clingers" Obama warned you about.  Read the whole thing.

Reps challenge DHS ammo buys, say agency using 1,000 more rounds per person than Army

Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz said Thursday that the Department of Homeland Security is using roughly 1,000 rounds of ammunition more per person than the U.S. Army, as he and other lawmakers sharply questioned DHS officials on their "massive" bullet buys.

"It is entirely ... inexplicable why the Department of Homeland Security needs so much ammunition," Chaffetz, R-Utah, said at a hearing.

Democrats tried to shut down the hearing by ridiculing those who had questions.

Democratic Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., at the opening of the hearing, ridiculed the concerns as "conspiracy theories" which have "no place" in the committee room.

It turns out the only people who brought up conspiracy theories were Democrats.

"This is not about conspiracy theories, this is about good government," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who chairs the full Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he suspects rounds are being stockpiled, and then either "disposed of," passed to non-federal agencies, or shot "indiscriminately."

Consciousness After Death

Sam Parnia practices resuscitation medine. In other words, he helps bring people back from the dead — and some return with stories. Their tales could help save lives, and even challenge traditional scientific ideas about the nature of consciousness.

“The evidence we have so far is that human consciousness does not become annihilated,” said Parnia, a doctor at Stony Brook University Hospital and director of the school’s resuscitation research program. “It continues for a few hours after death, albeit in a hibernated state we cannot see from the outside.”

Resuscitation medicine grew out of the mid-twentieth century discovery of CPR, the medical procedure by which hearts that have stopped beating are revived. Originally effective for a few minutes after cardiac arrest, advances in CPR have pushed that time to a half-hour or more.

New techniques promise to even further extend the boundary between life and death. At the same time, experiences reported by resuscitated people sometimes defy what’s thought to be possible. They claim to have seen and heard things, though activity in their brains appears to have stopped.

People don't die in an instant. It's a process

There’s a point used to define death: Your heart stops beating, your brain shuts down. The moment of cardiac arrest. Until fifty years ago, when CPR was developed, when you reached this point, you couldn’t come back. That led to the perception that death is completely irreversible.

But if I were to die this instant, the cells inside my body wouldn’t have died yet. It takes time for cells to die after they’re deprived of oxygen. It doesn’t happen instantly. We have a longer period of time than people perceive. We know now that when you become a corpse, when the doctor declares you dead, there’s still a possibility, from a biological and medical perspective, of death being reversed.

Of course, if someone dies and you leave them alone long enough, the cells become damaged. There’s going to be a time when you can’t bring them back. But nobody knows exactly when that moment is. It might not just be in tens of minutes, but in over an hour. Death is really a process.

 

And then the sould goes on to it's next great adventure.

The Pornification of Campuses

Just when you thought that academia could not sink any lower ....

In a talk Wednesday night advertised by the University of Missouri and well-attended by college students, a “crowd-sourced porn” entrepreneur recruited college students to join the online movement, telling them it’s an easy way to make a few bucks and pay down student loans.

That businesswoman, Cindy Gallop, explained to those at her talk – held in a theater a block and a half away from the campus and filled with plenty of college-aged students – that instead of watching hardcore porn, they should join her “Make Love Not Porn” movement.

The online operation uses normal people, not porn stars, asking them to film themselves having sex, then post it online to earn extra cash. People pay $5 to watch the video, and profits are split between Gallop and the sex partners.
 

Also read: U Missouri Students Recruited for Online Amateur Porn

And at the College Fix:

Alex Pesek, a 21 year-old undergraduate student at the University of Missouri and a sex columnist for the university’s school newspaper, The Maneater, said in an interview with The College Fix that Gallop’s message was a positive one.

Pesek was among the group of college students who attended Wednesday’s event, and said Gallop is ushering in a sexual revolution of sorts, adding she has influenced his writing and his overall sexual education.

He said he admires Gallop and likes the “Make Love Not Porn” website’s “openness and inclusivity.”

How Currency Exposure Affects Returns

Now for something less political.

A simple example shows how currency risk affects your returns.

Let’s suppose you’re an American investor and you put $10,000 into a European stock market tracker.

Your investment is not hedged, and so you’re exposed to changes in the exchange rate between the dollar and the euro. That is, you’re exposed to currency risk.

Suppose over 12 months the European market and therefore your tracker goes up 20% in local euro terms:

• If the dollar and the euro is at the same exchange rate after 12 months as when you made your investment, your holding is now worth $12,000. (i.e. $10,000 increased by 20%).

• Say the dollar appreciated by 25% versus the euro over 12 months. Your holding would be worth $9,600 (12,000 / 1.25). i.e. Your euro position now buys fewer dollars.

• Say the dollar depreciated by 25% versus the euro over 12 months. Your holding would be worth $16,000 (12,000 / 0.75). i.e. Your euro position now buys more dollars.

As you can see, currency risk can dramatically affect your returns, ranging from magnifying your gains to turning gains into losses in your own currency

Gangs and Politicians in Chicago: An Unholy Alliance

A few months before last February’s citywide elections, Hal Baskin’s phone started ringing. And ringing. Most of the callers were candidates for Chicago City Council, seeking the kind of help Baskin was uniquely qualified to provide.

Baskin isn’t a slick campaign strategist. He’s a former gang leader and, for several decades, a community activist who now operates a neighborhood center that aims to keep kids off the streets. Baskin has deep contacts inside the South Side’s complex network of politicians, community organizations, and street gangs. as he recalls, the inquiring candidates wanted to know: “Who do I need to be talking to so I can get the gangs on board?”

McAuliffe hones China’s crony-capitalism model in U.S.

As he runs for Virginia governor, Terry McAuliffe has touted his efforts to start a “green car” company in Mississippi as a prime example of his old-fashioned American entrepreneurial know-how. Yet McAuliffe really is a master of the Chinese-style “crony capitalist” model. It’s a system where political connections, government favors and even some thuggery determine the success of an enterprise.

The Boston Bombers Were Muslim: So?

Hitler as a unique, nonsmoking vegetarian and well-read individual whose acts could not simply be understood in the context of fascism/Nazism.

And Jeffrey Dahmer was a nice, quiet hard-working young man who was a model neighbor.

A ‘beautiful, beautiful’ terrorist

Something odd happened when the identity of Suspect No. 2, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, became public last week: His name was greeted with words of . . . praise.

A former classmate said Dzokhar was “soft spoken but very, you know, funny, very sweet, wouldn't harm a fly, someone that you would want to talk to.” She professed to having had a crush on him.

“A beautiful, beautiful boy,” Dzokhar was called — repeatedly, in interviews and on Twitter — by a public-radio journalist whose nephew had hung out with him.

One of his high-school teachers was even more effusive: Dzhokhar, he said, “had a heart of gold, he was a sweetheart, he was gracious, he was caring, he was compassionate.”

These weren’t the traditional post-crime neighborly responses — you know, “nice guy,” “very polite,” “kept to himself.” Nor were these people speaking ruefully in the “oh my God, I was conned by this kid, what the hell is the matter with me” way.

These salutes to Dzokhar Tsarnaev seem amazingly overheated, even if you accept that he was one type of person in high school and turned into another the next year.

Heart of gold? Compassionate? Gracious? Caring? “Beautiful, beautiful boy?” I don’t know that I’ve ever read such unmitigatedly kind things said about a teenage male, even a nice one.

These adults were grading him on a peculiar curve.

 

These people are liberals.  It's what they do.   In such precincts, a soft-spoken Muslim kid like Dzhokhar is more likely to be considered a special catch than eyed suspiciously as a potential terrorist.

Nominated for a Nobel Prize?  Don't laugh.

Steyn: Anger Management

Former brother-in-law Elmirza Khozhugov explains Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s grievances to the New York Times:

He was angry that the world pictures Islam as a violent religion.

So he blew up an eight-year old boy and a couple of hundred other Americans.

And now the media are full of stories about how the Tsarnaevs were all-American kids and “beautiful, beautiful boys” and maybe it was the boxing or the Ben Affleck movies or the classical music but, whatever it was, it was nothing to do with Islam. Nothing whatever.

So I guess it worked.

Boston Bomber 9/11 Truther and Obama Supporter

He was apparently a 9/11 Truther, posting a tweet on Sept. 1 that read in part, “Idk why it’s hard for many of you to accept that 9/11 was an inside job.” On Election Day he retweeted a tweet from Barack Obama that read: “This happened because of you. Thank you.”

 

Well you didn't think he voted for Mitt Romney did you?

Other tweets: 

Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sent pro-Obama tweets out on Election Night, retweeting one that said "Barack you my dawg" and hailing how “america is impervious to the f--kery #justforthisoneday.”

Christian girl, 12, kidnapped, beaten and raped for eight months until she converted to Islam

■Asian Human Rights Commission claim girl was lured on shopping trip by friend before she was kidnapped.

■Abductors drove her 120 miles before raping her, then forced her to sign marriage papers

■Victim managed to escape eight months later, but police refuse to prosecute rapists because they are tied to militant Islam group

 

Nothing to see here, move along.

Domestic Terrorism and the Vile SPLC

Southern Poverty Law lists anti-gay groups,” Corkins tells interrogators in the video, which FRC obtained from the FBI. “I found them online, did a little research, went to the website, stuff like that.”

The Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard reported that Corkins, who pleaded guilty to terrorism charges, said in court that he hoped to “kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-Fil-A sandwiches in victims’ faces, and kill the guard.”

Dems join Republicans, Scott Walker in calling for UW tuition freeze

Walker's request for a freeze — and possibly other UW budget changes — will be delivered to lawmakers in the next week to 10 days, his spokesman Tom Evenson said. The governor's budget proposal revision comes in light of reports that UW has $650 million in reserves.

Keeping a slush fund that big hidden was not a good idea.

Kermit Gosnell Trial

If Gosnell is not convicted...


... it will help the pro-life movement.

Republicans and Democrats in Washington Conspire to Exempt Themselves from Obamacare

If this happens, the nation needs to collectively march on Washington, DC, burn it to the ground, and spread salt over the ground.

According to the Politico, in super secret “high-level, confidential talks”, Harry Reid, John Boehner, the Obama administration, and other lawmakers are working to exempt themselves and their staffs from Obamacare.

They want to rush it through, probably sneaking it through on some other legislation that no one cares about, and get it all done before anyone can say anything about it.

If the Republican Party leadership in Congress goes along with this ride, there will need to be a new third party that challenges both the GOP and Democrats.

HOW TERRY MCAULIFFE GOT SO RICH

The Global Crossing company is bankrupt, but not before former CEO Gary Winnick took out $734 million after selling his stock when the price was high. Winnick's golfing pal, DNC chief Terry McAuliffe, made about $18 million on Global Crossing stock and sold shortly before its dissent.

Changing the Democrat memes

Here are the Democratic Memes that changed After Boston:

A) Before Boston....Benghazi means nothing; The War on Terror is Over
After Boston....The Brothers went after America because of the continuing wars;

B) Before Boston...the new Immigration bill will make things better,
After Boston...If we brought the bombers in under the same circumstance, how many others will do the same? The Immigration Bill now comes to a halt;

C) Before Boston...the Gun issue was the Main issue of the Obama Administration;
After Boston....the Senate couldn't pass a Bill with the President's support.

Subsidizing Terrorism: Boston Bombers on Welfare

Did you ever notice that as reporters delved into the story about the brothers Tsarnaev, there was no mention of a job?  Yet they went to school and Tamerlan spent his time boxing ... and going to bars, paying for things and, in the words of a former friend, He'd give them rides in his nice car and he would pay for things.   How could he afford to do that?

Marathon bombings mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits even as he was delving deep into the world of radical anti-American Islamism, the Herald has learned.

State officials confirmed last night that Tsarnaev, slain in a raging gun battle with police last Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter. The state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said those benefits ended in 2012 when the couple stopped meeting income eligibility limits. Russell Tsarnaev’s attorney has claimed Katherine — who had converted to Islam — was working up to 80 hours a week as a home health aide while Tsarnaev stayed at home.

In addition, both of Tsarnaev’s parents received benefits, and accused brother bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were recipients through their parents when they were younger, according to the state.

(H/T Instapundit)

Rush Limbaugh has questioned where the Tsarnaev brothers got the money for their fancy cars (Mercedes & BMW)  and travel to Russia.  The suspicion was that they were supplied money from Islamofascists overseas. Now we know that at least part of it came from taxpayers.

And this appears to be part of a patterns. Mickey Kaus:

Does Welfare Cause Terrorism?

 

Here are some suspected terrorists in the news:

Zacarias Moussaoui, the French North African charged with conspiracy in connection with the 9/11 attack, became an Islamic radical living in London "while drawing welfare benefits and studying economics," Newsday reports.

 

Ahmed Ressam, the member of Algeria's Armed Islamic Group who was arrested crossing the U.S. border with bombs designed to blow up L.A.'s airport, moved to Canada in 1994 where he "survived on welfare payments" and petty crime, according to terrorism expert Peter Bergen.

 

Metin Kaplan, who heads a German radical Islamist sect suspected of attempting to fly a plane into the Ataturk mausoleum in Turkey, "claimed social [welfare] benefits in Cologne for many years until 2m Deutschmarks ($1.2m) in cash was found in his flat," reports the BBC.

 

Abu Qatada, the cleric who taught Moussaoui and is accused of having links to al-Qaida agents in six countries, avoided extradition to Jordan on terrorism charges by settling in England, where "[l]ike many other London-based Arab dissidents, [he] has received regular welfare checks from the British government—and government subsidized housing," according to the Washington Post. Abu Qatada's welfare payments were stopped when it was discovered he controlled a secret bank account containing approximately $270,000.

 

Do you see a pattern? There's a story here!

 

So, are Western nations subsidizing terrorism?  The answer appears to be YES.

Kaus makes the point that welfare may actually be an essential ingredient in the promotion of terrorism.

In fact, there's a good argument that "welfare benefits + ethnic antagonism" is the universal recipe for an underclass with an angry, oppositional culture. The social logic is simple: Ethnic differences make it easy for those outside of, for example, French Arab neighborhoods to discriminate against those inside, and easy for those inside to resent the mainstream culture around them. Meanwhile, relatively generous welfare benefits enable those in the ethnic ghetto to stay there, stay unemployed, and seethe. Without government subsidies, they would have to overcome the prejudice against them and integrate into the mainstream working culture. Work, in this sense, is anti-terrorist medicine. (And if you work all day, there's less time to dream up ways and reasons to kill infidels.)
 

Welfare permits people, not just immigrants, to avoid useful work in order to dream up ways to get into trouble, gather a harem, or brood on how their (adopted)  country is persecuting them, even as he draws a check from his alleged persecutor.

Sydney Morning Herald assumed the Boston bombers were associated with the Tea Party

Glenn Reynolds: HUNT FOR THE ELUSIVE TEA PARTY MURDERER CONTINUES:

The headline of the aqrticle in the Sydney Morning Herald by Waleed Aly read Bomb response refreshingly honest

He noted that the American media did not blame the followers of Islam before the perpatrators were caught.  Waleed is right, the American media desperately wanted the bombers to be conservatives.

 

The American media's attitude was perfectly captured by David Sirota who famously wrote that Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American .

 

And then of course there's that impeccably PC NPR who declared, in the absence of proof that the bombers were Right Wingers celebrating Hitler’s birthday, feeling bad about Columbine, sorry that Tim McVeigh was executed, crying in their beer about the death of David Koresh, so they decided to blow up Boston. 

Enabling Jihad in America

There are a few things we know about the Tsarnaev brothers. They came to the US when they were youngsters. Tamerlan was 15, Dzhokhar was 8. They have been American residents for a decade. They went to school here. Tamerlan was a student for three semesters at Bunker Hill Community College from 2006-2008. Dzhokhar received a scholarship to the University of Massachusetts. Tamerlan got married, had a child and wanted to be part of the American Olympic boxing team. Both were Muslim.

And on April 15, 2013 the brothers Tsarnaev set off bombs that killed three and maimed 178 at the finish line of the Boston marathon.

While some may wonder what was behind the attack, you have to be willfully blind not to assume that the same impulses that caused the 9/11 terrorists to highjack four airliners and fly them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon also motivated the Tsarnaevs. The brothers were not terribly interested in getting away after the bombing or they would not have followed up with a carjacking and the murder of an MIT cop. They were on a mission that was going to leave a trail of blood before they died.

It was not as complicated or high-tech as 9/11, but every bit as Jihadist inspired.

Some will claim that the bombing was somehow tied to the conflict in Chechnya between the Russians and the rebels. This is nonsense on stilts. As Barry Rubin pointed out, if the brothers were

“acting as Chechens and not as Islamists they would have attacked a Russian target. The United States has not — even by the usual stretch of radical Islamist imagination — had anything to do with the conflict in Chechnya.”

What should be pointed out is that a decade spent in America, in the heart of Boston – the epicenter of American Academia, at least one of the brothers hated America enough – again quoting Rubin

“They went to the best schools. What did they learn there about the greatness of America? Was the seed of rage fertilized by U.S. education’s tendency to demonize American history as evil, greedy, racist, and imperialist?

…

These two young men … had a free choice. They had to actively close their minds to everything good they experienced and to adopt an ideology of hate. Only a very powerful force could move them in that direction.”

I have to extend what Rubin is saying. They had help in closing their minds to everything good that they experienced. They had the best professors, the most powerful political leaders, the most influential members of the press and the top stars in Hollywood telling them that America was fundamentally flawed, its people and institutions conceived in sin: " ...evil, greedy, racist, and imperialist."    And while breaking down any idea that America was fundamentally good, these leaders were simultaneously promoting the very things that Muslims consider to be among the greatest sins; hedonism, sexual promiscuity and homosexuality.

Put yourself in the shoes of the Tsarnaev brothers. Your devotion to Islam has been reinforced in your mosque and on your travels, the leaders of the American culture you swim in tells you that the people you see around you are corrupt. And you see these same people proudly proclaiming that what you believe are the worst sins in your culture are to be embraced and celebrated. Planting a bomb and giving your life for your faith may seem like the right thing to do.    Since the cream of American culture dislikes this country enough to want to fundamentally change it, why should you disagree?

Golden Gate Park pot party a major mess

After the pot party they worshipped Gaia ... (oh wait)





Compare that with the aftermath of the Tea Party rally.

Tim McVeigh was an atheist Democrat

Tim McVeigh is the name every Democrat and media figure (but I repeat myself) mentions when violence breaks out. That's why I found this comment that followed an excellent essay on Eric Erickson's Red State.

I clubbed a liberal like a baby seal over this very issue.

He started in on right-wing violence and my counter, from Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground to the Black Panthers to the SDS to Loughner, to Democrats Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols to Leftist nutbag Ted Kaczynski to the pilot who crashed his plane into the IRS building, the professor who shot her collegues, and on and on left him speechless.

I'd sooner leave my kids with ANY TEA Party member than let Bill Ayers babysit them!

 

 

I have no idea what religion McVeigh had, or what his political affiliation was, but I know of no-one who can honestly claim that his bombing was motivated by either his religion or his party affiliation.

Why Does Evil Make Liberals Stupid?

 

John Hinderaker fillets a really stupid article in The Atlantic about the Boston Marathon bombers titled “The Boston Bombers Were Muslim: So?”

To give the writer, Megan Garber, a clue he suggests some other headlines:

“The Cole Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The Embassy Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The First World Trade Center Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The September 11 Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The Madrid Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The London Bombers Were Muslim: So?” “The Shoebomber Was Muslim: So?” The Underwear Bomber Was Muslim: So?” “The Fort Hood Shooter Was Muslim: So?” “The Beslan Child-Murderers Were Muslim: So?” “The Times Square Bomber Was Muslim: So?”

The were not just mass murdering terrorists, they were much more complicated than that.

They had friends and families and lives. They had YouTube accounts and Twitter feeds. They went to class. They went to work. They came home, and they left it again.

And then they did something unimaginable.

Hmm, yes, that’s the problem, isn’t it? The only reason why any of us have heard of them is that they stuffed pressure cookers full of ball bearings and tried to murder as many people as they could. With all due respect to their Twitter feeds, that does seem to be the most salient fact about them.

 

Read the whole thing. 

A nation of promiscuous prudes

Victor Davis Hanson on current American culture (read the whole thing).

Criminal sexual activity is sometimes not as professionally injurious as politically incorrect thoughts about sex and gender. Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer — found to have hired prostitutes on a number of occasions during his time in office — was given a CNN news show despite the scandal. But when former Miss California Carrie Prejean was asked in the Miss USA pageant whether she endorsed gay marriage, she said no — and thereby earned nearly as much popular condemnation for her candid defense of traditional marriage as Spitzer had for his purchased affairs.

Critics were outraged that talk-show host Rush Limbaugh grossly insulted birth-control activist Sandra Fluke. Amid the attention, Fluke was canonized for her position that federal health-care plans should pay for the contraceptive costs of all women. Yet in comparison to Fluke’s well-publicized victimhood, there has been a veritable news blackout for the trial of the macabre Dr. Kermit Gosnell, charged with killing and mutilating in gruesome fashion seven babies during a long career of conducting sometimes illegal late-term abortions. Had Gosnell’s aborted victims been canines instead of humans — compare the minimal coverage of the Gosnell trial with the widespread media condemnation of dog-killing quarterback Michael Vick — perhaps the doctor’s mayhem likewise would have been front-page news outside of Philadelphia.

Boston and America … Where the Fish Rots from the Top

Roger Simon points out that the FBI under Obama has downplayed Islamic terrorism and played up "Right Wong" terrorism.  Pehaps that's why NPR told us that their sources believe that the Boston Marathon bombing was somehow related to Hitler's birthday. 

Apropos of the #BostonBombers, CNN’s Jake Tapper tweeted this weekend: Big q is why FBI didnt keep an eye on/talk to Tamerlan Tsarnaev after he returned from Chechnya last year. So far from FBI: crickets. 
 

Tapper’s right. The FBI is not looking particularly good as far as their surveillance of murderous Caucasian Islamists on our soil is concerned. And Tamerlan, evidently , left quite a trail, from domestic violence to reportedly attacking an imam for holding up MLK as someone to emulate. Not exactly subtle. They were even warned about Tamerlan by the Russians apparently.
 

The Feds must have been pretty clueless to ignore all this.
 

Probably. But I offer in their defense one of the hoariest of cliches: The fish rots from the top.
 

The Obama administration and most of those working for it have taken Islamic terrorism about as seriously as I am taking the Memphis Grizzlies/L.A. Clippers game currently on my TV — in other words, at best mildly interested. Not being a fan of either team, I could watch — I could switch to something else.
 

And when Islamic terrorism does rear its head, as in Benghazi, the administration evinces something worse than disinterest — dishonesty, lies, coverup and prevarication (sometimes aided by Tapper’s CNN cohort Candy Crowley).
 

And they don’t stop. They haven’t offered anything yet even remotely resembling a transparent account of the Libyan events or of their motivation. The secretary of State has told us it’s not even important. (How does that look in the light of Boston?)
 

So why would we expect the nation’s police department — the Federal Bureau of Investigation — to take these matters with the requisite seriousness? The message they are getting from the top is …meh. Until something happens, Islamic terrorism is way down this administration’s list of priorities. And when it happens, the “t-word” is only mentioned under the most extreme duress (or possible political fallout). And the word “Islam” is abjured even when someone yells “Allahu Akbar!” while shooting everyone in the room.
 

The press, the Praetorian Guard of the Obama Regency,  is already beginning its job of minimizing the role of Islam into turning the brothers into mass murderers.

Meanwhile, we have the worst possible president to deal with the situation. And even after an event as heinous as Boston, he is supported by a media desperate to preserve his narrative at all costs. It’s already started. On Saturday the Boston Globe published an article titled — I kid you not — “Islam might have a secondary role in Boston attacks.” (Don’t look for what might have the primary role. You won’t find it.) That stupefying essay is a harbinger of what’s to come as soon as the atmosphere dies down, perhaps as soon as next week.

Keep the truth alive. And your eyes open. Your life — or that of someone you love — may depend on it.

Oh oh!

Group linked to Tsarnaev brothers...
Pair 'specially trained' for attack...
'No doubt brothers not acting alone'...
Two from Kazakhstan in custody...


<! MAIN HEADLINE>
REPORT: FBI HUNTS 12-MAN 'SLEEPER CELL'

Gunfire erupts at Colo. pot event, 2 wounded

Glenn Reynolds comments:  FUNNY, THIS NEVER SEEMS TO HAPPEN AT TEA PARTY RALLIES



BUZZKILL: GUNFIRE ERUPTS AT POT DAY...

Police lack witnesses: 'Everybody fled.'...

BOARDER: 'Thought I was going through anxiety thing'...

Some people yelling 'Explosion!'...

VIDEO...

Perhaps the Boston marathon bomber will be offered a teaching job at Columbia University.

Forty-three years ago last month, Kathy Boudin, now a professor at Columbia but then a member of the Weather Underground, escaped an explosion at a bomb factory operated in a townhouse in Greenwich Village. The story is familiar to people of a certain age.

Three weeks earlier, Boudin’s Weathermen had firebombed a private home in Upper Manhattan with Molotov cocktails. Their target was my father, a New York state Supreme Court justice. The rest of the family, was presumably, an afterthought. I was 9 at the time, only a year older than the youngest victim in Boston.

One of Boudin’s colleagues, Cathy Wilkerson, related in her memoir that the Weathermen were disappointed with the minimal effects of the bombs at my home. They decided to use dynamite the next time and bought a large quantity along with fuses, metal pipes and, yes, nails. The group designated as its next target a dance at an Officer’s Club at Fort Dix, NJ.

Despite the misgivings of some, it is reported that Kathy Boudin urged the use of “anti-personnel bombs.” In other words, she wanted to kill people not just damage property. Before they could act, her fellows were killed in the townhouse explosion. The townhouse itself collapsed; Boudin fled.

She reappeared over a decade later driving the getaway car for the rag tag mix of Weathermen and Black Panthers who held up a Rockland County bank in 1981, murdering three in the process. Survivors of the ambush along the New York State Thruway recount how Boudin emerged from the driver’s door, arms raised in surrender, asking the police to lower their guns. When they did, her accomplices burst from the back of the van guns blazing.

 

Of course the academics at Columbia would welcome her. She is what they wanted to do but lacked the money and the guts.  To paraphrase Obama's words, she is the one they have been waiting for.

When reality bites. The real cost of Norfolk's light rail revealed.

The local big-wigs have been proclaiming the overwhelming success of the their light rail system and have been pushing Virginia Beach to participate in the wonder of it all.

But the federal subsidy is ending.  The brokest government in the history of the world is ending its subsidy of The Tide, revealing - for the first time that I know of - that the fares collected from paying passengers covers a mere 14% of the cost of running the system.

Light-rail passengers are expected to pay $1.3 million in fares next fiscal year, which starts July 1. That covers only about 14 percent of the cost to run the 7.4-mile route that opened in August 2011

And without examining the numbers we can't be sure whether that 14% number isn't inflated.  Is that the cost of just the operation, or does that include the cost of maintenance and replacement of equipment that wears out?

The Virginian Pilot has been a cheerleader for this project, telling us how great the ridership is, that it's exceeded expectations and that the future looks bright.  But if Uncle Sugar in Washington DC or Uncle Bob in Richmond don't come through, the people of Norfolk are going to bear the full cost.  And why should the residents of Iowa or of Charlottesville be forced to cough up the cost of transporting Norfolk residents on a glorified trolley? 

The city has covered a significant amount of light-rail operating costs with millions of dollars in federal startup money. The city could have spread the federal grant money over three years but instead opted to spend it in two years...

In 2012-13, there is $4.6 million in federal assistance for The Tide; in 2011-12, there was $6.4 million. Only a residual amount of federal money, about $858,000, will be left to go toward the $9.1 million cost to operate light rail in Norfolk in the 2013-14 fiscal year,

 

The fact that The Tide has been subsidized by big grants from DC and Richmond were mentioned as footnotes in otherwise generous praise of this experiment in "back to the future."  Behind the scenes the backers always knew that it was never financially sound and could only succeed politically if they managed to rope other communities into joining the Tide Follies.   Today the out-of-town gravy train has stopped and the real costs are beginning to emerge.  In my opinion, that 14% number that the paper is using is actually going to shrink to less than 10%.  That means that the people of Norfolk are going to be providing transportation welfare to those who don't have cars or who live close to a Tide stop. 

The sad state of the newspaper business.

The headline screamed: Virginian-Pilot named best of state's largest papers.

That's just sad.

Knowing that the Virginian Pilot is a crappy paper, we're disturbed to learn that the others are worse.

NYPD vindicated. Will the AP apologize?

As soon as Presbyterians begin to preach that planting bombs and killing infidels is the way to heaven, they need to be the subject of police surveillance.  Until then, we'll just have to settle for keeping an eye on the "Religion of Peace."

Looks like it’s time for the Associated Press to give back its Pulitzer Prize.

Just as it’s time for politicians — and especially the press — to stop chewing on Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s leg over the NYPD’s so-far-enormously-successful anti-terrorist surveillance programs.

Knock wood on the “successful” part, of course. If America has learned anything about terrorism since 9/11, it’s that the threat is incessant, though hugely unpredictable as to source, specific motivation and any given terrorist’s tool kit of choice.

That is, no one knows what tomorrow will bring, just as no one suspected what was in store for Boston on Monday — Patriots’ Day in the Bay State.

...

Operating fully within the bounds of a mid-’80s consent decree meant to guide NYPD oversight of radical political activity — as modified by a federal judge post-9/11 — the department went on the lookout for Islamist-inspired terror plots.

...
But the Associated Press, in particular, was offended, and the agency dogged the department for months. Its stories — some naïve, most just wrong and all oblivious to the legality of the program — clearly were intended to shut the Kelly effort down.

That the news agency collected a Pulitzer for its efforts reflects as badly on the judgment of those who run the contest as it does on motives of the AP itself.

Boston Marathon Bombing from the NPR perspective.

Dina Temple-Raston in NPR’s All ThingsConsidered blames the Boston Marathon bombing on Right Wingers celebrating Hitler’s birthday. 

 

Transcript:

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED APRIL 17th.
Dina Temple-Raston provides insight into the Boston investigation.

The thinking as we’re reporting is that this is a domestic extremist attack. And officials are leaning that way largely because of the timing of the attack.

April is a big month for anti-government and right wing individuals. There’s the Columbine anniversary. There’s Hitler’s birthday. There’s the Oklahoma City bombing. The assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco.

So according to NPR we Right Wingers were having a party celebrating Hitler’s birthday, feeling bad about Columbine, sorry that Tim McVeigh was executed, crying in our beer about the death of David Koresh, so we decide to blow up Boston.

 

You really can’t parody these people because their fantasies burst though the outer limits of our imagination. 

 

And what the hell is right-wing about a couple of nut-job Goths in Columbine who decided to act out their rage about being rejected by the “cool kids?”

 

If committing acts of terror to try to bring down the government you hate is the mark of being a right-winger, that must make old Joe Stalin a right winger for this part in 1907 Tiflis bank robbery. Proving that NPR is not just delusional but ignorant.

Hubble telescope takes stunning new nebula photo for 23rd birthday

Something Wonderful: Van Morrison - These Are The Days

These are the days of the endless summer
These are the days, the time is now
There is no past, there's only future
There's only here, there's only now....

Oh your smiling face, your gracious presence
The fires of spring are kindling bright
Oh the radiant heart and the song of glory
Crying freedom in the night

These are the days by the sparkling river
His timely grace and our treasured find
This is the love of the one magician
Turned the water into wine

These are the days of the endless dancing and the
Long walks on the summer night
These are the days of the true romancing
When I'm holding you oh, so tight

These are the days by the sparkling river
His timely grace and our treasured find
This is the love of the one great magician
Turned the water into wine

These are the days now that we must savor
And we must enjoy as we can
These are the days that will last forever
You've got to hold them in your heart.