Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Monday, October 12, 2015
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Mysterious disease may be tied to climate change, says researcher: The kidney ailment has killed 20,000 since 2002 -- ScienceDaily
Now they are grabbing at straws. Excuse me. Canes.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151008142416.htm
Friday, October 9, 2015
Obama doesn't get his way on EPA water rule -
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Congressional Democrats, Hillary Clinton vow laws to weaken 2nd Amendment ‘absolutism’ [feedly]
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Congressional Democrats, Hillary Clinton vow laws to weaken 2nd Amendment 'absolutism'
// Personal Liberty Digest™
A group of House Democrats on Thursday introduced a resolution to form a congressional committee dedicated to studying incidents of gun violence in the U.S.
Led by California Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Mike Thompson, House Democrats are saying gun violence in the U.S. deserves the same level of congressional attention as issues like the Benghazi attack and Planned Parenthood scandal have received from Republicans.
"This House Majority has created committees to bully Planned Parenthood and harass a presidential candidate, all the while allowing mass gun violence to go unchecked and unexamined on their watch," Thompson said in a statement. "There have been nearly 280 mass shootings since Newtown and Congress has done nothing. No votes have been cast. No bills have been debated. No proposals have even been considered. This Select Committee can change that."
Under the resolution, a 12-member bipartisan panel divided equally among Republicans and Democrats will be formed to investigate gun violence. The panel will focus specially on mass shootings. Panel members will also examine possible flaws in the nation's current gun background-check system and links between state gun laws and firearm violence.
Democrats in the Senate, meanwhile, are making their own renewed push for gun control legislation with a package of bills to expand background checks and laws that disallow certain people to purchase firearms legally.
On Wednesday, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said the National Rifle Association's "absolutist" stance on gun rights makes the group more unreasonable than "the Iranians and communists."
"The NRA tries to keep gun owners — the ones who are members — really upset all the time so they can keep collecting their money, because they tell them they're the only thing that's going to stop the black helicopters from landing in the front yard and people's guns being seized," she said. "That's the argument they make. And it works with some people, and it has turned a lot of people into absolutists themselves."
Clinton made the anti-NRA remarks in calling for gun owners willing to accept a weaker 2nd Amendment in the name of safety to organize.
"The real answer to this, is for gun owners to form a different organization that supports the 2nd Amendment, supports their rights to own guns, use guns, go hunting, goes target shooting, but stands against the absolutism of the NRA," Clinton said.
"You know, the NRA's position reminds me of negotiating with the Iranians or the communists," she added.
If elected, Clinton is vowing to implement rules that would require background checks for virtually all gun sales or transfers via executive order.
The post Congressional Democrats, Hillary Clinton vow laws to weaken 2nd Amendment 'absolutism' appeared first on Personal Liberty®.
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Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Monday, October 5, 2015
What is with this hellish airplane seat arrangement from Airbus? [feedly]
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What is with this hellish airplane seat arrangement from Airbus?
// The Verge
Don't be fooled: this isn't a torture device, nor is it a geometric painting from one of the abstractionist masters. It is, somehow, a proposed seating arrangement for aircraft brought to you by the sadists at Airbus, who have now resorted to physically stacking passengers on top of one another.
What?
As near as I can tell, one "advantage" of this setup is that at least some of the seats can be configured to lie flat — but that doesn't change the fact that there are people on top of people. If there was any doubt in your mind that we are merely cargo when we board a flight, this should take care of that.
The airline industry's never-ending push for brutal efficiency has brought us ridiculous seating arrangements before, and I imagine this won't be the last of it. The silver lining, if there is one, is that this is only a patent application right now — there's no sign that this is making it into real aircraft, at least not any time soon.
The Onion had it right all along.
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What Obama didn’t say in his gun-grabbing rant [feedly]
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What Obama didn't say in his gun-grabbing rant
// Personal Liberty Digest™
For the elected and bureaucrat class, there is no problem that cannot be fixed by yet another law. If one law is in place to prevent a thing and the thing occurs anyway, two more will certainly do the trick.
If three laws don't stop it, three more surely will. If six laws aren't enough, surely one — or six — more is enough.
This is the way liberty is lost, one law at a time. One law leads to another and another and another. And then, one day, a once-free nation finds itself in bondage.
It's called gradualism. It's a time-honored practice of the ruling class. They are content to set events in motion knowing they will not come to fruition in their lifetime, but will mature 50 years or 100 years down the road.
That's because the people rarely accept tyranny in one fell swoop. It has to come slowly and imperceptibly, or the people will resist and rebel. Gradualism reduces the shock potential and numbs the senses to the reality that is transpiring all around, no matter how serious the consequences. It neutralizes the mind and numbs the senses to reality.
Investigators were still sorting out how many were dead and wounded in the Umpqua Community College shootings Thursday afternoon and the narcissistic undocumented usurper currently despoiling the people's House was already going before the cameras politicizing the incident — and admittedly doing so — by calling for more gun laws and blaming guns in a vacuous and fallacious self-promotional philippic.
He said little of consequence in his twelve-minute tirade. Not much of what he said was on point, and less of it was true. But he revealed that deep within his soul his goal is gun confiscation.
"We know that other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings," said he. "Friends of ours, allies of ours — Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours. So we know there are ways to prevent it."
And what laws did Great Britain and Australia craft to "almost eliminate mass shootings?" They passed gun confiscation laws. That is Barack Obama's — and the gun-grabber crowd's — ultimate aim. Yet curiously, despite those laws, mass shootings in those countries have still occurred.
But in the meantime, he'll settle for something less, knowing that it is one more step toward tyranny. It's sleight of hand. Look at the left hand, which holds the big thing. Ignore the right, which is doing the actual dirty work.
It doesn't matter if the thing he gets would not prevent another mass shooting — or a shooting of any kind. He's happy as long as he gets something that makes it harder for the law-abiding citizen to protect himself, which would then turn him into another ward of the state. Unarmed dependents are much easier for the social Marxists and oppressors to control.
There was more that the narcissist in chief did not say than he did. Not mentioned in Obama's charade tirade was the fact that there are already federal and state laws against murder. There are federal and state laws against using a weapon for illegal purposes. There are already federal and state laws in Oregon requiring a background check before a weapons purchase can be completed. (Not known as I'm writing is how the shooter obtained his weapons.) There is already a state law requiring a permit to carry a handgun. The campus was a gun-free zone. It had policies prohibiting carrying a weapon on campus.
In other words, the shooter (who will not here be named) likely violated half a dozen laws or more in carrying out his deed. Yet in the world of the gun grabber, one more law would surely be the one that makes a difference. Though they never say what those laws might entail.
Obama did not mention that the shooter was targeting Christians for murder: the second mass shooting in recent months in which Christians were targeted specifically (though the first was propagandized as racist rather than anti-Christian). This would qualify it as a "hate crime." There are already federal laws against "hate crimes."
Obama did not mention that the shooter comes from a broken home. He is British, and his white father and black mother were not married, had apparently never been, and his birth father was not in the picture from the time of his birth. Criminality and broken homes go hand in hand.
Obama did not mention that the shooter in online posts showed an affinity for a terrorist organization — the Irish Republican Army — and praised the homosexual lunatic failed reporter who shot down two of his co-workers in Virginia.
Obama did not mention that shooter was a graduate of The Switzer Learning Center in Torrance, California, which, according to the Los Angeles Times, teaches students with special needs, emotional disturbances, autism, Asperger's syndrome and other issues. According to its website, the school "has a long history of working with children who have been unsuccessful in traditional classrooms because they need the special attention and encouragement that only a school like Switzer can provide."
Obama did not mention that more and more evidence — despite efforts by Big Pharma, Big Food, the government and the propaganda media to cover it up — links autism, Asperger's and other mental conditions to vaccines, FDA-approved drugs and genetically modified foods and chemicals in the packaging.
If he had emotional issues or autism or Asperger's, the shooter was likely on a psychotropic drug. Obama did not mention that psychotropic drugs — including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) — are a common denominator in mass shootings. Aurora movie theater shooter James Holmes, Columbine killer Eric Harris and a host of other mass-murdering young killers were on some type of psychotropic drugs when they committed their crimes.
According to a study published in the journal PLoS One and based on the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System, the following mind-altering drugs are most frequently linked to violence:
10. Desvenlafaxine (Pristiq) is an antidepressant associated with 7.9 times more violence than many other drugs. 9. Venlafaxine (Effexor) is related to Pristiq and is an antidepressant also used in treating those with anxiety disorders. Effexor is 8.3 times more associated with violent behavior than other drugs. 8. Fluvoxamine (Luvox) is an antidepressant that affects serotonin (SSRI), and is 8.4 times more likely to be linked to violence than other medications 7. Triazolam (Halcion) can be addictive and is a benzodiazepine that supposedly treats insomnia. It's 8.7 times more likely to be associated with violence than other medications. 6. Atomoxetine (Strattera) is often prescribed to tread ADHD and is 9 times more likely to be associated with violence. 5. Mefoquine (Lariam) treats malaria and sometimes products bizarre behavior, and is 9.5 times more likely to be linked to violence. 4. Amphetamines come in many forms and are often used to treat ADHD (even to children not diagnosed with ADHD). They are 9.6 times more likely to be linked to violence. 3. Paroxetine (Paxil) is an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) antidepressant. Many users experience severe withdrawal symptoms and are more likely to produce children with birth defects as well as 10.3 times more likely to be linked to violence than other medications. 2. Fluoxetine (Prozac) is a household name for a powerful SSRI antidepressant linked with 10.9 times more violence than other drugs. 1. Varenicline (Chantix) is administered to smokers to supposedly help curb cigarette cravings, but it's a whopping 18 times more likely to be linked to violent behavior than other drugs.
The website SSRIstories.org lists thousands of violent events carried out by people on these chemical agents and others.
Obama did not mention that a typical weekend in his adopted hometown of Chicago — which has some of the strongest gun laws in the country — sees as many killed and wounded every weekend as were killed and wounded in Oregon on Thursday.
Obama did not mention that more people are killed each year by hands and feet than by rifles and shotguns combined, and more are killed by knives than rifles and shotguns combined, but he wants to ban so-called "assault weapons," which are used in a miniscule number of annual murders. And Obama would have you believe that guns are used to kill people at a higher rate in the U.S. than in other places, but he won't tell you that if you take out black-on-black crime, the U.S.'s rate is among the lowest in the industrial world, as I told you in "Statistics don't lie, but gun grabbers do."
And finally, Obama did not mention that more than 316 million Americans and more than 108 million American gun owners did not shoot anyone on Thursday — or any other day — nor will they ever.
That's because shootings are carried out by less than half of one-tenth of 1 percent of people. Yet Obama and the gun grabbers are targeting all of the 108 million or so law-abiding gun owners for the crimes of less than one-tenth of 1 percent. But because those who would commit a gun crime are criminals and, by definition, criminals don't obey laws, no amount of new laws would prevent mass shootings, short of complete confiscation.
Obama claims he wants to pass "common-sense laws" to make America safer. If that were the case, he'd support laws to make it safer to be a baby in the womb by defunding Planned Parenthood, which commits mass murder on scale far greater than all the shooters in history.
But what Obama and his ilk are truly about has nothing to do with "common-sense laws" and everything to do with disarming Americans in order to make them dependents of the state. And they're content to do it one law at a time by politicizing every shooting that serves their nefarious purpose.
The post What Obama didn't say in his gun-grabbing rant appeared first on Personal Liberty®.
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US reaches Trans-Pacific Partnership deal with 11 other countries [feedly]
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US reaches Trans-Pacific Partnership deal with 11 other countries
// The Verge
After years of negotiations, the United States has reached a deal with 11 other nations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, The New York Times reports. The deal makes several, sweeping changes to international trade, and now faces what's certain to be a major debate in Congress.
Congress will have 90 days to review the deal
The deal, as the Times reports, creates uniform intellectual property rules and closes thousands of import tariffs, although its full text — some 30 chapters — won't be available for at least a month.
Long before now, the TPP has proven controversial. Groups have accused the deal of being made in secret, and of favoring big business interests. Web freedom activists have expressed particular concern over how the TPP would handle major changes to intellectually property laws, arguing that the deal effectively exports restrictive US copyright laws to a global audience. The Electronic Frontier Foundation called it "one of the worst global threats to the Internet" since the controversial ACTA.
The deal was reached after days of negotiations in Atlanta, with representatives from both the US and other countries involved in the pact: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. In total, the countries are responsible for about 40 percent of the world's economic output.
Before the TPP can be signed, Congress has 90 days to review it, during which arguments from both sides of the aisle are expected. As the presidential race heats up, the deal is certain to become a topic of conversation in upcoming debates.
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economics
>> Subject: Bar Stool Economics
>>
>> Bar Stool Economics
>>
>> Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
>>
>> The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
>>
>> So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers", he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20". Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
>>
>> The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"
>>
>> They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
>>
>> And so:
>>
>> The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings). The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings). The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings). The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings). The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings). The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
>>
>> Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $10!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!" "That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
>>
>> The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
>>
>> And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
>>
>> David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
>>
>> Professor of Economics, University of Georgia
Fwd: read this
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> http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/parkland.asp
>
> t
>
>
>
> Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas , Texas is a fairly famous
> institution and for a variety of reasons:
>
>
> 1. John F. Kennedy died there in 1963
>
>
>
> 2. Lee Harvey Oswald died there shortly after
>
>
>
> 3. Jack Ruby-who killed Oswald, died there a few years later.
>
>
> On the flip side, Parkland is also home to the second busiest maternity
> ward in the country with almost 16,000 new babies arriving each year.
> (That's almost 44 per day---every day)!
>
>
> A recent patient survey indicated that 70 percent of the women who gave
> birth at Parkland in the first three months of 2006 were illegal immigrants.
> That's 11,200 anchor babies born every year just in Dallas !
>
>
> According to the article, the hospital spent $70.7 million delivering
> 15,938 babies in 2004 but managed to end up with almost $8 million dollars in
> surplus funding. Medicaid kicked in $34.5 million, Dallas County taxpayers
> kicked in $31.3 million and the feds tossed in another $9.5 million.
>
>
>
> The average patient in Parkland in maternity wards is 25 years old,
> married and giving birth to her second child. She is also an illegal immigrant.
> By law, pregnant women cannot be denied medical care based on their
> immigration status or ability to pay.
>
>
>
> OK, fine. That doesn't mean they should receive better care than
> everyday, middle-class American citizens. But at Parkland Hospital , they do. "
> Parkland Memorial Hospital has nine prenatal clinics. NINE!
>
>
> The Dallas Morning News article followed a Hispanic woman who was a
> patient at one of the clinics and pregnant with her third child---her previous
> two were also born at Parkland . Her first two deliveries were free and the
> Mexican native was grateful because it would have cost $200 to have them
> in Mexico . This time, the hospital wants her to pay $10 per visit and $100
> for the delivery but she was unsure if she could come up with the money.
> Not that it matters, the hospital won't turn her away. (I wonder why they
> even bother asking at this point.)
>
>
>
> "How long has this been going on? What are the long-term effects?
>
>
>
> Well, another subject of the article was born at Parkland in 1986 shortly
> after her mother entered the US illegally - now she is having her own
> child there as well. (That's right; she's technically a US citizen.)
>
>
>
> These women receive free prenatal care including medication, nutrition,
> birthing classes and child care classes. They also get freebies such as car
> seats, bottles, diapers and formula.
>
>
> Most of these things are available to American citizens as well, but only
> for low-income applicants, and even then, the red tape involved is almost
> insurmountable.
>
>
> Because these women are illegal immigrants, they do not have to provide
> any sort of legitimate identification - no proof of income. An American
> citizen would have to provide a social security number which would reveal their
> annual income - an illegal immigrant need only claim to be poor and the
> hospital must take them at their word.
>
>
> Parkland Hospital offers indigent care to Dallas County residents who
> earn less than $40,000 per year. (They also have to prove that they did not
> refuse health coverage at their current job.. Yeah, the 'free' care is not so
> easy for Americans.)
>
>
> There are about 140 patients who received roughly $4 million dollars for
> un-reimbursed medical care. As it turns out, they did not qualify for free
> treatment because they resided outside of Dallas County so the hospital is
> going to sue them! Illegal's get it all free! But U. S citizens who
> live outside of Dallas County get sued! How stupid is this?
>
>
> As if that isn't annoying enough, the illegal immigrant patients are
> actually complaining about hospital staff not speaking Spanish . In this AP
> story, the author speaks with a woman who is upset that she had to translate
> comments from the hospital staff into Spanish for her husband. The doctor
> was trying to explain the situation to the family and the mother was forced
> to translate for her husband who only spoke Spanish.
> This was apparently a great injustice to her.
>
>
> In an attempt to create a Spanish-speaking staff, Parkland Hospital is
> now providing incentives in the form of extra pay for applicants who speak
> Spanish.. Additionally, medical students at the University of Texas
> Southwestern for which Parkland Hospital is the training facility will now have a
> Spanish language requirement added to their already jammed-packed curriculum.
> No other school in the country boasts such a ridiculous multi-semester
> (multicultural) requirement.
>
>
>
> (Sorry for the length, but this needs wide circulation particularly to
> our "employees" in Congress .)
>
>
> Remember that this is about only ONE hospital in Dallas , Texas . There
> are many more hospitals across our country that must also deal with this.
>
>
>
>
>
> PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERY U.S. CITIZEN YOU KNOW.
>
>
>
> If you want to verify the accuracy of this information:
>
>
> http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/parkland.asp
>
>
>
>
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Dog Plays Jump Rope [feedly]
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Dog Plays Jump Rope
// Neatorama
This is Bolinha, a stray dog that lives in a slum of Rio de Janeiro. She appeared in the neighborhood about a year ago and is a good neighbor. She plays with the children actively. Recently, the kids gave her the end of their jump rope. She joined in their game!
-via Nothing to Do with Aborath
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Thursday, October 1, 2015
Fwd: FW: From a Florida ER Doctor
---------
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I live and work in a state overrun with Illegal's. They make more money having kids than we earn working full-time.
>
>
> Today I had a 25-year old with 8 kids - that's right 8, all Illegal Anchor Babies and she had the nicest nails, cell phone, hand bag, clothing, etc. She makes about $1,500 monthly for each; you do the math.
>
>
>
> I used to say, "We are the dumbest nation on earth," Now I must say and sadly admit: WE are the dumbest people on earth (that includes ME) for we Elected the Idiot Ideologues who have passed the Bills that allow this. Sorry, but we need a Revolution,
>
> If the Illegal Immigrant is over 65, they can apply for SSI and Medicaid and get more than a woman on Social Security, who worked from 1944 until 2004. She is only getting $791 per month because she was born in 1924 and there's a 'catch 22' (notch) for her. It is interesting that the Federal Government provides a single refugee with a monthly allowance of $1,890.
>
> Each can also obtain an additional $580 in Social Assistance, for a total of $2,470 a month. This compares to a single pensioner, who after contributing to the growth and
> development of America for 40 to 50 years, can only receive a monthly maximum of $1,012 in Old Age Pension and Guaranteed Income Supplement.
>
> Maybe our Pensioners should apply as Refugees!
>
>
> Consider sending this to all your American friends, so we can all be ticked off and maybe get the Refugees cut back to $1,012 and the Pensioners up to $2,470. Then we can enjoy some of the money we were forced to submit to the Government over the last 40 or 50 or 60 years.
>
>
> PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERY AMERICAN TAXPAYER YOU KNOW
>
>