Restaurants Brace for Job-Killing Obamacare Regulations

Repeal it: Chain restaurants struggle with Obamacare regulations requiring all menus to include calorie information.

Under the new rules, if [a chain] wanted to introduce a new item, such as a crab cake pizza, [they’d] have to replace the signs in all of [their] stores, sucking time and money that could otherwise be used to build [the] business.

And:

“So what it comes down to is this: The federal government has passed a law requiring us to build new signs, or buy new menu boards, and to put on those signs and menu boards information which we already provide, even though it is unlikely to change eating habits, at a cost of over a million dollars we will divert from and be unable to spend on jobs,” cautioned Puzder.

Federal payments required by Obamacare understate the cost by as much as $50 billion

Finding out what’s in it: Federal payments required by Obamacare actually understate the cost by as much as $50 billion, according to a new study.

In May a congressional committee set the accounting rules that determine who will qualify for federal health care subsidies under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. When the committee handed down the rules to the Congressional Budget Office, its formula excluded the health care costs of millions of workers’ spouses and children. The result was a final estimate for 2010 that hides those costs.

Treasury Adds Another $20 Billion In Debt Overnight, Just $160 Billion Below Revised Ceiling

Get ready for another battle in Congress: The U.S. Treasury added another $20 billion in debt last night, putting it just $160 billion below the newly passed debt ceiling.

The total US treasury balance (subject to the ceiling) is $14.54 trillion (and $14.58 trillion for total), an increase of $20 billion overnight, the Treasury will hit its latest ceiling no later than the end of September. . . . The debt ceiling now is $14.694 trillion: a number which Tim Geithner will hit in about a month.

According to the bill that raised the debt ceiling, the ceiling is only raised in stages. The next stage of $500 billion requires Obama to request it and Congress to okay it.

A Department of Innovation logo that can’t work

Department of Innovation logo

You can’t make this stuff up: Michelle Malkin points out that the logo created by Smithsonian’s Department of Innovation shows a gear arrangement that simply can’t function in the real world.

Check out the logo. 3 interlocking gears arranged in this fashion will not move in any direction. They are essentially locked in place. Which when you think about it, is a perfect analogy of today’s government!

The comments on the Department of Innovation’s own webpage are hilarious as well:

Perhaps this should be the new logo for Congress….since no motion could come from this arrangement.

Life after the downgrade

Life after the downgrade.

An excellent summary of the consequences of a lower credit rating for the U.S. government.

There is a lot of anger at the moment in the US over the embarrassment of the downgrade, as well as shock. I’m most amused by the shock, to tell the truth. S&P didn’t say anything yesterday that was not common knowledge and common sense. If you had to rate a potential investment that had an income of, say, $22,000 a year but had costs of $37,000 per year, a standing debt of $143,000, and contracted future debt that exceeded $1 million, would you give that investment a gold-plated AAA rating and buy their bonds at the lowest interest rate possible, or at all? Of course not, but that’s exactly the fiscal situation of the US, at a 100,000,000:1 scale.

Nebraska rare earth mineral discovery to challenge China’s monopoly

A discovery in Nebraska of rare earth minerals appears set to challenge China’s monopoly.

To me these were the key quotes from this article:

The U.S. used to produce rare earths through the Mountain Pass Mine in California, but it was shut down in 2002, primarily because of environmental concerns, including the spillage of hundreds of thousands of gallons of water carrying radioactive waste into a nearby lake.

and

Although studies have shown the U.S. has 13 million metric tons of rare-earth minerals, National Mining Association spokeswoman Carol Raulston said it does not mine any of it – partly as a result of the difficulty of obtaining permits. “One of the key problems that investors tell us about is that the permitting regime in this country is so complicated and time-consuming that it has hurt investments here in the United States,” Ms. Raulston said.

TSA Confiscates Pregnant Woman’s Insulin, Ice Packs

Don’t you feel safer now? The TSA screener in Denver decided a pregnant woman’s insulin and ice packs were a threat and confiscated them.

She asked 7NEWS not to use her name for fear of retaliation for speaking out. “I got a bottle of nail polish. I got hair spray bottles. I got needles that are syringes. But yet I can’t take through my actual insulin?” she asked. [emphasis mine]

Stand by for space weather

Stand by for space weather: three coronal mass ejections were released by the sun in the past few days and are aimed directly at the earth. The first hit tonight, without doing much damage.

Though it is important to prepare for these solar storms, don’t expect them to do much harm. Power companies use the warnings to protect their grids. What you can expect is an increased chance of seeing the aurora at lower latitudes.

More evidence that there are active flows of water on Mars

flow features on Mars

More evidence that there are active flows of water on Mars.

Dark, finger-like features appear and extend down some Martian slopes during late spring through summer, fade in winter, and return during the next spring. Repeated observations have tracked the seasonal changes in these recurring features on several steep slopes in the middle latitudes of Mars’ southern hemisphere.

Though there are a number of unsolved issues about these features, the best explanation appears to be a liquid brine.

Saltiness lowers the freezing temperature of water. Sites with active flows get warm enough, even in the shallow subsurface, to sustain liquid water that is about as salty as Earth’s oceans, while pure water would freeze at the observed temperatures.

Go here to see the full image.

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