Tag: freedom

Government to ban cheese

10:33 am

We’re here to help you: New FDA regulations will make the import of certain very well known European cheeses forbidden.

New FDA restrictions on the levels of harmless bacteria found in imported cheese have effectively banned a number of artisan French cheeses, including Roquefort, Morbier, and Tomme de Savoie. The restricted bacteria already exist in the human stomach, and the banned cheeses have not changed their recipes for years. [emphasis mine]

Why is the FDA wasting time banning French cheeses when the deadly bacteria can be found in the human stomach? Shouldn’t the FDA instead ban the human stomach?

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Democrats vote to squelch free speech

8:31 pm

Fascists: The Democrats in the Senate tonight voted in favor of a constitutional amendment to partially repeal the first amendment.

Tonight the Senate voted 78-18 to advance the Democrats’ proposal to amend the Constitution to give Congress the power to prohibit or restrict participation in political campaigns. A number of Republicans voted to advance the bill, but will oppose it in debate and will vote against it. Charles Grassley said, “We should have debate on this important amendment. The majority should be made to answer why they want to silence critics.”

I call them fascists without shame, as that’s what they are. Their only reason for pushing this amendment is to silence their critics and shut down freedom, which is what fascists do. Sadly, there appears to be about 40% of the American populace that agrees with them. I call them fascists as well.

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Why did the IRS wipe clean Lois Lerner’s Blackberry?

9:55 am

An excellent question. The answer? The IRS refuses to say.

Among the most pressing is the fact that a Blackberry belonging to Lois Lerner, a former official at the center of the scandal, was wiped clean shortly after investigators started asking questions about her alleged role in the targeting of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

Despite the fact that this revelation first came to light in August, the IRS has yet explain why this was done.

Considering her former role as chief of the IRS’ tax exempt division, and its proximity to the targeting scandal, the decision to wipe her phone after investigators started asking questions is both suspicious and troubling.

I have to admit I missed this minor detail. In previous examples where the IRS destroyed a hard drive, it was because the hard drive had had problems. The destruction was still illegal, but in at least in that case there was a somewhat reasonable if unlikely reason to do it. With Lerner’s Blackberry they haven’t given us any reason, other than it was done shortly after the investigation had begun.

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Army can’t track spending on $4 billion system to track spending

9:11 am

Our government in action: An inspector general has found that the Army was unable to track the spending on a project designed to help the Army track spending.

As of this February, the Army had spent $725.7 million on the system, which is ultimately expected to cost about $4.3 billion. The problem, according to the IG, is that the Army has failed to comply with a variety of federal laws that require agencies to standardize reporting and prepare auditable financial statements. “This occurred because DOD and Army management did not have adequate controls, including procedures and annual reviews, in place to ensure GCSS-Army compliance with Treasury and DOD guidance,” the IG report concludes.

And some people wonder why I am always skeptical of giving the federal government any job you need done.

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Mysterious hacking cell towers

9:36 pm

This is intriguing: A secure cell phone maker has uncovered 17 cell towers designed to attack cell phones that have no known owner, all located close to military bases.

The highly self-monitored phone does more than protect itself; according to Popular Science, it found 17 different phony cell towers known as “interceptors,” detected by the CryptoPhone 500 around the United States during the month of July. Interceptors are described to look to a typical phone like an ordinary tower, but once a phone connects with the interceptor, a variety of over-the-air attacks become possible, such as eavesdropping on calls and texts to pushing spyware to the device.

ESD America CEO Less Goldsmith found it suspicious that a lot of these interceptors are right on top of U.S. military bases. “So we begin to wonder – are some of them U.S. government interceptors? Or are some of them Chinese interceptors?” Goldsmith told Popular Science. “Whose interceptor is it? Who are they, that’s listening to calls around military bases? Is it just the U.S. military, or are they foreign governments doing it? The point is: we don’t really know whose they are.”

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An ISIS fighter’s previous job was working at American airport

3:07 pm

Does this make you feel safer? One of the Americans killed while fighting for ISIS had previously held a job cleaning airplanes in Minnesota.

Multiple sources tell Fox 9 News that, for a time, he worked at a job that gave him security clearance at the airport, access to the tarmac and unfettered access to planes. Two former employees confirmed working with Muhumed at Delta Global Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delta Airlines.

But hey, the TSA has us covered, focusing like a laser on sexually abusing American citizens rather than wasting time checking the security background of people who actually work at the airports!

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People abandon obscure languages to gain prosperity

10:01 am

A new study has provided further proof that the main driving force behind the abandonment of obscure languages is the desire of people to gain economic wealth.

Of all the variables tested, economic growth was most strongly linked to language loss, Amano says. Two types of language loss hotspots emerged from the study, published online today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. One was in economically well developed regions such as northwestern North America and northern Australia; a second was in economically developing regions such as the tropics and the Himalayas. Certain aspects of geography seemed to act as a buffer or threat, Amano says. For example, recent declines appear to occur faster in temperate climates than in the tropics or mountainous regions—perhaps because it is easier to travel in and out of temperate regions, Amano says.

As is usual for most of today’s modern intellectuals, already prosperous and speaking English, the author of the article as well as the researchers themselves lament the loss of obscure languages.

Although the study is silent on the subject of interventions to help preserve endangered languages, there is a range of revitalization efforts that can serve as examples, such as the incorporation of the Hawaiian language into school curricula and daily government operations, she says.

In other words, ordinary people want to improve their lives by learning the dominant languages that provide a gateway to wealth, and these self-righteous prigs want to do whatever they can to interfere with that desire. How nice of them!

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11-year-old threatened with expulsion for virtual gun

11:04 am

Madness: An 11-year-old has been threatened with expulsion for bringing a virtual gun to a virtual school.

In listening to the audio of the talk radio report, the school demanded the boy change his avatar because it included an image of a pistol, and is now rushing to craft a policy that would outlaw gun images in the future. Not only is this insane, it would be a violation of the first amendment.

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Immigration has lost track of thousands of foreigners here on student visas.

9:37 am

Does this make you feel safer? U.S. Immigrations no longer knows where more than 6,000 foreigners are who came to the U.S. on student visas and are considered a threat.

The issue here is not to keep foreigners from entering the U.S. but the complete inability of the federal government government to do its job. The government is very good at abusing legal American citizens in airports, but is a total failure at controlling access to the country by non-citizens,

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Lerner ignored questionable union political activities

12:09 am

Working for the Democratic Party: Newly released emails show that Lois Lerner once dismissed complaints that labor unions were not reporting to the IRS millions of dollars in political activities — almost all of which helped Democrats — that they did report to the Labor Department.

In 2006, the year leading up to Lerner’s email, the national headquarters for the AFL-CIO reported no direct or indirect political expenditures with the IRS on their 990 form, leaving the line 81a blank. That same year, the AFL-CIO reported $29,585,661 in political activities with the Department of Labor. Also in 2006 the Teamsters Union reported no political expenditures with the IRS while at the same time reporting $7,081,965 with the Labor Department. Again in 2006, Unite-Here reported no political activity with the IRS and $1,451,002 with the Labor Department. In 2005, the National Education Association also reported no political expenditures with the IRS while at the same time reporting $24,985,250 with the Labor Department.

The lack of reporting to the IRS was essentially illegal. Yet, when complaints were made to Lerner about this, she poo-pooed the issue and apparently squelched further investigations.

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ISIS in retreat?

10:01 pm

This story is one of several published the last few days that have described the retreat of ISIS from several Kurdish and Iraqi villages.

I hadn’t posted any of the previous stories because I was unsure of their reliability. The number, however, keeps increasing and the sources are becoming more trustworthy. If true, it is mostly good news, though one should always be hesitant about the leadership of any faction in the Islamic Middle East. They might start out sounding good, but too often they end up being either incompetent or as evil as can be imagined.

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Police arrest a man for picking up his kids.

3:56 pm

A Minnesota black man is tased and arrested by police because he was going to pick up his kids from school.

Don’t believe me? Watch the video below the fold. It is heart-breaking and infuriating. The man does nothing wrong, and the police could have easily calmed the situation down. Instead, they escalated it for no reason. The man quite reasonably concludes “The problem is I’m black.”

I think the problem here is less racism and more a police force that is in love with its power. As I and many others have documented extensively, modern American police are increasingly willing to abuse their position of trust in ways that are appalling. In this case, as in many similar cases, the police officers in this case got off free, without punishment. What should have happened is that the male officer should have been fired, and the female officer disciplined.
» Read more

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The deadly Israeli house strikes again

3:11 pm

There are few weapons as deadly as the Israeli house. When its brick and mortar are combined together, the house, whether it is one of those modest one story hilltop affairs or a five floor apartment building complete with hot and cold running water, becomes far more dangerous than anything green and glowing that comes out of the Iranian centrifuges.

Forget the cluster bomb and the mine, the poison gas shell and even tailored viruses. Iran can keep its nuclear bombs. They don’t impress anyone in Europe or in Washington. Genocide is a minor matter when in the presence of the fearsome weapon of terror that is an Israeli family of four moving into a new apartment.

Read it all. It will make you shiver in fear at the terror produced by Israeli contractors.

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Current Congress sets record for fewest laws passed

9:25 am

Now this is a trend I like: The current Congress has passed the fewest laws in history.

The divided House and Senate have managed to pass just 163 laws that garnered President Obama’s signature since the two-year term began in January 2013. At this rate, Congress will have no problem beating the previous record set during the 2011-2013 session in which 284 laws were passed. That was down from 385 laws passed in the 2009-2011 session.

The less the better. And the legal areas that desperately need addressing are those areas, like Obamacare, that are best handled by repeal, not new laws.

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Woman scares off attackers with gun

1:02 pm

The right kind of gun control: An Ohio woman with a concealed carry license scared off two bat-wielding attackers when she pointed her gun on them.

This is not that unusual a story but I wanted to highlight it because of this quote:

The men took off and so far have eluded police. Dinah posted about the incident on Facebook to alert friends and neighbors, to criticism by some. “Most of the males’ opinion was, ‘Why didn’t you shoot them?'” [emphasis mine]

The highlighted quote above, nonchalantly advocating that she should have fired the gun, is incredibly stupid. Life is not a modern Hollywood movie, where idiots shoot their weapons indiscriminately without thought. This woman made exactly the right decision. She used her weapon to stop the attack, and then proceeded on her way. Had she fired she would made things very messy for herself, for no reason.

Guns in the hands of good people are without question the best defense against bad people. However, if you use that gun unwisely or without cause you make yourself a bad person. Stay good and stay safe. Arm yourself, but don’t use your weapon unless you really really really have to.

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Professor with leftwing ties to build hate speech database.

9:53 am

The Indiana professor who is going to build a database for the federal government to “detect political smears, astroturfing, misinformation, and other social pollution” turns out to have numerous links to and is a strong supporter of left wing causes.

“‘Truthy’ claims to be non-partisan. However, the project’s lead investigator Filippo Menczer proclaims his support for numerous progressive advocacy groups, including President Barack Obama’s Organizing for Action, Moveon.org, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Amnesty International, and True Majority. Menczer, a professor of informatics and computer science at Indiana University, links to each of the organizations on his personal page from his bio at the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research.”

Menczer of course has denied his database will have any partisan tinge. He is as pure as the wind-driven snow!

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British government raises terror threat

9:47 am

Update: Sources in the federal government say that an Islamic terror attack coming from Mexico is imminent.

Original post:
While Obama has admitted he has no strategy to deal with ISIS, the British government today raised its terror threat level to “severe.”

[Home Secretary Theresa] May said the threat level was raised because of the risk from the deteriorating situation in Iraq and Syria, where extremist militants from the group calling itself the Islamic State (also ISIS or ISIL). May said, however, that there was no specific threat to Britain that caused the raise in the terror level. This is the first time Britain’s terror threat level has been at “severe” since 2011. “The increase in the threat level is related to developments in Syria and Iraq where terrorist groups are planning attacks against the West. Some of these plots are likely to involve foreign fighters who have traveled there from the UK and Europe to take part in those conflicts,” May said in a statement.

Add to this the fact that U.S. intelligence has noted a “significant increase” in chatter among terrorist organizations as September 11 approaches.

Islamic terrorists have celebrated September 11 several times previously with terrorist attacks. We shouldn’t be surprised if they do it again, especially as they now have a resurgent base of operations with many resources in the territory now controlled by ISIS.

Barack Obama meanwhile will probably find out about the next terrorist attack from a newspaper he reads, after he finishes his next very important round of golf.

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Court rules in favor of rock throwers and thugs

7:34 pm

In a ruling today a court has ruled that the police have the right to curtail the free speech of Christians on a public street if Muslims threaten them with violence.

Let me describe what happened again that so there is no confusion. There was a Muslim festival open to the general public on the streets of Dearborn, Michigan. Some Christians wanted to walk through that festival holding signs and preaching the gospel. They were attacked by a mob. The police, instead of arresting the attackers, threatened the Christians with arrest if they didn’t shut up and leave.

If you doubt me, watch the video of that event, which I posted when it happened under the title The Stoning of Christians — in Michigan.

In essence, the court has sanctioned the heckler’s veto. If you don’t like what someone is saying, threaten them with violence and the police will shut them up for you so that you don’t behave badly.

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The DOT wants to know where you are

9:52 am

What could go wrong? The DOT has proposed that all new cars be required to broadcast their location and speed.

They claim that this data could be used to provide drivers with a warning if their vehicle might be getting too close to another vehicle. It will also be necessary to make driverless cars more reliable.

I wonder what other uses this information could have.

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“International press coverage has become a morality play starring a familiar villain.”

5:24 pm

Guess who that “familiar villain” happens to be. It shouldn’t surprise you, though it horrifies me that this is happening again, in the west, in civilized society, and among the so-called intellectual elites of the U.S. and Europe.

If you are really serious about understanding what has been going on in the Middle East these past few months, make sure you read the entire article, carefully, and slowly. The conclusion will tell you a great deal about what is going to happen in the coming years. The fact that most intellectuals in the West will be caught with their pants down when it does happen can best be summed up by how that conclusion begins:

Because a gap has opened here between the way things are and the way they are described, opinions are wrong and policies are wrong, and observers are regularly blindsided by events. Such things have happened before. In the years leading to the breakdown of Soviet Communism in 1991, as the Russia expert Leon Aron wrote in a 2011 essay for Foreign Policy, “virtually no Western expert, scholar, official, or politician foresaw the impending collapse of the Soviet Union.” The empire had been rotting for years and the signs were there, but the people who were supposed to be seeing and reporting them failed and when the superpower imploded everyone was surprised.

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No children playing in America!

10:34 am

Depressing: According to a new poll, 68% of all Americans believe it should be illegal for kids to play unsupervised

Worse, almost half the population thinks these regulations should even apply to twelve-year-olds.

Last night Diane and I watched the classic 1945 Hollywood film, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, about a young girl growing up in early 20th century Brooklyn. They live in Williamsburg in a neighbor packed with tenement apartments. The kids are outside all the time, on their own. No one questions it all. They in fact encourage it. The result: the kids quickly become self-reliant, smart, independent, and mature.

Since the 1980s American kids have increasingly been supervised every moment of their lives. The result today is a generation that fears freedom and wants it squelched wherever it exists.

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DOJ attorney once worked under Lois Lerner at IRS

6:11 pm

Working for the Democratic Party: The attorney in the Justice Department representing the IRS directly participated in the harassment of conservatives when he worked under Lois Lerner at the IRS from 2008 to 2010.

The article calls this a conflict of interest. I instead see it as a continuing and unified effort by the Obama administration and all levels of the federal bureaucracy to use the power of the federal government to squelch any opposition to the Democratic Party.

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