Sour Grapes Tea Partier Chris McDaniel Cries Foul That Blacks Voted for Thad Cochran

And people in the GOP wonder why blacks don't vote for them.

�The conservative movement is alive in Mississippi,� McDaniel, who has not conceded the race yet to Cochran, said in a Wednesday night statement. �The Republicans who voted last night made it clear they�re looking for conservative change in Mississippi.�

�But the results also tell another story,� McDaniel continued. �They tell the story of some members of our party who are willing to engage in tactics unbecoming of the party of Ronald Reagan. It�s no wonder so many conservatives don�t feel welcome in the Republican party.�

Are "tactics unbecoming the party" appealing to black people? Or is it appealing to the entire actual electorate? If McDaniel was so into making sure there is ideological purity then why don't they just close the election to GOP party members only? That way it will be a Tea Party vs. Establishment Republican fight off.

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It Seems Technology May Have Forced FIFAs hand When It Came to the "Italian Diner" Suarez

I have to agree that FIFA could not sweep the whole having a bite of Italian thing under the rug.

This is also a victory for technology and social media. FIFA often gets these decisions wrong, and the endless loop of replays and photos and Internet discussion of Suarez's behavior surely made the soccer authority's decision unavoidable. Consider: Suarez is one of the most poorly behaved athletes in the world, and he hasn't received a single red card in the last four years. He was not given even a yellow card for his bite, despite the obvious marks on Chiellini's left shoulder. Chiellini himself summed it up best when he said after the incident: "Suarez is a sneak and he gets away with it because FIFA wants their stars to play in the World Cup," he said. 'I'd love to see if they have the courage to use video evidence against him.'

A 9 game ban is a pretty big deal and he cannot even watch his team play because he is banned from all soccer activities. What is interesting too is that this guy might be known more for biting people then he is for any of his play on the field. It seems that World Cup glory and enmity follows a player around for a long time depending on your nation.

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Klinsmann Pens Excuse Letter to Let Americans Off Work to Watch the Game

It really looks like it was written by a German as well.

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Interesting Student Loan Bankruptcy Plan Advocated by the Weekly Standard

I'm sure some economist could poke holes in this idea but it might be a good thing for the CBO or someone to give this idea a green-eyeshade once over.

If we are concerned that allowing students to escape student debt via bankruptcy might open up the college loan market to the same moral hazard problems that befell the mortgage market and will leave the government on the hook, we could make the institution of higher learning assume their loan payments after a bankruptcy. That might make schools think twice before they admit a marginal prospect and charge them thousands of dollars for an education that might not do them much good, and it might make students think twice about disdaining lower-price options, such as the junior college near their home.

If the school had to write off the debt and have a large "allowance for doubtful accounts" line item put onto their books it might change the landscape of college. I know there would be know 8% or more per year tuition raises and I have a feeling that many marginal colleges might close their doors. Those small private schools with the $36,000 a year tuition does not look as good if they would be on the hook for those bankrupt students.

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Family Wealth has Plunged in the Last 10 Years

I guess this might be a reason why families are freaking out and feel like there is actually a recession on instead of a recovery.

A new study published by the Russell Sage foundation helps explain why many families feel like they�re falling behind: They actually are. The study, which measures the average wealth of U.S. households by income level, reveals a startling decline in wealth nationwide. The median household in 2013 had a net worth of just $56,335 -- 43% lower than the median wealth level right before the recession began in 2007, and 36% lower than a decade ago. �There are very few signs of significant recovery from the losses in wealth suffered by American families during the Great Recession,� the study concludes.

Most of this is due to housing prices being low and real inflation (food and energy) cutting into their purchasing power as their wages stay stagnate. I would be apoplectic if I was down 30% in net worth in just 10 years.

What also sucks for those families is that I bet they were gun-shy of the stock market after 2008 and kept their money in cash and T-bonds. If they had bought stocks like I did they would be up huge right now and actually feeling a little better about things. Instead they have anemic savings rates from "stimulus" and have to dip into the market after missing the huge upward move. I think another train might hit them if they aren't careful.

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World Cup Advancement Math for Tomorrows US vs Germany Game

In the words of late Los Angeles Raiders owner Al Davis: "Just Win Baby!" But if we don't here is all the things that can happen tomorrow.

Win and advance. This seems to be Jurgen Klinsmann's main goal and it should be, given the U.S. will need a victory in order to not only secure a spot in the next round, but also avoid the arguably stronger team that will emerge from Group H as the winner. The odds say this will probably be Belgium, while Algeria, Russia or South Korea are all still in the race for the potential second seed.

Meanwhile, a draw will ensure the U.S. advances as the group's runner-up, no matter what Ghana and Portugal end up doing.

However, there is one scenario that should be called "screw America by lots"

If Portugal prevails over Ghana 2-0 and the U.S. loses 3-0 to Germany or Portugal beats Ghana 3-1 and Germany beats the U.S. 4-1, the U.S. and Portugal would be tied in points, goals differential and goals scored. Since both sides played a 2-2 draw against each other, FIFA would draw lots in this instance to determine who advances.

I'm pretty sure the Ronaldo-rules would be in effect and FIFA would magically draw Portugal to get through to the knock-out stage. I mean FIFA would make more money if Ronaldo gets another chance to shine (or fail) on the world stage.

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World Cup Getting Great Ratings in the US

The US might be finally transitioning to being interested in the World Cup at long last. The US-Portugal game was a ratings hit eclipsing most non-football US sporting events.

The Nielsen company said that Sunday's gripping game was seen by an average of 24.7 million viewers on ESPN and Univision. That matches it with the 24.7 million U.S. viewers who watched the 2010 World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands.

ESPN said an additional 490,000 people streamed coverage of the game on their mobile devices through the company's app. Streaming numbers for 2010 weren't immediately available, but it's very unlikely they were that high because streaming apps were not as sophisticated then.

That streaming number will probably shoot through the roof because the next game will be played during the day on Thursday. Too bad we can't get a soccer holiday like Brazil does whenever their national team plays.

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Is the world of "Disruption" a good thing?

This article gave me food for thought on the subject of disruption and how it is supposed to be changing the world.

Ever since �The Innovator�s Dilemma,� everyone is either disrupting or being disrupted. There are disruption consultants, disruption conferences, and disruption seminars. This fall, the University of Southern California is opening a new program: �The degree is in disruption,� the university announced. �Disrupt or be disrupted,� the venture capitalist Josh Linkner warns in a new book, �The Road to Reinvention,� in which he argues that �fickle consumer trends, friction-free markets, and political unrest,� along with �dizzying speed, exponential complexity, and mind-numbing technology advances,� mean that the time has come to panic as you�ve never panicked before. Larry Downes and Paul Nunes, who blog for Forbes, insist that we have entered a new and even scarier stage: �big bang disruption.� �This isn�t disruptive innovation,� they warn. �It�s devastating innovation.�

The problem with "disruption" is that it not always creates a better world in its wake. This article goes into it in great detail and I have to agree with Jill Lepore's assessment. She takes apart the Innovators Dilemma point by point and proves that disruption doesn't kill all companies. She also states that disrupting may not be good for some companies.

She does skirt the fact that Blockbuster was killed by Netflix because they didn't catch the digital download wave fast enough. Also Best Buy is slowly being killed off by Amazon because they cannot match their prices and selection because they have to maintain stores. The record store was killed off by iTunes and being able to buy a song at a $1 each. Finally, the book store is slowly being killed by Kindle and the e-book in whatever form. It just seems like the scrappy startup "disrupting" the world is only true for a time until the big boys step in.

However, does this "disruption" make for a better world? I mean you no longer have to drive to the video store to pick out a video to watch on a Friday night. You just have to thumb through page after page of Netflix selections and end up watching reruns of Frazier or something. The bad thing is the tactile sense of things is disappearing. You no longer have a sense of the weight of things. You don't have a DVD or VHS tape in your hands and stored away. You have bytes on the cloud and it creates an ephemeral and disposable thing in your mind. You now have a 1000 movies that you can watch at any time but probably won't come close to watching them. One lucky thing though is Netflix is creating content that is very good. People are enjoying their TV shows and they are critically acclaimed.

This sense of "disruption" especially hard to take when it comes to the book store. I used to spend a solid afternoon reading about all sorts of different topics and thumbing through magazines and books. Now I can just go to Kindle and have 1000s of books at my fingertips but end up not buying any of them. I can't hold them in my hands and thumb through them then I usually don't want to have to buy them. It is especially tough when you know you are paying like $25 for a file that costs Amazon like 1/10th of a penny to make. That whole book store experience is slowly dying for the sake of carrying around a 100 books on your "disruptive" device. It is the cry of the grognard but what can you do?

This is mostly nostalgia talking but some aspects of the "disruptive" world rubs me the wrong way. The idea of dizzying speed and constant "devastating innovation" seems to be making the world a course place. Everyone seems to be rushing around and chasing the newest tech toy or just fleeing obsolescence. People just seem to be more angry and hostile because of it. We have more information at our fingertips than ever before but we also seem more anxious as well.

Part of the reason why the middle class is hurting is because their jobs got "disrupted" away. A solid middle class job like travel agent got taken over by Kayak.com and bank teller got taken over by your Citibank app. Now Uber is coming for the taxi cab driver and Wealthfront goes after your financial adviser. You can talk all you want about the manufacturing sector moving to China and the call center moving to India but Kayak, Amazon, and Android apps are doing their fair share of damage to the middle class. They are "disrupting" some middle class people right out of a job.

Finally there is less control over things and every device seems to be talking to one another while the NSA sits in the dark stealing your data and doing whatever with it. Soon your refrigerator is going to be sending you a Facebook message that you need to throw away your expired Yogurt. Losing your phone is now a terrible thing but soon it is going to be catastrophic. Hell, terrorist groups are Instagraming their mass murders and killers writing YouTube manifestos for everyone to watch. The "disruptive" world brings with it quite a nasty side sometimes. I guess it is the price to pay to have all the worlds knowledge at a click on a device you can fit in your pocket.

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Obama Faces a Terrible Choice on Iraq: Yeah it is a Shit Sandwich and He Has to Take a Bite

I would not envy this new foreign policy conundrum the White House is facing. Every choice sucks as far as I can tell.

1. Team up with Iran to fight the insurgents with air power. Its the Great Satan and and Axis of Evil member in a tag-team match for the soul of Iraq. This is pretty much the US flying drone strikes for the Badr Brigade and the Iranian Republican Guard. That cannot look good if you are against Iranian nuclear ambitions and pro-sanctions. Also these are the same guys that were trying to kill our troops just a few years ago.

2. Do nothing. We get a ring side seat for genocide and a civil war that impacts a nation that is a huge oil producer that we recently fought a war to "liberate." In fact it is an honest-to-goodness regional conflict because ISIS is taking the looted tanks and weapons from the Iraqi army to go fight in Syria. The Syrian war just escalated. That seems to happen when you don't do anything except write red lines and pass out MREs in a conflict. If you don't lead you end up having to have conditions dictated to you.

3. Boots on the Ground. We get sucked into a regional civil war between the Sunni and the Shiites that have been going on since Mohammed died. We shouldn't have left in the first place but this is the kind of thing that happens when we do. We have to come back into the picture but the battlefield is already tilted against us. In fact not signing a status-of-forces agreement might get the Iraqi government killed if ISIS invades Baghdad.

All of these things are terrible choices. Maybe some Great Game playing with us aligning with and arming the Kurds might be in order. It will piss off Turkey but you have to pick the side that would be the most beneficial to your nation in the long run. You might have to partition the country though in order for this to succeed and I'm sure the UN would not want that to happen.

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Obama's Foreign Policy Flubs Taking Their Toll

It seems that Obama nearly endless screw-ups on the foreign stage is hurting his poll numbers.

According to the poll, just 37% of respondents said they approved of Obama's handling of foreign-policy issues, an all-time low. Meanwhile, 57% said they disapproved, an all-time high.

And the foreign-policy approval rating for Obama might be artificially high. The poll was conducted before the crisis in Iraq � a situation for which Obama has been roundly criticized � bubbled up and grabbed international attention.

The Iraq crisis will get even worse for Obama (and the Iraqis) as we go along. Also it seems that the public is not behind trading 5 Taliban generals for 1 possible defector by a large margin.

According to the poll, 44% of respondents said the administration should not have made the exchange, compared with 30% who supported it.

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Wait, Kanye West Worked for 4 Days on This Wedding Photo? The Flowers Look Like Foam Sealant

I have no idea why they worked on this photo for 4 days during his Honeymoon. The flowers look like that foam sealant you use on a car or a boat.

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More Obama Incompentence: They Put the CIA chief in Kabul's name on a Handout to Reporters?

I think the entire White House is asleep at the switch. This is inexcusable.

The White House said on Wednesday it has put corrective measures in place in response to the accidental public outing of the CIA station chief's name during President Barack Obama's trip to Afghanistan late last month.

During the trip, personnel at Bagram Air Base gave to White House communications personnel at list of people who were meeting Obama. The White House gave the list to reporters covering the trip and among the names was that of the CIA official.

"Here is a top secret list of people that Obama will be meeting at Bagram" says an Air Force official with a TS clearance. "Thanks" says incompetent White House communications peon while he hands it to a bunch of reporters in attendance. 

I'm sure one of the reporters then says "I didn't know that Bob is the Station Chief in Kabul I thought he was a independent contractor for Boeing." Bob the Station Chief in Kabul's gets to spend the rest of his career in Washington thinking of ways to kill off that incompetent White House peon.

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Obama in the Bubble: Why the Bergdahl Swap Went Sour so Quickly

This makes sense why the White House fumbled the Bergdahl prisoner swap so badly.

And this is precisely the problem. President Obama felt �very strongly� that he had made the right decision � and nobody who worked for him was about to tell him otherwise. �There was not a dissent on moving forward with this plan,� Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, told Time magazine. 

In other words the Obama White House and the "Sun King" Louis XIV court are starting to resemble one another. A team of yes-men that can't tell the monarch any bad news at all. This article goes on to suppose that congress wasn't called about the prisoner deal because they might tell Obama some bad news. I can see someone like Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the intelligence committee chairman saying "Bergdahl might be a defector so it would be stupid to trade 5 Taliban Generals for him."

The White House then does a Rose Garden victory lap and then has to make a tortured explanation why the Bergdahls where there in the first place. I'm sure someone could have said "wait on the victory lap" until we can at least call Dianne Feinstein or can talk to Bergdahl to see if he is a defector or merely a deserter.

Finally, having Susan Rice go on the morning shows (which was such a good idea during the Bengazi debacle) and say Bergdahl served with honor and distinction was a total unforced error. This seemed to bring out the soldiers who Bergdahl abandoned to tell the real story on what happened. If the White House kept their mouth shut maybe the story of why Bergdahl fell into the Taliban's hands would have remained a mystery. In any case "Sun King" Obama might want to leave the Court every now and then and hear some unvarnished truth if he can take it.

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Tea Party Darling, Dave Brat, who Beat Cantor Did it Through Attacking Big Business

Well it seems that immigration reform wasn't Cantors only Achilles heel. He was also attacked because he was pro-business.

"The central theme of Brat�s campaign is that Cantor is beholden to business � specifically the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable," wrote Politico in April.

�If you�re in big business, Eric�s been very good to you, and he gets a lot of donations because of that, right?� Brat said at a local meeting of Republicans in Virginia, according to Politico. �Very powerful. Very good at fundraising because he favors big business. But when you�re favoring artificially big business, someone�s paying the tab for that. Someone�s paying the price for that, and guess who that is? You.�

Said like a guy who is a professor at Randolph Macon College that doesn't have to worry about the bottom line like people in the private sector. He seems like a Tea Party version of the pointy-headed liberal college professor who has a lot of ideas passed down from the Ivory Tower.  He actually sounds like the conservative version of Obama who hasn't worked at an actual business anytime in his life.

Also what in the hell is an "artificially big business?" Is that a successful business? Is it merely a successful business that doesn't have to rely on $35,360 a year in tuition (and the pile of debt that is created) to survive? Is that a company that employs 10,000s of Americans and makes it so they can support their families and maybe get into the upper middle class without begging for tenure from some high-priced university?

Anti-business Tea Partiers make me sick because they treat large corporations how liberals do. They think these companies are monolithic entities and not hundreds of thousands of people all striving to make capitalism work (and are hopefully being paid a nice sum doing it.) An "artificially big business" will create more growth and more jobs than a 100 pointy-headed college professors combined. In any case Dave Brat will probably get smashed by whatever Dem they put up against him anyway so it is all a moot point.

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Mark My Words: Eric Cantor's Loss Means the Dems Hold the Senate and Hands Hillary the White House

Well it seems that the Tea Party know-nothings have sniped a big target.

�My understanding from talking to people down in Richmond was that the real issues seem to be that he wasn�t strongly enough anti-immigration reform, that he voted to end the government shutdown and he voted to raise the debt ceiling,� Bobbie Kilberg, who heads the Northern Virginia Technology Council and held a May fundraiser for Cantor, told TIME. �And you know, at some point in time, these people need to understand you just simply have to govern. These people need to understand that we need immigration reform. And these people need to understand that Eric Cantor was a conservative on all those issues. He was a mainstream conservative.�

Yup, and save the world economy as well when he voted to raise the debt ceiling. In any case immigration reform is probably dead for maybe a decade since no Republican is going to back it and have an opportunity to lose their primary. By then the Hispanic vote will be firmly in the Democratic pocket so there may never be another Republican President in decades for sure. The Tea Party fighting "amnesty" has probably won it for Hillary Clinton and maybe even Chelsea Clinton if she wants to run in 2024.

Also we might have a bunch of Tea Party asswipes beating establishment candidates and then losing to Democrats in their general elections. So the establishment guys can either do nothing (which is usually a good bet) or tack right to try to win the Tea Party vote. Tacking right will make them unpalatable to independents and they will lose in the general. So the Senate will probably stay in Democratic hands in November.

In any case more idiot Tea Partiers will be shutting down the government or defaulting on our debt and making it hard for this economy to grow. Hopefully, Cantor lost because he was more interested in Washington power and less interested in Virginia's 7th district. However if this is a sign that the Tea Party is turning the tide against mainstream Republicans then the Dems can be in power for a very long time.

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Smart Phone Innovation from MSFT: Yes I said Microsoft

A company known for saying "Me Too" only 2 years after any innovation from the Android and iPhone camps actually made something that sounds cool.

While Kinect has not yet proven to be an essential must-have for gamers who own Microsoft�s Xbox consoles, it could be extremely useful if ported to the smartphone realm. Among other things, Warren says that Kinect in Windows Phone will let you answer your phone just by holding up to your ear and to turn on speaker phone just by placing your phone down on the table when you�re on a call with someone. You�ll also be able to end your call by putting your phone into your pocket, as Kinect will be able to automatically tell what you�d like to do based on lighting and positioning.

That actually sounds like something iPhone and Android would want to copy and not the other way around. If they can improve the voice activation as well then the Windows Phone actually sounds like something that a consumer might rush out and buy. You add this to the Kinect-less Xbone and you have MSFT actually listening to consumers instead of telling them what they want.

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Iowa GOP Hopeful Joni Ernst Smacks Down the "War on Women" Charge

Hmm, I think this woman can become the first woman Senator in Iowa history with bold words like these.

�Soon we�ll be hearing about the phony war on women,� Ernst said Tuesday night. �Well, I have a message for them: I�ve been to war. 

I�ve seen the sacrifices our men and women in uniform make every day to defend our freedoms. If Democrats want to start throwing around words like �war,� they better be doing it to honor those men and women.

As for their cheap political attacks, well�I look forward to hearing Bruce Braley� lecture me� about what�s best for women.�

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Intel Provides us With a Glimpse of the Wireless Future: You can Charge Your Phone By Setting it On Your Table?

I think things are getting all Warhammer 40K when Intels new plans come about.

During its presentation at Computex, Intel gave a demonstration of wireless charging technology based on A4WP standard Rezence that you can install under a table surface and can charge your laptop through up to two inches of wood. Even more impressively, the technology can charge multiple devices at once, which could make it particularly useful for crowded cafes where lots of people now crowd into small spaces competing for power outlets.

So this means Starbucks can install one of these devices on their tables and you can just put your phone or laptop down and it will start charging. That is first of all weird because intuitively you would think the charging table would put an electric charge into you but I guess it doesn't. Hopefully this can be scaled up to something you can put on your car dash or storage compartment so you can kiss plugging in your car charger goodbye.

In addition to wireless charging, Intel also showed off a new wireless docking system that will let you beam what�s on your computer screen to other screens wirelessly without the need for a clunky docking system.

I guess this is something that can be used to beam what is playing on your tablet to your TV without needed a Chromecast. I would love to see how seamlessly this will work but it does seem like we are entering a future where you can charge your phone by setting it down on your table which is pretty cool.

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Movie Review: Maleficent: Go See It

Well I recently saw the new Disney film Maleficent and I have to say I enjoyed myself quite a bit. It is basically a retelling of Sleeping Beauty from the point of view of the Evil Queen. However, she really isn't evil and you understand why she did what she did.

The acting was spot on with Angelina Jolie pretty much carrying the movie. You can feel her pain and see her joy at various turns of the plot. She doesn't devour scenery like some actors but she does subtle and angry as well as any Oscar winner. She does a great job of going from loving pixie to evil queen to "fairy godmother" and everywhere in between. You can sympathize with her plight as the guy she loved disfigures her so that he can become King. She pulls off the pain and loss in the scene where you see her wings cut off and you almost wince with her. This is yet another example (after Gravity) that a female lead can not only carry a movie but also bring in big box office numbers as well.

The rest of the characters were decent enough and even the fairies that look after Princess Aurora did not become annoying like what happens in some Disney movies. This could have been a place where you would sigh and have to endure scene after scene of them hamming it up. Instead they did a solid job and did not waste too much screen time. Elle Fanning did a good job playing Princess Aurora and did not become treacly and stupid at any time. She reminded me of Rapunzel in Tangled for some reason as a plucky girl with heart. The King was sufficiently evil but was not over the top or just pure evil like some Disney villains. There was a good amount of motivation and pathos and the actor did a good job of portraying it.

I have also got to hand it to the cinematographer Dean Semler as well. I was so taken aback by how everything looked so I had to look up the this guy in order to see who it was that did such a great job. The sets looked sufficiently fairy tale but done in a realistic way as to look like an actual place. The costumes were excellent and I was just amazed on how well everything held together. I thought Game of Thrones was good at making a fantasy world come to life but the world of Maleficent has raised the bar. This really feels like we are in the Golden Age of fantasy movies.

In fact I would love to see the Maleficent treatment given to more Disney properties as well. I can very easily see a retelling of Aladdin or Alice in Wonderland if they keep to the high-standards that Maleficent has brought about. Hopefully, the big box office on this film will at least give Disney the idea of refreshing some of their older properties in a live action format. It can easily crap out but I would love to see them make an attempt at it. I was really thinking how an Alice in Wonderland without Johnny Depp using a Maleficent formula would be a great time in the theater.

Finally, the movie is a little dark for kids but I think they will enjoy it right along with the parents for the most part. It wasn't too long and it kept to the Disney blood-less death format that you would expect from this kind of movie. But people die and get hurt and there are evil deeds and such so a kid needs to understand that going it. I know if I saw it as a kid I would seriously love every minute of it. The sets and costumes alone would have fascinated me. In any case I will be watching this again when it comes to the small screen and I am glad I had a chance to watch it in all its glory on the big screen.

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Obama Just Can't Win: It Looks Like the Guy We Traded 5 Taliban Senior Figures For might Be a Deserter

I'm sure Obama felt it was a good deal and may have broken the law to make the prisoner exchange but it seems that Bowe Bergdahl might not have been a POW after all.

Nathan Bethea, a former soldier who says he served in Bergdahl�s unit, recently wrote that he and his colleagues had been forced to stay quiet about the truth of Bergdahl�s case.

"And that the truth is: Bergdahl was a deserter, and soldiers from his own unit died trying to track him down," Bethea wrote in The Daily Beast Monday. �Bergdahl was relieved from guard duty, and instead of going to sleep, he fled the outpost on foot. He deserted. I�ve talked to members of Bergdahl�s platoon�including the last Americans to see him before his capture. I�ve reviewed the relevant documents. That�s what happened.� 

I think they pulled the trigger on the prisoner exchange to take some heat off the VA scandal and this bit the White House in the ass. If Bergdahl was a deserter they need to charge him and send him to jail. However, it probably won't happen because the White House will do everything they can to sweep it under the rug. You have to be at a very high level of incompetence to have a scandal develop from the thing that you are using to distract from a different scandal.

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The GOP Might be able to Elect a New Female Senator in Iowa

It seems that the GOP might be getting one step closer to taking control of the Senate.

In a party eager to develop female talent, state Senator Ernst is a dream come true. Her campaign began to take off in March with a grabby ad touting her skill castrating hogs � and a desire to cut spending in Washington. The ad went viral on YouTube, and she never looked back.

�I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm. So when I get to Washington, I�ll know how to cut pork,� Ernst says in the ad, which cost $9,000 to produce.

On Tuesday, Ernst crushed the competition with 56 percent of the vote. Her nearest opponent, radio host Sam Clovis, won 18 percent. Ernst and Congressman Braley will compete in November to succeed retiring Sen. Tom Harkin (D).

I saw her ad on the Daily Show and it was pretty funny and of course snarky-assed Jon Stewart made fun of it but it got people talking. You cannot ask for a better return on your $9000 investment. She is also a lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard who served in Iraq and Kuwait. I can take those bonafides over brainless Sarah Palin any day. If the GOP can get more women like Ernst into power then this whole war-on-women nonsense can finally fade away.

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Is "Athleisure" Wear AKA Yoga Pants Killing Jeans?

It seems that Yoga pants are starting to cut into the bottom line of Levi's

The Daily Ticker has reported that teens are favoring yoga pants over jeans by a big margin, but Levi's President & CEO Chip Bergh says the trend is also popular among women, in general, and that's hurting his company.

"We're actually losing consumption to yoga pants," says Bergh. "What used to be a premium jeans occasion for women is now socially acceptable to be a yoga pants occasion, and shame on us as category leaders for letting that happen."

Well yoga pants look comfortable from the get-go instead of having to be broken in like jeans normally do. In fact I would wear sweat pants (the male equivalent to yoga pants) to work if it were socially acceptable because they are just that much more comfortable than jeans.

In fact this article might be a good idea to do some looking into Lulumon as a stock. I mean the stock is near a 52-week low so you are buying it at a discount. They have great margin and a brand that many women enjoy. They have screwed up with product recalls and PR mistakes so that is part of the reason why they are at this point.

The only problem I see is that their moat if pretty small. What keeps the Gap or Forever 21 from rolling out some knock-off yoga pants? I know cash conscious women would rather have a bunch of different colors instead of just one expensive pair of black yoga pants. So that premium margin will shrink as more competitors get into the market.

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Cities Flee Winter Games 2022: Only Borat and the Red Chinese Want it

Well its seems that the honor of wasting $51 billion so people can watch a bunch of sports that are either relevant to one country or only relevant every 4 years is wearing off.

Residents of Krakow, Poland overwhelmingly rejected the idea of hosting the 2022 Games, leading city officials to withdraw Krakow's bid on Monday. This follows Stockholm, Sweden's leaders' decision to withdraw; Munich, Germany's voters' rejection of an Olympic chase; and Davos/St. Moritz, Switzerland's defeat of a referendum on hosting the Games. For those keeping count, that's four of an original eight host cities which had considered hosting the Games.Two more cities' bids, while not technically dead, may as well be: Lviv, Ukraine is having real military issues and can't afford to waste time thinking about the Olympics, while Oslo, Norway's bid is floundering politically.

So who is left in the running for this coveted prize?

It's no surprise, then, that the only two cities seriously still in the running for the 2022 Winter Games are Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing, China: two locales where the people don't get a choice in whether the Games come or not.

So only Borat or the Red Chinese want it? I guess the "honor" of wasting a pile of money for a bunch of sports that are not relevant to most of the world is taking a hit. Maybe they should get rid of the bobsled course where you have to build a track that will probably never get used again. That would mean that all of the sledding type stuff get axed (skeleton, luge, whatever.)

They could also ditch the ski-jumping as well so you don't have to build something that gets used once and sits idle. You might also want to dump all the X-games stuff as well. I mean the US dominates that stuff and the IOC hates the US so that would crimp our medal count.

So what would be left are the skiing events and things that are indoors like speed and figure skating and hockey. So the host nation would need a mountain for skiing and an indoor skating track or two that can be converted into a basketball stadium when the games are done. In fact what would be awesome is to have the hockey be outdoors. Maybe an alpine lake or an existing soccer stadium that could double as the place for the opening ceremonies. That will bring the price way down and maybe make for a budget Winter Olympics that Krakow or someone doesn't have to go into debt for 30 years to pay off.

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More Global Warming Fear Mongering: Or Why People Don't Listen to 97% of Scientists

This is exactly case in point of why American's refuse to listen to the "scientific consensus" about man made Global Warming.

Nobel physicist Robert Laughlin hammered home a similar point in his American Scholar cover story, �The Earth Doesn�t Care If You Drive a Hybrid,� warning that humans are not only causing today�s climate change disasters, but are fueling Earth�s �Sixth Great Species Extinction,� which may result in our civilization disappearing like dinosaurs. Drive a hybrid? Recycle? Eat organic? Solar energy? Band-Aid solutions. Science, technology isn�t the problem.  

Yup we are all going to Die! That means we must that Dr. Robert Laughlin needs grant money to come up with. This is exactly why people don't want to listen to Global Warming fear-mongering. Eventually scientists just turn into a guy dressed like the grim reaper with a sandwich-board that says "Global Warming will Kill Everyone! Repent! Especially due to this statement.

Environmental economist Bill McKibben wrote in Foreign Policy, it may �already be too late� to stop the impact of our climate change. New evidence keeps piling up ... a new Lloyds of London report urging Munich Re and other insurers to factor climate risks in their pricing models ... Pentagon generals are warning climate change is now a threat to national security ... plus a new report by S&P Rating Services warns of sovereign nation credit rating downgrades spreading globally as the rising costs of climate disasters put pressures on economic growth. 

I mean it is too late why should we care? Also I find it funny that insurance companies have come up with still more ways to jack up your rates. Global warming can now ad a few hundred dollars extra to your bill for "climate change mitigation." It sure sounds like a great way to fatten the insurance companies bottom lines.

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Well I was Mistaken: Putin Sets His Sights Back Westward: #WhyMoldova

Well it seems that Putin is trying to reform the western Soviet Empire instead of going South.

Russia already has 2,500 troops in Moldova�s breakaway territory Transnistria. But Moscow is also looking to take control of the rest of country by influencing the upcoming November elections, which could topple the current Western-friendly government�and replace it with political parties infiltrated and aligned with Moscow. Ever since the Russian successes in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, Russian interference has only grown; the flow of Russian intelligence forces into Moldova is going up, according to the recently-departed prime minister, who is in Washington this week to ask for help.

I don't understand the importance of Moldova in the grand scheme of things but it seems Putin is turning there. Maybe there is mineral wealth under the ground or something? Or it could be a way to hem in Ukraine because Moldova is to the west of that country. I could be a jumping off point if he is trying to agitate in Romania or something. Very strange.

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Movie Review: Amazing Spideman 2: Sad to Say: Avoid

I just have to say one thing. This movie was too damn loooong!!!! It felt like it took an eternity to finally finish and I could not wait to get out of the theater. It just seemed like the editor was fired early in the production or the director was some tyrant that wanted to get every last shot of Garfield talking to Sally Field in the movie. I think a good 40 minutes to an hour of running time could have been cut out of the film. That would have made it a peppy action packed comic book movie. Instead it was a plodding dinosaur with chase scene after chase scene and some very good actors stinking up the joint.

Well I will also say that the Andrew Garfield as Spider-man experiment is over in my mind. I enjoyed him despite everything in the first Amazing Spider-man. He was good-natured and earnest and had great chemistry with Emma Stone. However, he has morphed into an asshole that talks trash and I really don't want to watch him any further as Spider-man. Toby Maguire was just a head-and-shoulders better Peter Parker IMO and this movie solidified it. I wanted to see Maguire win the day in the old Spider-man movies now when it comes to Garfield I could really care less about.

Emma Stone does a great job as always but looks very thin and blond and Hollywood in this film and I did not like it. She has great chemistry with Garfield and this was one of the saving graces of the movie. When they were together on the screen it was actually fun to watch. The scene where she yells out "Peter" and covers her mouth when he webs her to the car was priceless.

I did not like the new Green Goblin at all and the actor that played him Dane DeHaan was frankly quite awful in the role. The old Green Goblin, James Franco, was just much better at showing the betrayal and earlier friendship than DeHaan could. This character amounted to a spoiled rich boy that needed Spider-mans blood and wanted to get Garfield to help him. He played a flat and featureless character that had a goofy haircut. When he finally became the Green Goblin he looked pretty stupid. His face was all messed up and he had that generic green metal armored uniform you have seen in a 100 movies before. They could have totally cut him out of the movie and I would have been fine with it.

It is sad to say that Jamie Foxx was also terrible as Electro. They tried to do a Venom thing where this nerdy guy loved Spider-man and then felt betrayed and became a villain that wanted to kill him for some reason. It was just ham-handed and sad. The CGI on Electro made Foxx look like he was made out of fluffy towel material and not menacing at all. His powers looked dated with him shooting lightning bolts around while wearing a hoodie. It just amounted to a great actor looking like a white-eyed Smurf trying his best to chew the scenery.

Also Paul Giamatti was utterly wasted as the Rhino. He played the standard Russian mobster character that they could have just taken from central casting. He was introduced with a fun chase scene that unfortunately dragged on and on. However, they immediately drop the ball and have him growl out "I keeel you Spider-man," a bunch of times. It was just a huge waste of a great actor and I hope he does not come back for the next one. I just want to see him in a better movie.

Finally, like I said before the movie just meandered for what seemed like forever. Garfield breaks up with Emma Stone because he keeps seeing her father giving a disapproving look. Then we have a bunch of car chases and see the origin story of the Green Goblin and Electro in excruciating detail. In fact I kind of glossed over what happened because it was such a slog. Suffice it to say if you like long car chases, Spider-man soaring through the city over and over, and like 10 set-piece battles between an asshole in a skin-tight suit fighting a Smurf with white eyes this movie is for you.

In fact I am going to pass on the Sinister 6 in the next movie even though they are one of my favorite super-villain groups. I just can't take another 2.5 hour car chase and have to see 6 different (probably really good) actors do a terrible job fighting against an asshole in a skin-tight suit. We will probably see Liam Neeson as Kraven the Hunter, Harvey Keitel as Dr. Octopus, Daniel Day-Lewis as the Vulture, Denzel Washington as Mysterio, Tom Hanks as Sandman, and Jamie Foxx reprising his role of Electro and they will still stink up the joint. In any case I guess I won't be seeing it anyway. Spider-man has just joined the Punisher, the Fantastic 4 and Ghost Rider on my comic book movie avoid list. 

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Movie Review: Godzilla: Get it On Redbox

Well I went to see the new Godzilla this past weekend and I was pleasantly surprised. It was a great monster movie but it kind of felt like Pacific Rim with a more memorable monster. There was some decent action but there were huge plot-holes. The acting was decent enough with Bryan Cranston chewing scenery like crazy. The male lead was fairly wooden but he was about 100x better than Kit Harrington.

The movie revolved around 2 weird creatures spawned by nuclear power that menace San Fransisco for some reason. I'll call them Kaiju's because they reminded me of the Kaiju's in Pacific Rim. One huge plot hole I saw was one Kaiju escaped from a Filipino mine and then went all the way to Las Vegas to get to the nuclear storage facility at Yucca Mountain. Why it didn't just take a shorter route to China or Japan (who also have nuclear waste storage facilities) I'll never know. The Kaiju also doesn't have wings so I guess it walked all the way from the Philippines to Las Vegas over some stretch of time.

The plot was fairly strait-forward. It pretty much amounts to Cranston is a nuclear scientist and a Japanese reactor melts down and messes up a nearby town. I.E. Fukushima. He has a son that joins the Navy and becomes a bomb disposal guy. They travel around and meet Ken Watanabe who plays a Japanese scientist of some sort. His role pretty much boils down to furrowed brow and reaction shots to the CGI monsters. He does utter "Godzilla" for the first time in a way that made people in the theater laugh.

The rest of the movie has them travel around and watch as Godzilla destroys Waikiki, the flying Kaiju destroys the Honolulu Airport, the other walking Kaiju destroys Las Vegas and then everyone destroys San Fransisco. The various characters dodge monsters and Aaron Taylor-Johnson tries to unite with his wife played by Elizabeth Olsen.

The monsters fighting was what I came to see and for the most part I was not disappointed. There was plenty of Godzilla kicking ass and he was portrayed as somewhat of a good guy throughout the movie. He was there to provide "balance for nature."  I would actually see another Godzilla movie where he might fight Mechagodzilla or Mothra or something like that.

Finally the plot-holes can take up a huge multi-point list but I don't feel like writing it. Suffice it to say there are many and you can probably make a drinking game out of them if you wanted. The one that was the most glaring was why Aaron Taylor-Johnson had to take the train with the nukes to San Fransisco. The nuke transport train (I have no idea why they didn't just use a B-52 or a B-1 to transport them) was controlled by the army for some reason. Aaron Taylor-Johnson was a navy man and for some reason the army guys didn't have their own Ordinance control guy so they took him along. If Aaron Taylor-Johnson wanted to get back to his wife so badly why didn't he just rent a car and drive to San Fransisco instead of taking the slow-assed nuke transport train? These kind of plot holes are rife through-out the movie so be ready for them.

In any case the movie is worth watching if you like monster movies like Pacific Rim and can overlook glaring plot holes. There are lots of monsters fighting and fearful reaction shots and Bryan Cranston does a very good job as always. It was also nice to see the real Godzilla return to the big screen and not that piece of crap lizard from that awful 1998 Mathew Broderick movie.

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Russia Signs Massive Natural Gas Deal with Red China: Masterstroke for Russia and China in "The Great Game"

It seems that the Russians are going to start looking East to diversify away from the the European market.

China signed a landmark deal Wednesday to buy Russian natural gas worth about $400 billion, giving a boost to diplomatically isolated President Vladimir Putin and expanding Moscow's ties with Asia.

Price negotiations on the 30-year deal continued into the final hours of a two-day visit by Putin to China, during which both sides had said they hoped to sign an agreement.

Hmm this is an interesting development. There was talk that this deal fell through but I bet it was quibbling over time period more than a cash figure (perhaps the Red Chinese wanted 50 years or something.) Both of the nations win big and it is a very savvy move in "The Great Game."

In any case it now focuses Russia eastward and either gives Putin a free hand in the Ukraine (and Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia etc.) or he might reestablish hegemony over what was once the Southern USSR (Kazakhstan and the like.) That would put this information in play:

Putin was in Shanghai for an Asian security conference where China's president called for a new model of Asian security cooperation based on a regional group that includes Russia and Iran and excludes the United States.

A Russian southern scenario would be easier to do especially if they make the grand gesture of taking pressure off of the Ukraine. The Europeans and Obama would get off Putin's back since he already got the piece of the Ukraine that he wanted (the permanent Black Sea port.) Sanctions can be lowered and Putin can appear to back down from "Western pressure."

However, an "economic union" to Putins south would be easy to form. Pro-Moscow leaders can be groomed in a place that has lots of mineral wealth but in an area where few people can find on a map. I'm sure that "Russian tanks enter Kyrgyzstan to quell uprising" would be on page 15 of the New York Times.

Also even stronger ties with Iran (maybe a pipeline leading to a state of the art Gazprom refinery) would be a finger in the eye of the US as well. A stronger Iranian/Russian partnership would benefit both countries equally and restart a Soviet era partnership. Putin loves that Soviet era stuff so it would be a smart play in the Great Game.

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Good News from GOP Primaries: Tea Party Got Their Asses Whipped

Well its seems that the Tea Party might be moving toward the dust-bin of history.

Mississippi looms as the only thing standing between those groups and a primary-season oh-fer. It suggests that the major groups are overreaching in who they're targeting - and that Republican primary voters are searching for electable candidates over ideological purity. The era of Christine O'Donnell, Sharron Angle, Richard Mourdock and Ken Buck could be over.

I think the GOP is tired of a bunch of losers getting providing the electorate with either a Democrat or an ignoramus. They are finally getting serious about taking the Senate.

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Brave Cat comes to Boys Rescue: Chases off Vicious Dog

I have to say this cat is brave and takes his role as a family pet seriously. The cat even comes back to see if the kid is okay. Warning this video is a little gory at the end when it shows what damage that dog did in his few seconds of grabbing the kid.

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New Army Helmet Design Looks Like It Came Out of a Video Game

It looks like it came right out of Halo and is a little too Star Wars Stormtrooper-ish but it is still very cool.

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Obamacare Contractor Paying Employees to Hit Refresh Every 10 Minutes

Well chalk-up another $1.5 billion in fraud, waste, and abuse.

A report by KMOV.com  in St. Louis claims that Serco�tasked with processing Obamacare applications�is allegedly paying its workers to do nothing at all.

Employees told the local television station that they are instructed to simply stare at a computer screen and hit refresh every 10 minutes.

"There are some weeks that a data entry person would not process an application," an employee told KMOV.

The report suggests that Serco is keeping an unnecessary number of employees because it gets paid per worker, instead of by the number of applications they are processing. They are currently hiring.

If this country was run like a business it would have been bankrupt decades ago.

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The Last Impediment to Buying a XBone has fallen. They are providing a Kinect-less version

Well it seems that when idiot Ballmer goes Microsoft finally starts to make some good decisions. This is one of the main reasons why I haven't bought an Xbone already.

While I admit that Kinect is an incredibly cool piece of technology, I also don�t find it to be particularly useful as far as gaming is concerned. Talking to your console while you�re playing games might be fine if you live by yourself but my wife would absolutely murder me if she had to put up with me constantly shouting out commands to my squad mates in Mass Effect 3. So while I have nothing against Kinect, I also don�t think it�s a piece of technology that�s really worth paying $100 extra for.

Pretty much. I think that paying $100 extra just to say "Xbox On" to turn it on is a huge waste of money. I can push a button on a controller like I have been doing for years. Also if I bought an Xbone I would have put a piece of tape over the camera on the Kinect portion when I was not using it. It would be kind of the same thinking behind putting a sticker over the camera on a laptop. In the days of NSA snooping you can never be too careful. In any case my last argument for not buying the Xbone is gone and I will probably be buying it this summer as well.

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Dr. Dre Might Become a Headphone Billionaire if Apples Buys out Beats

Well I remember buying his album when I was in high school. It looks like he will be very rich very soon once Apple is done spending the cash.

Apple Inc is close to buying headphone maker Beats Electronics for $3.2 billion, the Financial Times reported.

The purchase of Beats, which also runs a streaming music service, would be Apple's largest ever acquisition, the newspaper reported. It said the deal could be announced as early as next week. (http://r.reuters.com/cap77v)

Founded by rapper Dr. Dre and music producer Jimmy Iovine, Beats Electronics primarily produces products under the brand "Beats by Dr. Dre" and competes with headphones made by Skullcandy Inc, Sennheiser Electronic and Bose Corp.

It is a bit of a strange acquisition but maybe this the tip of the iceberg of Apple throwing its cash hoard around. I have a feeling that they might be buying Netflix or a game changer like that soon.

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Tea Party Not Just Disliked but Hated even by the GOP

It seems the Tea Party's time as part of the American lexicon is nearing the end according to this poll.

The Tea Party has continued to wear out its welcome, according to a new Gallup poll released Thursday. In the survey, 30 percent of adults said they are "opponents" of the movement, tied for the highest mark Gallup has ever recorded. Meanwhile, support for the Tea Party checks in at 22 percent which, though not quite a record low, combines with the spike in disapproval to give the Tea Party its worst net approval rating ever in Gallup's polling.

Even the GOP has soured on them.

Much of that shift has come from Republicans growing increasingly weary of the group. Tea Party support within the GOP has fallen from 61 percent back in late 2010 to 41 percent today.

You can put me in the 30% camp that checked the "opponents" box. I was a big supporter once too.

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MSNBC Busts Out the Racist Cinco De Mayo Celebration #FireBergdorf

If Fox News did this then the entire main stream media would explode trying to go wall to wall to cover it.

During several moments in the show on Monday, correspondent Louis Burgdorf appeared in a suit and tie and a sombrero.

"Happy Cinco de Mayo. Let me just take a shot here to get the thing started," he said before appearing to take a drink. "Ole!"

Later, Roberts was shown dancing with a maraca in one hand while there were margarita glasses and bottles of "tequila" on his anchor desk.

Burgdorf also popped into the closing shot, in which he apparently pretended to drink from one of the tequila bottles for several seconds as Roberts explained the background of the holiday.

If this was Fox News John Stewart would pass out from sheer joy and probably wet his pants. However, there is not a peep from them when their own liberal MSNBC people go "full racist stereotype" on Mexicans.

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The "Obama Generation" Might Skip the Midterms

This will probably be bad news for the Democrats trying to hang onto the Senate.

The Institute of Politics� newest survey of 18- to 29- year-olds found that less than a quarter of these young people plan to �definitely� vote in the 2014 midterm elections. Della Volpe attributes this sharp drop in millennial political participation � which, by contrast, was at a record high in 2008 � to a general �frustration with Washington� and the lack of change under Obama�s watch.

�It's everything, It's the tone, it's the series of issues, it's what's happening domestically as well as what's happening abroad, but the main message is that young people voted for Obama in 2008 so they could have a stake in what was happening in government,� he said. �They truly wanted to take that spirit of volunteerism into government, into public affairs and I think they're frustrated that they weren't asked to do more.�

Well their hero, Obama strait-up lied to the American people ie "if you like your doctor etc." so he can force them to buy something. They then messed up a website that costs $100s of millions which makes them look technologically backward. Next we have hot wars in Syria and a new cold war in the Ukraine. Obama does nothing but twiddle his thumbs and look weak on both fronts. 

Finally, you have Obama's NSA snooping their email, text messages, Yahoo Video Chats, and whatever else and storing all that data to "catch terrorists." In other words the government that the Millennials loved so much now has all their naked pictures, dirty texts, embarrassing drunken moments, and darkest secrets shared only with close friends all tucked away on a computer in Colorado somewhere. In isn't just "no spirit of volunteerism" that is damaging the Obama brand but the "spirit of incompetence, lies, and distrust" that is doing more damage.

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Companies Could Save $600 Billion By Dumping People onto Obamacare Exchanges

I guess the hated Obamacare website is going to get a huge number of new enrollees as companies dump health care as a routine perk.

We may soon go back to a model in which employers provide healthcare more as a perk than as a routine benefit, requiring workers to get insurance from other sources. That could save big companies up to $700 billion by 2025, according to a new report from S&P Capital IQ. It�s hard to think of any other single change that could save companies that much money, indicating how powerful the Affordable Care Act (ACA) could become once it has fully impacted the U.S. healthcare system.

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Twitter Shares Get Hammered: It Seems that the Active Monthly Users Number is Shrinking

I wonder if this might be the roll-over point for social media?

Around midday, shares of the microblogging company were down 10.4 percent to $38.18 on the New York Stock Exchange, after earlier falling to $37.24, its lowest price since its November 7, 2013 introduction on Wall Street.

Though still above its initial public offering price of $26, Twitter has lost more than half its value since peaking at $73.31 in December 26.

Investors were troubled by data showing the company had 255 million active monthly users in March, below the 257 million projected by Wall Street, said BMO Capital Markets.

It looks like the actual monthly users is not meeting Wall Street expectations and the stock is getting pounded because of it. Twitter needs to do something splashy like buy out Kik or Snapchat or something in order keep themselves relevant.

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Obama Reaches Career Low in Approval Rating

I just think people are tired of him and just want to see the page turned on his entire Presidency.

Obama's job approval rating, after a slight winter rebound, has lost 5 points among all adults since March, to 41 percent, the lowest of his presidency by a single point. Fifty-two percent disapprove, with "strong" disapproval exceeding strong approval by 17 percentage points. He's lost ground in particular among some of his core support groups.

It also seems that people want the GOP to take their turn at fixing the economy.

Registered voters by 53-39 percent in the national survey say they'd rather see the Republicans in control of Congress as a counterbalance to Obama's policies than a Democratic-led Congress to help support him. It was similar in fall 2010, when the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives and gained six Senate seats.

That is a pretty big margin of people that are tired of the Democrats running the economy into the ground.

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Yeah Blacks Are Better Off Free: Cliven Bundy Reveals He is a Pro-Slavery Asswipe

Well I guess this is where the Left keeps getting the idea that Conservatives are racist assholes.

�I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,� Bundy said during one of his daily press conferences. �[B]ecause they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do? They abort their young children; they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I�ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn�t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.�

Whenever someone starts by saying "I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro" it can only go downhill from there. Also I would rather be under government subsidy than the following:

1. Work 16 hour days from sunup to sundown and sometimes at torchlight
2. Endure daily beatings
3. Can have your wife and kids sold right out shattering your "family life" that Bundy praised
4. Die before 40 usually of exhaustion
5. Be bought and sold several times during ones lifetime
6. Be murdered without trial for saying the wrong thing or even looking a white person in the eye
7. Have the same rights as a plow horse, dog, or oxen.
8. Endure the atrocity that was the Middle Passage if you were a slave before 1807

I think Cliven Bundy really needs to crack a book about slavery or perhaps keep his bigoted mouth shut and fade into the dustbin of history. He went from a little guy fighting the Man to racist asshole in a few weeks. I think that might be a new record.

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Apples Kills Numbers and Announces 7 for 1 Stock Split

Now they need to announce an iWatch or an iTV and we can really get the stock rolling.

The company posted earnings of $11.62 a share, on revenue of $45.6 billion, blowing past estimates for $10.18 a share on $43.53 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters. 

Apple also authorized a 7-for-1 stock split, addressing calls to share more of its cash hoard. The board also approved a dividend increase of approximately 8 percent to $3.29 a share. The company additionally said it would boost the overall size of its capital return program to more than $130 billion by the end of 2015, up from its previous $100 billion plan. 

That is a pretty nice dividend and they are giving some more of their massive cash hoard back to investors. It looks like the iPhone 6 is coming out in the fall so it looks like Apple is still a force to reckoned with.

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Fracking is Actually Fixing the Global Warming CO2 Problem?

I guess all those environmental nutjobs against the Keystone XL Pipeline do not know what they are talking about.

The reduction is even more impressive when one considers that 57 million additional energy consumers were added to the U.S. population over the past two decades. Indeed, U.S. carbon emissions have dropped about 20 percent per capita, and are now at their lowest level since Dwight D. Eisenhower left the White House in 1961.

David Victor, an energy expert at UC-San Diego, estimates that the shift from coal to natural gas has reduced U.S. emissions by 400 to 500 megatons CO₂ per year. To put that number in perspective, it is about twice the total effect of the Kyoto Protocol on carbon emissions in the rest of the world, including the European Union.

I guess Crap and Trade on CO2 emissions won't make Al Gore a Climate Change Millionaire after all. Maybe he should have invested in some fracking companies because they seem to be doing more to combat global warming then he has. What is eye-opening though is how little renewable energy is contributing to CO2 reduction.

It is tempting to believe that renewable energy sources are responsible for emissions reductions, but the numbers clearly say otherwise. Accounting for a reduction of 50 Mt of CO₂ per year, America�s 30,000 wind turbines reduce emissions by just one-10^th the amount that natural gas does. Biofuels reduce emissions by only 10 megatons, and solar panels by a paltry three megatons. 

Wind turbines are an eyesore and solar panels do almost nothing to reduce the CO2. Plus biofuels get the dubious distinction of wasting acreage that could have fed someone to power someone elses car instead. So instead of wasting money on this stuff I guess we should just build more natural gas and next generation nuclear plants instead.


What is interesting is that it seems that market forces will reduce the hated CO2 emissions far faster than some policy-maker driven boondoggle or rigged crap-and-trade CO2 scheme ever could. I wonder in light of these facts do we still have to pony up $300 billion to give to third-world despots to combat climate change?

If the Red Chinese follow our lead and start their own fracking and build a bunch of natural gas power plants maybe we can get this global warming thing licked in the next decade. The poor climate scientists with all their scare-mongering will have to go into a new field because the grant money and rubbing elbows with Matt Damon will all disappear.

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Socialized Medicine at Its Worst: Woman Went in for an Appendectomy and Left Without an Ovary and She Died

This might be the nightmare scenario we have to look forward to depending on how far a "single-payer option" is advanced by various liberal groups. This all happened in Britain which of course has socialized medicine.

During the Oct. 23 surgery, De Jesus began to bleed "quite heavily. ... In the midst of this, Mr. Al-Abed removed what he clearly believed to be the appendix. He thought he found it, removed it, and gave to a nurse what later turned out to be Patient A's ovary," the tribunal heard. Coker, who was eating lunch at the time, was never summoned, nor was he aware the surgery was taking place. The mistake wasn't uncovered until much later. 

The Telegraph reports that De Jesus returned to the hospital in severe pain on Nov. 7; two days later another doctor realized she still had her appendix, and the next day she went into surgery to have it actually removed. Instead, she died on the OR table, having earlier delivered a stillborn boy. Her cause of death was ruled as multiple organ failure due to septicemia. The Press Association reports the hearing will likely last a month. 

I wonder if the heirs to Ms. De Jesus gets the chance to sue everyone involved in this debacle?

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This is Exactly What The Right and Left Need to Do When Talking to One Another

If more liberals and conservatives have this attitude then the world will be a better place.

If you were a salesperson trying to persuade a potential client to switch suppliers, you would be kind and friendly to that client, not dismiss them as stupid or worse for their current supplier choice. So if you're trying to sell an idea � whether on the national political stage or at a family dinner with your uncle � why would you behave any differently? Kindness, respect, finding the basic goodness and human dignity in everyone � that is the essence of emotional correctness, and that is how we begin the conversations that lead to change.

A Happy Warrior wins more converts to his side than some mean-spirited asshole waving his fist at everyone.

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Pakistan Accused of "Double Dealing" and Tricking the US on Afganistan

Well it won't be the first time the US was tricked by an "ally" and probably won't be the last.

Perhaps the biggest betrayal of all in the U.S.-Pakistani relationship, and one that came as no surprise to Gall, was the fact that bin Laden found shelter in Abbottabad, Pakistan, for six years before he was killed in a Navy SEAL raid in 2011. And, according to Gall, Pakistan�s government was orchestrating his protection.

�Pakistan did know,� Gall said, speaking about bin Laden�s location. �They were hiding him, they were handling him. Someone on the inside told me this. They had a special desk that knew where bin Laden was.

�Not only that, but put him there, protected him, oversaw him, handled him in the terms of the secret intelligence services,� she added. �And it's all deniable, but I�m told the top bosses knew.�

This is so obvious. There is no way such a high profile figure can hide for 6 years in a country without that country giving him some sort of support. Sometimes it seems that America is so poor at playing the "Great Game" we shouldn't even be playing it in the first place.

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Chongqing Hot Pot? Sign Me Up

Now this might be a reason to take a little trip to Chongqing, China.

Thousands of vats of hot pot seasoning thicken the air around Nie Ganru's home with a miasma of chili as flame-red paste, thick with oil, bakes in the sun. 

Nie lives and effectively breathes hot pot, the spicy cook-it-yourself communal Chinese meal that made his fortune, and has built a pot-shaped six-storey museum dedicated to the dish.

Now his home town, the megalopolis of Chongqing, is seeking national and ultimately global recognition for the food.

"It's numbing, it's hot, it's very flavourful, it has an aroma that hits you in the face, and that's why everybody likes it," says the 70-year-old tycoon, who eats it about every other day.

It looks like Sukiyaki but instead of beef broth you cook the food in a mixture of hot peppers and stuff. You then dip chicken and beef into the boiling red mixture and you get some heat and hopefully some flavor mixed in. The broth does like quite evil if you aren't into hot foods though. I am willing to try it as long as there is quite a bit of water or milky stuff provided.

 

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Global Warming Report Dials Up the Scare Tactics

Global Warming will be so bad they had to add a new category of risks!

The problems have gotten so bad that the panel had to add a new and dangerous level of risks. In 2007, the biggest risk level in one key summary graphic was "high" and colored blazing red. The latest report adds a new level, "very high," and colors it deep purple.

You might as well call it a "horrible" risk level, said van Aalst: "The horrible is something quite likely, and we won't be able to do anything about it."

The report predicts that the highest level of risk would first hit plants and animals, both on land and the acidifying oceans.

Um, if we cannot do anything about it then why worry? Just take that $30 billion or whatever Al Gore wants and use it to buy mosquito netting or building sea walls to protect against storm surge something. That will save quite a few more lives than whatever these scientists have already earmarked this money for.

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Romney Won 18-20 Year Olds? What? Really?

I never knew this fact about the 2012 election.

As George Washington University political science Prof. John Sides wrote earlier this month, 18-year-old voters casting their initial ballot in 2012 broke for Mitt Romney over Obama. Romney won 19 and 20-year-olds, too.

�The political identities of future generations will depend on economic trends and the popularity of presidents who haven�t been elected. Maybe those factors will tend to break in Democrats� favor, and maybe they won�t,� writes Professor Sides on the Monkey Cage political science blog of the Washington Post

It will be interesting to see how these new voters do in 2016 when they are just getting out of college. Will they be saddled with debt with no job prospects on the horizon? Victims of the Obameconomy they will probably still be effected by the slow-assed recovery. 

They get to stay on their parents health plans for few years but that is if their parents still have them. We might see a wave of businesses cutting their health plans and save money by taking the penalty. So they might not even get a chance to stay on their parents plan once they graduate.

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Hypocrite of the Year: Gun Grabbing California State Senator Leland Yee a Gun Runner?

I think this may have gotten taken from a movie script instead of real life.

Court documents allege that Yee sought campaign donations in exchange for introducing an undercover FBI agent to an arms trafficker. An FBI affidavit says Yee talked with the undercover agent about acquiring weapons worth $500,000 to $2.5 million, including shoulder-fired missiles, from a Muslim separatist group in the Philippines.

Organizers said the arrest of Yee particularly clouds the future of two of his gun control bills.

Yee's SB47 would prohibit the use of so-called bullet buttons and other devices that allow for swift reloading of military-style assault weapons. His SB108 would require the state Department of Justice to study safe firearm storage methods. Both stalled in the Assembly last year.

I guess Yee believes that in the idea of: guns for Muslim separatist groups in the Philippines and not for thee. I wonder if he wanted to ban "bullet buttons" on the automatic weapons he wanted to sell to his Muslim terrorists, err separatist, pals? Also I wonder if he wants the Department of Justice to study safe firearm storage techniques in the terrorist camps of his pals as well? I mean Muslim terrorists might hurt themselves with the guns that Yee sold them.

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Student Loan Debt a Corrosive Acid on Students Futures?

It seems that workers saddled by tons of debt are falling behind those who are not.

Graduates who can immediately begin building equity in housing or stocks and bonds get more time to see their investments grow, while indebted graduates spend years paying principal and interest on loans. The standard student loan repayment schedule is 10 years but can be much longer.

The median 2009 net worth for a household without outstanding student debt was $117,700, nearly three times the $42,800 worth in a household with outstanding student debt, according to a report co-written by Elliott last November.

Wow that is quite a disparity. I think it is more important than ever to price a decent college. I will be willing to bet that if you graduated from a State College with only $26k in loans you would be much better off than if you had $100k in loans from some Private College. This is an especially bad rip-off if you look at this:

College degrees can pay off. College graduates ages 25 to 32 working full time earn $45,500, about $17,500 more than their peers with just a high school diploma, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census data.

So if you had $100K in loans you would owe $1150 per month. That is $13,800 per year which makes you only $3700 ahead of the high school diploma person. That money can be eaten up fairly easily if you don't have health insurance and decide to buy Obamacare or whatever. If this student had the $110k that he paid back to the private school he could have most of the way toward an entire house or a pretty decent nest egg.

I guess this goes to show you that unless you go to an Ivy than it is almost always better to go to a State School than a Private School if they have comparable academic records. I would much rather owe $27k than $100k no matter what.

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New Trend Emerging: Hospitals Will Offer Their Own Health Insurance and Health Insurers Will Buy Hospitals

I guess this is a case of cutting out the middle man.

Dr. Kenneth L. Davis, CEO and  president of Mount Sinai Health System, the largest health care provider in the state of New York, said that starting next year, Mt. Sinai will begin offering its own Medicare Advantage plan. It will look for other opportunities to bring premium payments directly into the hospital system, rather than filtering them through insurance companies.

This also opens the door for Insurance Companies buying hospitals.

He noted that large insurer Wellpoint recently completed the acquisition of a health care company in California, apparently with an eye toward replicating the Kaiser model in some form.

I guess this starts the end-to-end care model of health care. You buy the insurance (hopefully at a discount) from your hospital on the Obamacare exchanges and then go to the hospital. Then the hospital charges you a co-pay and pays for the rest.

The hospital would be very good at figuring out how much they need to reimburse on what procedures. It seems to work well for Kaiser so I can see it working well for other groups of hospitals. The hospital wants to do good work so that their insurance will be sold at a good value. Also it provides built-in brand loyalty to certain hospitals as well. If you have Mt. Sinai brand insurance you will probably be going to Mt. Sinai over some other sawbones.

However, there needs to be checks in place if the insurance company owns a hospital. It would be interesting to see if certain things that are not cost effective or lose money suddenly are not done at that hospital. The article says that Mt. Sinai loses $14 million a year on mental health. Do you think WellPoint Hospital will have a money losing mental health ward? I guess these are the changes that Obamacare seems to have created.

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