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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