Month: May 2014

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

$250 Million homes in Europe, $150 Million homes in the US, and as Bloomberg notes Million-dollar homes in the U.S. are selling at double their historical average while middle-class property demand stumbles, showing that the housing recovery is mirroring America’s wealth divide. As CoreLogic notes, “the real estate market is the ultimate reflection of confidence, wealth and income,” as purchases costing $1 million or more rose 7.8% in March, while sales of homes costing less than $250k plunged 12%, as “the same factors driving the income stagnation in the middle are driving the income momentum at the top.” The luxury markets are indeed on fire as foreign (and domestic) super-wealth floods into real estate but as NewEdge’s van Batenburg notes, echoing ur very words, “The American Dream is dead for everybody but the happy few who have enjoyed the tailwinds of the appreciating stock market.”   Continue reading ““The American Dream Is Dead For Everyone But A Happy Few””

Mail.com

JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli archaeologist says he has found the legendary citadel captured by King David in his conquest of Jerusalem, rekindling a longstanding debate about using the Bible as a field guide to identifying ancient ruins.

The claim by Eli Shukron, like many such claims in the field of biblical archaeology, has run into criticism. It joins a string of announcements by Israeli archaeologists saying they have unearthed palaces of the legendary biblical king, who is revered in Jewish religious tradition for establishing Jerusalem as its central holy city — but who has long eluded historians looking for clear-cut evidence of his existence and reign.   Continue reading “Israeli says he has found King David’s citadel”

Staight Line Logic – by Robert Gore

If you were offered a glass of poison to drink, you would refuse. How about a “compromise” at half a glass? Why is compromise extolled as a political virtue? If smart meets stupid halfway on an issue, then does it again and again, after the fifth iteration smart is 96.875 percent of the way to stupid. If you are on the stupid side of an issue and cannot win an immediate victory, nothing serves your purposes so well as compromise, which is how statists usually serve up their poison. By even the second iteration (75 percent), smart is beyond retrieval.   Continue reading “Cheer Up, You’ll Be 1.5625 Percent Free!”

Bushcraft and Survival Skills – by GunsmithG

There are many variables to consider when choosing a cartridge for a personal protection handgun. Skill level, recoil tolerance, and cost all come into play. Staying within a budget and allowing for monthly or bi monthly trips to the range, and ammunition for practice can become a burden if a hard to get or expensive cartridge is chosen. Certain cartridges, like the .357 Sig or 10MM for example, are harder to find and usually more expensive when it is found. High cost of ammo equals less rounds for practice, and as a new shooter, practice is extremely important. That’s one of the reasons why I recommend a quality .22LR handgun, either semi-auto or revolver to learn the basics with. Recently, because of consumer fears over gun laws and ammunition restrictions, .22LR has gotten a lot more expensive and less available, so that is something to consider also.   Continue reading “Choosing a Handgun for Personal Protection: Part 2 Cartridge Selection”

US Crow – by David Black

Why do we have Aid and Litter teams? There is only one medic for every Platoon sized element. 4 squads with 2 fire teams per squad and 2 buddy teams per fire team. That is 1 or 2 (if you are lucky) medic/s or for 32+ people. My bag and treat 2-4 heavily wounded casualties.

Does anyone else see a problem here? If the medic goes down… If more than 4 people are heavily injured everyone is fucked. More than that I can’t carry everything. My fighting load weighs about 35 pounds. My aid bag weights another 35 pounds. So I am carrying 70 pounds. Read the Book “A Soldier’s Load and Mobility of a Nation” and you will see why that is a problem. Because that is not inclusive of survival or bugout gear. So as a Medic I need to distribute some of that load. Not only in terms of resources but of training and responsibility.   Continue reading “Special Teams: Aid and Litter Survival Training”

Tech Dirt – by Tim Cushing

“Fixing” bullying through rushed, stupid, reactionary laws does nothing to address the issue and generally just makes things worse. Carson, CA, Mayor Jim Dear thinks he’s going to beat bullying and he’s going to use a new law to do it. His plan is a real gem, though, requiring only a one-paragraph summary to encompass its utter vapidity. (via Adam Steinbaugh)   Continue reading “California City Achieves New Lows In Anti-Bullying Laws, Makes Public Entirely Subject To Other People’s ‘Feelings”

New York Post – by Selim Algar and Frank Rosario

He’s been dead for eight years, but try telling that to the NYPD.

Cops have barged into James Jordan Sr.’s family home looking for him more than a dozen times since he died in 2006 — prompting his exasperated relatives to finally post his death certificate on the front door.

“I tell them over and over, ‘James isn’t here! He’s dead! It’s that simple. What’s so difficult to understand about that?’ ” the Brooklyn security guard’s widow, Karen, told The Post on Monday.   Continue reading “‘Ghostbuster’ cops keep raiding dead man’s home: suit”

The Economic Collapse – by Michael Snyder

Is Detroit destined to become a Chinese city?  Chinese homebuyers and Chinese businesses are starting to flood into the Motor City, and the governor of Michigan is greatly encouraging this.  In fact, he has formally asked the Obama administration for 50,000 special federal immigration visas to encourage even more immigration from China and elsewhere.  So will Detroit be the first major city in the United States to be dominated by China?  It could happen.  Once upon a time, Detroit was the greatest manufacturing city in the history of the world and it had the highest per capita income in the entire country.  But now it is a rotting, decaying, bankrupt hellhole that is in desperate need of a savior, and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder appears to be fully convinced that China can be that savior.   Continue reading “Will Detroit Be The First Major Chinese City In The United States?”

WND – by Bob Unruh

Americans now are being blasted as “racist” for the simple act of waving an American flag.

It happened Monday in California to a small group of protesters who waved U.S. flags in front of a school where officials had banned the practice to avoid violence threatened by Hispanic students celebrating Cinco de Mayo.   Continue reading “Americans now ‘racist’ for waving American flag”

The Patriot Post, May 2, 2014

It’s never a surprise when the four leftist Supreme Court justices give the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) more power, but this week’s 6-2 ruling reinstating the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule also had the support of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy. It seems that Roberts is now a swing voter, meaning conservatives have to go 2-for-2 between him and Kennedy.

The case, EPA v. EME Homer City Generation, hinged on whether the EPA could implement new regulations on power plants without giving the states an opportunity to write their own rules and without regard to any individual state’s contribution to the problem. The Second Circuit Court struck down the regulations in 2012, a decision reversed by this week’s Supreme Court ruling. Affected are 28 states east of the Rocky Mountains but excluding the Dakotas, the New England states and Delaware.   Continue reading “Supreme Court Approves EPA Power Play”

The New American – by Jack Kenny

To an outside observer, it might appear that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has taken on too many missions. But a series of articles appearing recently in the Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico suggests that the DHS has but a single mission: one called “everything.”   Continue reading “Homeland Security Does Everything — Except Thwart Terrorists”

Fox News

SACRAMENTO, Calif. –  California state government departments will be prohibited from selling or displaying items with an image of the Confederate flag under a bill that passed the Assembly on Monday.

AB2444 by Assemblyman Isadore Hall, D-Compton, is headed to the Senate after passing on a 72-1 vote. Hall introduced the bill after his mother saw replica Confederate money being sold at the state Capitol gift shop, which no longer stocks the item.   Continue reading “California bill bans Confederate flag sales on state property”

The New American – by William F. Jasper

The Nevada cattle rancher in the white cowboy hat and his supporters had massed in defiance of federal policies and agencies that threatened to drive them into extinction. To the cheers of locals, the rancher climbed aboard a Caterpillar bulldozer and plowed open a county road that had been closed by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). Are we talking about Cliven Bundy in 2014? No, the white-hat rancher to whom we are referring was Richard “Dick” Carver, a longtime county commissioner in Nevada’s sprawling and sparsely populated Nye County, and the date was July 4, 1994 — Independence Day, 20 years ago.    Continue reading “Feds vs. the West”