Friday, November 18, 2011

State employee pension systems deliver budget shock

State employee pension systems deliver budget shock - Springfield, IL - The State Journal-Register
Most for university pensions
The university system is the main reason for the increase.
SURS originally expected to need $1.06 billion next year.
Instead it told lawmakers and the governor’s office it needs $1.4 billion, up from $980.5 billion this year.

Detroit's clock striking midnight

Stephen Henderson: Detroit's clock striking midnight Detroit Free Press freep.com
The City of Detroit is running out of money.
Not in the theoretical terms we've imagined for decades, but in literal figures, splayed out over spreadsheets that tell a long story of mismanagement and incompetence, culminating in insolvency.
Cash runs out by April, unless dramatic steps are taken.

Treasury Admits What Everybody Already Knew: Taxpayer Losses On GM Bailout Are Going to be Massive

Treasury Admits What Everybody Already Knew: Taxpayer Losses On GM Bailout Are Going to be Massive - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine
This means that the total hit to taxpayers, who still own about a quarter of the company, could add up to $38.6 billion.
That’s even more that the $34 billion on the outside I had predicted in May.

One in four American women take medication for a mental disorder

One in four American women take medication for a mental disorder Mail Online
More than one in four American women took at least one drug for conditions like anxiety and depression last year, according to an analysis of prescription data.
The report, by pharmacy benefits manager Medco Health Solutions Inc, found the use of drugs for psychiatric and behavioral disorders in all adults rose 22per cent from 2001.

Labor Unions Have 'Occupied' Occupy Wall Street

Labor Unions Have 'Occupied' Occupy Wall Street Business News
"the group has secured visible backing from organized labor. They now have the support of the most powerful organizing group in the country. The home page of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) even helps people to find an OWS location near them so that they can protest".

Bing to lay off 1,000 workers, freeze hiring

Bing to lay off 1,000 workers, freeze hiring Crain's Detroit Business
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing plans to lay off 1,000 city workers, effective Feb. 25, and freeze hiring for all civil service positions.

FuturePundit: Europe Boosting CO2 Emissions With Biofuels Mandate

FuturePundit: Europe Boosting CO2 Emissions With Biofuels Mandate
A new study on greenhouse gas emissions from oil palm plantations has calculated a more than 50% increase in levels of CO2 emissions than previously thought – and warned that the demand for 'green' biofuels could be costing the earth.

Will physician Medicare fees be cut by 27.4% this January?

Will physician Medicare fees be cut by 27.4% this January? Crain's Detroit Business
Fixing the broken physician Medicare fee schedule appears to be too complicated for Washington politicians

AFP: Pentagon successfully tests hypersonic flying bomb

AFP: Pentagon successfully tests hypersonic flying bomb
The Pentagon on Thursday held a successful test flight of a flying bomb that travels faster than the speed of sound and will give military planners the ability to strike targets anywhere in the world in less than a hour.

Shouldn't this be sorta... like... secret...?

Thursday, November 17, 2011

EU says water is not healthy

Express.co.uk - Home of the Daily and Sunday Express UK News :: EU says water is not healthy
In a scarcely believable ­ruling, a panel of experts threw out a claim that regular water consumption is the best way to rehydrate the body.
The bizarre diktat from Brussels has far-reaching implications for member states, including Britain, as no water sold in the EU can now claim to protect against dehydration.

US stealth bombers finally get nuke-nobbling super bomb

US stealth bombers finally get nuke-nobbling super bomb • The Register

You can have the euro or you can have democracy – you can't have both

You can have the euro or you can have democracy – you can't have both – Telegraph Blogs

The New Welfare Swindle

The American Spectator : The New Welfare Swindle
Ever since I moved to the inner city one thing has puzzled me more than any other, and that is how my low-income neighbors get by.
Assuming they aren't doing anything illegal, how do they afford their homes, their meals, their gadgets, their cars?

Medical-Device Companies | Obamacare

Health Care Law Medical-Device Companies Obamacare The Daily Caller
The 2010 law imposed a crippling 10-year, $20 billion tax on revenues — not on profits — earned by companies that make medical devices, such as catheters, artery-clearing stents, scalpels and pacemakers.

Cali to Business: Get Out!

Cali to Business: Get Out! by Steven Malanga, City Journal Autumn 2011
But there was a big “push factor,” too: California’s steepening taxes and ever-thickening snarl of government regulations.
“The tipping point was when someone from the Orange County tax [assessor] wanted to see our facility to tax every piece of equipment I had,”

Beer can helps increase Wi Fi coverage

The next financial crisis will be hellish, and it’s on its way

The next financial crisis will be hellish, and it’s on its way - Yahoo! News
"There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner," says hedge fund legend Mark Mobius, "because we haven't solved any of the things that caused the previous crisis."
We're raising our alert status for the next financial crisis.
We already raised it last week after spreads on U.S. credit default swaps started blowing out.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Rep. West to Media: ‘Stop Being Afraid of This President’ Who ‘Is Destroying This Country’

Rep. West to Media: ‘Stop Being Afraid of This President’ Who ‘Is Destroying This Country’ CNSnews.com
Congressman Allen West (R-Fla.) called on the media to “stop being afraid” of President Barack Obama who is “destroying this country.”

Man Who Killed Mom And Two Daughters In 1989 Executed In Florida

Man Who Killed Mom And Two Daughters In 1989 Executed In Florida Fox News
A U.S. man convicted of killing a woman and her two teenage daughters in June 1989 as the victims returned from a dream vacation to Disney World has been executed.

Read more about this monster and those poor women:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oba_Chandler

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Rebecca Coriam: lost at sea

Rebecca Coriam: lost at sea World news The Guardian
There have been 171 disappearances in total, across all cruise lines, since 2000.

Report: Clinton County man sentenced to 90 days in jail for sexual act with neighbor's horse

man sentenced to 90 days in jail for sexual act with neighbor's horse MLive.com
Surveillance footage captured Mester, who is married, in June walking into his neighbor's horse pasture, standing on an overturned bucket and having some sort of sexual intercourse with a thoroughbred mare

Monday, November 14, 2011

“PIIGS Are Us!” David Walker on Why Americans Can’t Ignore Europe’s Crisis

“PIIGS Are Us!” David Walker on Why Americans Can’t Ignore Europe’s Crisis Daily Ticker - Yahoo! Finance
"Europe is in one of its toughest, perhaps the toughest hour since World War Two," Germany chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday

Maryland | Vandalism

Maryland Vandalism Dan Bongino The Daily Caller
Dan Bongino, a former U.S. Secret Service agent and a Maryland Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, told The Daily Caller that cars belonging to his pregnant wife and three of his staffers were vandalized — and he’s convinced it was a politically motivated attack.

The "peaceful" left.
I'm sure you'll hear more about this on ABC, CBS, NBC etc........yeah right!

Johnny Depp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johnny Depp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Controversy
Comments on U.S.In 2003, Depp's comments about the United States appeared in Germany's Stern magazine: "America is dumb, is something like a dumb puppy that has big teeth — that can bite and hurt you, aggressive."[65]
Although he later asserted that the magazine misquoted him and the quotation was taken out of context, Stern stood by its story, as did CNN.com in its coverage of the interview.
CNN added his remark that he would like his children "to see America as a toy, a broken toy.
Investigate it a little, check it out, get this feeling and then get out."[66]
The July 17, 2006 edition of Newsweek reprinted the "dumb puppy" quotation, verbatim, in the context of a Letter to the Magazine.

Depp has also disagreed with subsequent media reports that he says paint him as a "European wannabe", saying that he likes the anonymity of living in France and his simpler life there.[65]

In 2011, Depp moved back to the U.S., because he said the taxes in France were too high.[67]

Counterforce and Countermeasure: Preparing the Election Battlespace

Counterforce and Countermeasure: Preparing the Election Battlespace Daily Pundit
There are two Occupy movements.
The one that matters is the Marxist hard core that is astroturfing the movement as part of the battlespace preparation for Obama’s reelection campaign.
The second is the much larger outer ring of dupes and useful tools who are genuinely upset over economic issues, but because they view themselves as liberals, they automatically eschew participation in the Tea Parties.

The Marxist organizers are less concerned with what happens to the encampments over the next few weeks than they are with establishing the ability to roll out sizeable numbers of useful tools into the streets as a strategic countermeasure to the much larger Tea Parties, which will begin to make their presence public again as the election draws closer.

They foresee bands of black-masked Occupiers attacking and scattering any legally organized demonstrations the Tea Party may arrange for.
The cops can’t do it, but these new Obama Brown Shirts can, while the cops look the other way.

Heck, it worked perfectly in Madison......cops...."we saw nothink, nothink"....

Don’t You Forget About Me

Don’t You Forget About Me — Cute Overload
Photo: Kitten, December, 2007, Hoi An, VietNam flooding disaster; unknown photographer

25 ways to use Facebook, Twitter & Storify to improve political coverage

25 ways to use Facebook, Twitter & Storify to improve political coverage Poynter

Europe's Financial Crisis is Headed to America

Europe's Financial Crisis is Headed to America - The Daily Beast
So why should Americans care about any of this?
The first reason is that, with American consumers still in the doldrums of deleveraging, the United States badly needs buoyant exports if its economy is to grow at anything other than a miserably low rate.
And despite all the hype about trade with the Chinese, U.S. exports to the European Union are nearly three times larger than to China.

The Objectively Worst Time to Use an iPad as a Camera

The Objectively Worst Time to Use an iPad as a Camera
Although this isn't as grotesque as the MySpace quasi-hooker's self-portraiture, whipping out your iPad as a goofy camera during a wedding is just the worst.
The worst.
This marriage is doomed.

Piggy bankrupt

 NYPOST.com
Piggy bankrupt
Here’s a tale of two worlds -- as far as accountability is concerned. MF Global, the firm that Jon Corzine recklessly steered into bankruptcy, has fired 1,066 employees, many in New York.
Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission finally got around to disciplining eight employees who failed to stop Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. The most severe penalty: One guy got a 30-day suspension and a demotion.

That’s the difference between the real world and government.
In the former, failure has serious consequences.
In government, not so much.