Friday, December 28, 2012

Taxpayer-Funded Stadiums a Lose-Lose Proposition

Taxpayer-Funded Stadiums a Lose-Lose Proposition [Michigan Capitol Confidential]
Flashy projects have not helped the city in the past. Remember the Renaissance Center, which was supposed to “anchor Detroit’s revival”?
How about the money taxpayers put up for the stadiums for the Detroit Lions and Detroit Tigers?
State and local citizens are still subsidizing the local teams.

Michigan Makes It Illegal To Ask For Employees' Facebook Logins

Michigan Makes It Illegal To Ask For Employees' Facebook Logins - Slashdot:
 ""Michigan joins Maryland as a state where employers may not ask employees or job applicants to divulge login information for Facebook and other social media sites.
From the article: 'Under the law, employers cannot discipline employees or decline to hire job applicants because they do not give them access information, including user names, passwords, login information, or "other security information that protects access to a personal internet account," according to the bill.
Universities and schools cannot discipline or fail to admit students if they do not give similar information.'
There is one exception, however: 'However, accounts owned by a company or educational institution, such as e-mail, can be requested.'""

Citizens claims about cold, unheated Muskegon County Jail are false, sheriff says

Citizens claims about cold, unheated Muskegon County Jail are false, sheriff says | MLive.com
“It isn’t like we have a thermostat and can just dial it up. We run on a boiler and it takes a while for the boiler to increase its temperature,” he said.
“It has to circulate through the whole facility and it's against the law to use space heaters.”

Chicago reaches 500 homicides with fatal shooting

Chicago reaches 500 homicides with fatal shooting - Yahoo! News
Chicago has logged its 500th homicide of 2012.
The last time the city reached the 500-homicide mark was in 2008, when the year ended with 512 killings.
Last year, city records show Chicago had 435 homicides.

Oil-rich UAE backs Matt Damon anti-fracking film Promised Lan

Oil-rich UAE backs Matt Damon anti-fracking film Promised Lan - Investors.com:

Bob Hope Christmas

Bob Hope Christmas
Bob Hope was without a doubt one of the greatest entertainers of all time.
A wonderful look at some special moments Bob spent with the troops during his many Christmas performances.
Thank You to all the Veterans that ever spent a Christmas away from their family and to Bob Hope for spending his with them.

Grab a hankie and love this great patriot.

Obama Claus Gives You 90 More Days To Collect Your $50,000 Reparations Check

Obama Claus Gives You 90 More Days To Collect Your $50,000 Reparations Check
Circle March 25, 2013 on your calendar.
That's the last day you can submit your claim form from this official U.S. government website to collect fifty thousand tax-free American dollars, courtesy of the Obama administration in its current multi-billion giveaway scheme.
No, you don't need a potted plant and you don't even to be black or even Hispanic; as long as you are a woman (or related to one) and you fill out the forms correctly, you can collect the money because nobody will verify your information.

URGENT UPDATE on Connecticut Shooting

URGENT UPDATE on Connecticut Shooting « Short Little Rebel
I looked at my husband and said, “Cal, this thing is starting to stink.
By now, there should be many eye-witness accounts of the actual gunman.
 There should be breathless survivors talking about how this guy walked by their room, etc.
About how they narrowly escaped.
But so far, it looks like every single eye-witness is dead.
That is IMPOSSIBLE!”

HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA?

Instapundit » Blog Archive » HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA?
AFRICA IN CRISIS: U.S. Abandons Embassy, France Won’t Intervene.
“The last time the U.S. abandoned an embassy?
Syria.”

According to a State Department spokesperson, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was unable to comment, because “she fell and twisted her cankle.”

UPDATE: Related: NPR Covering For Hillary on Benghazi.
In a story by Michelle Kelemen, with an assist from Aaron David Miller, vice president of the of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Union, fired teachers sue Chicago for racial discrimination

Union, fired teachers sue Chicago for racial discrimination | The Daily Caller
Robin Potter, an attorney for CTU, said in a statement that the city’s policies run afoul of those laws by primarily impacting black faculty and staff.
“We’re now at a crossroads in Chicago. …
The racial impact of the policies and practices of this Board of Education have devastated the African-American teaching force in that community,” she said in the statement.
The suit, which seeks class-action status, was filed on behalf of all black teachers who lost their jobs in June 2010 because of turnaround restructuring.

Kenyan economics expert: Development aid is one reason for Africa’s problems, so for ‘God’s sake, please just stop’

Kenyan economics expert: Development aid is one reason for Africa’s problems, so for ‘God’s sake, please just stop’ | AEIdeas

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. I
f the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid.
The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape.
Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.
SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?
Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent.
In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need.
As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa’s problems.
If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn’t even notice.
Only the functionaries would be hard hit.
Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

25 Awe-Inspiring Photos from 2012

25 Awe-Inspiring Photos from 2012 - SKYE on AOL

Mission4Today -Photo Galleries › WWII Aircraft Photo's › USA

Mission4Today › ForumsPro › R & R Forums › Photo Galleries › WWII Aircraft Photo's › USA

Obama Orders Raise for Biden, Members of Congress, Federal Workers

Obama Orders Raise for Biden, Members of Congress, Federal Workers | The Weekly Standard

Taxes by State

Taxes by State: Kansas to New Mexico: Taxes by State

Layoffs to substantially shrink Huron Twp.'s police department.

Layoffs to substantially shrink Huron Twp.'s police department. - Detroit | Frrole

Detroit's homicide rate nears highest in 2 decades

Detroit's homicide rate nears highest in 2 decades | City of Detroit | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Molon labe

Molon labe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The phrase was reportedly the defiant response of King Leonidas I of Sparta to Xerxes I of Persia when asked to lay down their arms and surrender, at the onset of the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC).

....The motto ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ is on the emblem of the Greek First Army Corps,[4] and is also the motto of United States Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT).[5]
The expression "Come and take it" was a slogan in the Texas Revolution

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Lookback: Businessman appeals to President Harry S. Truman on Christmas to relieve Mona Lake flooding

Lookback: Businessman appeals to President Harry S. Truman on Christmas to relieve Mona Lake flooding | MLive.com
Worse was yet to come as the area suffered through one of its 20 coldest winters since 1895.

Proof of global warming!

5 things you might have missed from the Michigan Legislature in 2012

5 things you might have missed from the Michigan Legislature in 2012 | Crain's Detroit Business

People are Buying Guns and Ammunition for a Reason

Blog: People are Buying Guns and Ammunition for a Reason
Police response time to a 911 call is roughly 8 minutes, but making that call may attract the intruder's attention.
There are other sounds that are sure to get his attention as well.
For instance, there's the sound that a 12 gauge pump shotgun makes when you chamber a round

Half the Facts You Know Are Probably Wrong

Half the Facts You Know Are Probably Wrong - Reason.com
Since knowledge is still growing at an impressively rapid pace, it should not be surprising that many facts people learned in school have been overturned and are now out of date.
But at what rate do former facts disappear?

Monday, December 24, 2012

Study: Women with large breasts are smarter

Study: Women with large breasts are smarter - by Terrence Aym - Helium
A study by a Chicago university sociologist of 1,200 women found that large-breasted women tend to have higher intelligence.
The study divided the women into five groups ranging from virtually flat-chested to extra-large breasts.
The results revealed that the big-breasted women had an overall higher I.Q.—about 10 points—than the lesser endowed members of the study.
Women with average-sized breasts also beat out those that were in the smallest size group.

Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia - The Daily Beast
Europe's fiscal crisis keeps developing in completely unexpected ways.
The only thing that's really predictible is that the solutions will cost more, and work less well, then even the pessimists project.

171 pounds, a pear-shaped body and a taste for beefsteak: Meet Elsie Scheel, the Cornell student declared 1912's perfect woman

171 pounds, a pear-shaped body and a taste for beefsteak: Meet Elsie Scheel, the Cornell student declared 1912's perfect woman | Mail Online
A series of articles in 1912 and early 1913 saw Brooklyn-born Cornell student Elsie Scheel, 24, hailed 'the most nearly perfect physical specimen of womanhood'.
The 24-year-old, who was selected by university medical examiner Dr Esther Parker from a group of over 400 women, was described by the New York Times as 'a light-haired, blue-eyed girl whose very presence bespeaks perfect health.'
'I have eaten only what I wanted and when I wanted it'

A Failure to Communicate: The GOP’s Public Relations Debacle

Roger L. Simon » A Failure to Communicate: The GOP’s Public Relations Debacle
What is the cause of this debacle? Largely this: Republicans, conservatives… the whole list above… do not know how to talk to the broad spectrum of the American people outside their choir.
Republicans are not just bad at public relations.
They’re disastrous at it.

How The Welfare State Stole Christmas

How The Welfare State Stole Christmas - Forbes
Now pause for a second on what that money buys you.
For many of us, that $75 buys us a lifetime of joyful memories.
Aren’t some of your happiest recollections decorating the Christmas tree with your family?
Yeah, ours too.
With that in mind, let’s restate Peck’s proposition: Let’s have the government seize $75 of the income you worked for and would use to create lasting memories for you and your family, and transfer it (minus transaction costs) to people you don’t know, and might not approve of if you knew.

Christmas message written in sky above Lakemba Mosque in response to fatwa claims

Christmas message written in sky above Lakemba Mosque in response to fatwa claims | adelaidenow
The sky message comes after an Imam at Australia's biggest mosque reportedly issued a fatwa against Christmas, warning followers it is a ''sin'' to even wish people a Merry Christmas.

- Bishop Hill blog

- Bishop Hill blog