A major company is pulling its products from Philly stores because of the city’s ‘soda tax’ – TheBlaze

A major company is pulling its products from Philly stores because of the city’s ‘soda tax’ – TheBlaze
"Regulating health, it turns out, comes with a cost. 
PepsiCo is halting sales of its six-packs and two-liter bottles in Philadelphia, citing the city’s controversial “soda tax.”

In January, the city implemented its new soda tax, which added 1.5 cents per ounce. 
It should be noted, too, that the tax is imposed on all “sugary drinks,” and to include those that are artificially sweetened. 
Naturally, that cost is being passed to the consumers, though Democrats are accusing beverage companies of “gouging” their customers in hopes of frustrating them about the cost.

But the reality is, without increasing the sticker price, the company would have to swallow the cost. 

So instead of dealing with all this mess, Pepsi has just decided to cut its losses. 

“Because of the Philly beverage tax, people are buying far fewer taxed beverages, particularly those in larger package sizes because they now cost so much more,” Maria Koutsouradis, of Bell’s Market in Rhawnhurst, told WPVI-TV..."

FLASHBACK: Networks Didn’t Give a Damn When Red China Helped Clinton Win in ’96

FLASHBACK: Networks Didn’t Give a Damn When Red China Helped Clinton Win in ’96:

"Back in 1996, China helped then-President Bill Clinton get re-elected by funneling money to the Clinton campaign. During Clinton’s re-election campaign against Republican Bob Dole, the Chinese Red Army (via fundraiser Johnny Chung) donated $300,000 to the Clinton campaign. After Clinton won, his administration quietly approved the export of key technology that aided China’s ballistic missile program.  "

Trump's shockingly wise strategy on Chinese cars

Trump's shockingly wise strategy on Chinese cars
"It sounds like President Trump is about to pick a trade fight with China over cars.
Axios reported that when he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping next month, Trump is likely to raise a stink over how American automobile exports to China are treated compared to Chinese imports.
And to be perfectly honest, Trump's demands sound pretty reasonable.
First, the background:
Under World Trade Organization rules, China still qualifies as a developing country. 
So it gets to levy higher tariffs on its imports compared to developed countries like America.
Chinese tariffs on manufactured items like cars can be especially high, often as much as 25 percent. Meanwhile, automakers in other countries exporting to the U.S. pay just 2.5 percent.
A Jeep Wrangler manufactured in Ohio, for instance, will cost $40,530 in America — but $71,000 in China.
But there's a second wrinkle:
One thing automakers in other countries — including American companies like Ford, GM, and Chrysler — will do to get around China's tariffs is just build their manufacturing plants in China, then sell directly to the Chinese market.
But Chinese law requires that Chinese companies must have at least a 50 percent ownership stake in any venture within its borders.
...Add it all up, and less than 5 percent of the cars sold in China are imported from other countries..."

What Fake Hate Crimes Reveal About the Left’s Bubble - Acculturated

What Fake Hate Crimes Reveal About the Left’s Bubble - Acculturated:
"After fumbling around in court for nearly three months, Michigan resident Halley Bass admitted recently to faking a hate crime against herself in November, following Donald Trump’s surprise presidential victory.
Bass claimed that a middle-aged white man had attacked her with a safety pin in an alleyway near a downtown Ann Arbor movie theater.
Since she was wearing an anti-Brexit solidarity pin at the time, she told the police that she believed the man had slashed at her because her pin indicated she did not support Trump.
Although it was later revealed that Bass has mental disorders and fabricated the incident to hide the fact that she had scratched herself, fake hate crimes have become common in the wake of Trump’s presidential victory.
Several other incidents occurred in Ann Arbor alone—which is home to the University of Michigan—most notably that of a female Muslim college student who claimed a man had threatened to set her hijab on fire if she did not take it off. Police later determined that this, too, was a hoax.
In an even more recent incident, a Muslim man made false bomb threats against Muslim students at Concordia University in Montreal on March 2.
...The tendency for humans to build self-centered worlds is as old as pride itself.
Especially since the Trump election—an unpleasant reality for many Americans—half of the country seems to be terrified of anything that might threaten their personal Xanadus.
Cries of “Fake news!” and “Resist!” and “Not my president!” are oddly reassuring to those who make them, of course, giving them a sense of camaraderie and purpose, but they also highlight how displaced from each other we have become..."

Lunch video-----Remembering Robert Bork: Conservative, Supreme Court Nominee

Noon-toon

PA School District To Teenage Boy: Undress In Front Of Girls And Make It 'Natural' | Daily Wire

PA School District To Teenage Boy: Undress In Front Of Girls And Make It 'Natural' | Daily Wire:

"Pennsylvania school district told a teenage boy that if a teenage girl is in the locker room with him, he should “tolerate” undressing in front of her and make it as “natural” as possible."

Edukatin ur kidz----------Five Maps That Will Change How You See the World | RealClearScience

Five Maps That Will Change How You See the World | RealClearScience:
"Boston public schools recently announced that they will shift to using world maps based on the Peters projection, reportedly the first time a US public school district has done so.
Why?
Because the Peters projection accurately shows different countries’ relative sizes.
Although it distorts countries’ shapes, this way of drawing a world map avoids exaggerating the size of developed nations in Europe and North America and reducing the size of less developed countries in Asia, Africa and South America. "

HARDOCP - Rail Gun Goodness From Every Angle

HARDOCP - Rail Gun Goodness From Every Angle:
The Naval Surface Warfare Center just released a video showcasing their fully operational railgun system. 
BAE's Electromagnetic Railgun can send a canister of hate towards a target at a blistering 4,600 MPH. If said target is another ship... Let's just say that living things in pressurized compartments don't react well to instant decompression.

"Between enormous energy requirements, and non-explosive shells that offer limited in-air guidance, electromagnetic weapons are proving a bit unpractical compared to some of the conventional alternatives. At least for now."

The railgun has a long way to go. Here's to eventually seeing all of our Battle-Tech and Macross dreams come true.

Too important to cut!!-----Better Managed Moose Get $203k From 'Critical' Great Lakes Funds [Michigan Capitol Confidential]

Better Managed Moose Get $203k From 'Critical' Great Lakes Funds [Michigan Capitol Confidential]:
"The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative gave $203,874 in 2014 for Indian reservations in Minnesota “to evaluate moose and deer use of habitat sites designed and managed for the benefit of moose.”
President Donald Trump's budget proposes cutting 97 percent of the spending covered under the grant program, which defenders have called critical."

WATCH: Defender Of Israel Blisters Arab States Into Silence At U.N. Human Rights Council: 'Where Are Your Jews?' | Daily Wire

WATCH: Defender Of Israel Blisters Arab States Into Silence At U.N. Human Rights Council: 'Where Are Your Jews?' | Daily Wire:

"March 20, the U.N. Human Rights met to consider yet another item condemning Israel. Hillel Neuer of UN Watch, furious that Arab state after Arab state viciously accused Israel of apartheid tactics, blistered them into utter silence as he pointed out that it was the Arab states that practiced apartheid, snapping to each Arab state: “Where are your Jews?”

Before Neuer fired off his attack, the Palestinian representative stated, “Israel has used the worst kind of abuse … ethnic cleansing and imposing a regime of apartheid.” Forget the fact that roughly 20 percent of Israel’s population is Arab."

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Foreign Students Say U.S. High School Classes Are Absurdly Easy...

Instapundit » Blog Archive » K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Foreign Students Say U.S. High School Classes Are Absurdly Easy. When the…:
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Foreign Students Say U.S. High School Classes Are Absurdly Easy.

When the Brookings Institution’s Brown Center on Education Policy surveyed foreign exchange students studying in the U.S. in 2001, it found that they thought that American education was a cake walk compared to secondary education in their home countries. And when it conducted the survey again in 2016, it found that exchange students thought that U.S. education was even less challenging than before. . . .

Foreign exchange students’ perceptions of U.S. education clearly depends on their own educational background and their school placement.

 Students placed in underperforming Chicago schools, for example, are more likely to say that U.S. education is easier compared with foreign students placed at top-tier high schools in upper-middle class university towns.

The study doesn’t offer details about these alternative variables that might offer a more granular account of where U.S. schools are succeeding and failing; nonetheless, the overall picture—that teenagers from abroad overwhelmingly think that American schools demand less of them than schools in their home countries—is not exactly a ringing endorsement of this country’s educational establishment.

Well, our educational establishment — like most of our establishments these days, really — sucks."

AM Fruitcake

History for March 26

History for March 26 - On-This-Day.com:
William C. Westmoreland 1914 - U.S. Army general, Strother Martin 1919 - Actor, Leonard Nimoy 1931 - Actor ("Star Trek")


James Caan 1939 - Actor, Bob Woodward 1943 - Journalist, Diana Ross 1944 - Singer


1910 - The U.S. Congress passed an amendment to the 1907 Immigration Act that barred criminals, paupers, anarchists and carriers of disease from settling in the U.S.


1942 - The Germans began sending Jews to Auschwitz in Poland.


1953 - Dr. Jonas Salk announced a new vaccine that would prevent poliomyelitis.


1995 - Seven of the 15 European Union states abolished border controls.

1996 - The International Monetary Fund approved a $10.2 billion loan for Russia to help the country transform its economy.

1997 - The 39 bodies of Heaven's Gate members are found in a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, CA. The group had committed suicide thinking that they would be picked up by a spaceship following behind the comet Hale-Bopp.


1999 - In Michigan, Dr. Jack Kevorkian was convicted of second-degree murder for giving a terminally ill man a lethal injection and putting it all on videotape on September 17, 1998 for "60 Minutes."


2000 - In Russia, acting President Vladimir Putin was elected president outright. He won a sufficient number of votes to avoid a runoff election.

Male Physical Decline: Masculinity Is Threatened | National Review

Male Physical Decline: Masculinity Is Threatened | National Review:

"Our culture strips its young men of their created purpose and then wonders why they struggle. It wonders why men — who are built to be distinctive from women — flail in modern schools and workplaces designed from the ground-up for the feminine experience. Men were meant to be strong. Yet we excuse and enable their weakness. It’s but one marker of cultural decay, to be sure, but it’s a telling marker indeed. There is no virtue in physical decline."