I don't know who came up with or whence it came from but quite frankly I don't care. It's a term generally used by populists and leftists looking to demonize or 'regulate' unfettered capitalism and the free-enterprise system. "Unfettered" capitalism. There's another good for nothing meaningless Marxist phrase.
It's a terrible way of thinking presupposing an all too popular belief among the left that businesses exist for profit strictly by exploiting and gouging.
To think this way is to not understand business and concepts like 'economies of scale' and the idea that prices generally tend to come down over time thanks to efficiencies in production and rising demand.
No company wants to keep prices up for its own sake. They try and follow price signals and go where the demand takes them. If they price themselves out they're out of business because of competitive forces.
Regulation aiming to cap and manage prices only worsen things since it generally slows down entrepreneurial process and natural competition by way of new entrants into a market.
I think there are like, one thousand links for your reading pleasure. I didn't feel like breaking it up into multiple derps.
Lucky you.
Aaaaannnd a-waaaayyyy we go....
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Continent be out of its mind:
"...According to Reuters, finance ministers in France, Germany, Spain and Italy have written a joint letter calling for digital multinationals such as Amazon and Google to be taxed in Europe based on their revenues. “We should no longer accept that these companies do business in Europe while paying minimal amounts of tax to our treasuries,” the four ministers wrote in a letter seen by the news agency." File under: This Won't End Well. *******
Lunatics run the asylum it seems. Berkeley, Yale, Harvard...
All toilet paper degrees.
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Where would we be without Bill Maher to put sexual assault into perspective?
Since he possesses a rather puerile and facile take on religion and libertarianism, why not keep going?
Sooooo, basically Al Franken not the same as Weinstein (and of course Trump) because it's not 'grope-grope'. Take a now Whoopi, your 'it's not rape-rape' is gaining traction with the half-wits!
Funny how they keep on Trump but for 20 + years they kept their hypocritical mouths shut about Bill Clinton. Now they're all so brave pissing on him because Clinton Inc. lost a lot of its political power and can't ruin lives like they used to.
Heroes. All of you. Take a bow.
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Twitter is at it again. Far right they'll close down. Far left? Meh.
I'm not on social media and I invite people who are addicted to it to get off it. It's destroying your IQ and you seeing in the flesh how freedom of speech is always the first casualty among weak and meek minds.
Twitter should be fighting tooth and nail for the right for people to express their views.
Alas, it's easier to not be actually principled but pretend to be.
Not sure why Dan LeBatard thinks it's factually incorrect ESPN is not liberal. It's pretty much an open secret it's on board with the SJW narrative. That he wasn't specifically told doesn't mean it's not happening because it clearly is.
Republicans lead the list. But the leader is Democrat with a whoppingly obscene c. 73 000% change!
/strokes chin.
"...For the first time in history, the majority of America's elected officials in Washington, D.C. are millionaires.[1][2] At the same time, 50 percent of Americans cannot afford to spend $5,000 in an emergency.[3]
The median American citizen[4] saw his or her household net worthdecrease from 2004 to 2012 by an annual rate of -0.94 percent, while members of Congress experienced a median annual increase of 1.55 percent. Congress saw a total increase of $316.5 million in assets held by all members in the study."
"My name is Eric. I’m currently facing years of prison time as the result of accusations made in the most shockingly hateful parts of the internet. " He's a left-wing professor who almost killed a guy by smashing his head with a bike lock. Or we can just go with a 'Retard Alert'. You're a coward and a thug who can't be accountable for your action borne of your own free will, Eric. You deserve what ever justice is meted out to you. *****
An Antifa recruit in all his sublime ignorance.
Love how commies who commit atrocities suddenly become 'right-wing'. Sorta like how they flip - without proof - the factually racist background of the DNC as having migrated to the GOP.
It's all horse shit and further proof of a failed education system.
Jesus fella. The internet is forever!
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No Pope. You have it wrong. The President - any President - has the right to manage immigration as he sees fit.International refugees do not trump national security. Take that crap to Sweden or Germany.
Other than that. Oh, you mean like what plenty of sane people and publications of sound mind and editorial standards - including Assange and Greenwald - have been saying all along?
The city, which is home of the University of Maryland’s main campus and nearly 30,000 residents, is weighing approval of the new measure to let noncitizens cast ballots for mayor and City Council, The Baltimore Sun reported Sunday."
Let me see if I can make sense of this. Aside from questioning a man's decision to even consider going in there given it's deliberately sexist and (I'm guessing) probably against labour laws, the best way to make a point is to discriminate?
Now. If you're predisposed, I suppose, to believe that the pay gap is done on purpose (which isn't the case), then perhaps you may have a point but this simply flies in the face of the reality of the facts. This is not the place to get into why there are pay gaps but the idea that a woman gets paid less to do the same job as a man is false. If two people apply for the same job with a specified salary set up they will get the same salary offer. There have been studies where women get less but the conclusions as to why this happens vary including women not being as confident to asking for more - or a raise for that matter.
Never mind the little biological quirk of women having the most noble and important job of all: Birth. They generally leave the work force and work less hours. Feministis think, fine, we'll just not have children but that too comes with all sorts of unintended consequences because women do want to have children.
The other fact to keep in mind is women athletes who demand to be paid the same as their male counterparts fail to grasp (or just plain ignore) men's sports generate far more revenues that reflect their salaries. In effect, they're demanding someone subsidize their pay because they don't generate the income flow justifying their raise to match men. It's literally wrong.
In any event, you're a rube if you purposefully let yourself be robbed that way by going in there.
All we need is for Trudeau to show up in one of these discriminatory places. Hey, he's a feminist after all.
Speaking of those two incompetents, I don't know, speaking of the Middle-East and Africa, what to make of it anymore. Years of reading about it and I'm still no closer to remotely reaching a reasonable grasp.
The whole Syria thing was just weird. Why Obama insisted, without proof, Assad was the only one engaging in chemical warfare (we know this not true) to the point of arming his enemies who happened to be aligned with ISIS is beyond me. Since Trump reversed this policy, ISIS has been pushed back.
Now go bust up some child molestation rings instead of going after free citizens.
Cowards.
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George Clooney:
We are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood every once in a while. We were the ones who talked about AIDS when it was being whispered. We talked about civil rights when it wasn’t really popular. This Academy, this group of people gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I’m proud to be part of this Academy. I’m proud to be part of this community. I’m proud to be out of touch
Weinstein.
Hollywood: Superficial nitwits who over rate themselves.
"We wrote a Commentary on van Anders (2015) “Beyond Sexual Orientation,” to which we added the title “Fighting the Derpy Science of Sexuality” (2016); regrettably, we did so without adequate research on the term “derpy.” In their response to our Commentary, van Anders and Schudson (2017) call us out for the use of this “ablist slur” in our title."
You know.
You could have just asked me.
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/finger to lips
We wrote a Commentary on van Anders (2015) “Beyond Sexual Orientation,” to which we added the title “Fighting the Derpy Science of Sexuality” (2016); regrettably, we did so without adequate research on the term “derpy.” In their response to our Commentary, van Anders and Schudson (2017) call us out for the use of this “ablist slur” in our title. *****
It's worth noting, on the issue of entitlement, Michelle was given a ceremonial 600k a year job at a hospital to which it's been reported she never showed up to. So crucial was the position and Michelle to the hospital, they eliminated it once the kick back her husband left office.
They're constructing an image of men that is irreal; incongruent to reality.
I know one thing, if Barack is the model she believes we should emulate, I say no thanks.
He's exactly how you don't want men to be in my view.
Everyday Michelle should kneel before her bed and thank God she lives in the United States. Few countries reward dullards like her and her ilk.
IT Staffer for House Democrats Imran Awan. Take a bow.
Debbie has her greasy prints all over it.
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Hey, what did you do to MUH NYT? This makes too much sense. To the logical, the benefits of private financing is obvious. Not so much for others.
Oh, that's more like it. Phew. Speech is violence routine is right up there for their pseudo-intellectual disposition.
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It's good Quebec wants to fight corruption, but unless its institutions are up to the task, UPAC will over step its boundaries as it looks to expand its powers.
The crisis enveloping Quebec’s anti-corruption police following last week’s arrest of a National Assembly member deepened Tuesday as the Speaker of the legislature warned of a threat to democracy.
Addressing the legislature concerning the arrest without charges of Guy Ouellette, Speaker Jacques Chagnon called the situation “intolerable” and said he has not seen anything like it in his 32 years in politics.
“A parliamentarian must enjoy the full freedom to do his job, whatever subject of interest he is pursuing, including the work of the police. He must be able to do it calmly and with peace of mind,” Chagnon said. “Police forces must be accountable to the responsible politicians and to the legislature; if not, the risks of a slide into totalitarianism increase greatly.”
Quick word on Quebec's knack for corruption and the notion that corruption happens everywhere. Indeed it does. But it's here we deemed it enough of a problem to set up an anti-corruption task force. I don't think it was because we're more committed to justice than anywhere else. Rather, it was out of practical necessity. It was just too blatant and in this way, Quebec is indeed the centre of corruption in Canada.
The first step to fixing it (or at least bringing it under more control) is to acknowledge it.
"Hey, Huntington Beach PD: Did we do good in this world by reminding everyone that you still employ a dirty cop who has cost city taxpayers millions of dollars and inflicted death and injuries on innocents? Here's some advice: If you're going to roll with the pigs in the media mud, better learn how to squeal."
They also tend to project their violence onto other ideologies as we see though their bullying of libertarianism.
Recently, an unemployed, socialist anti-Trump man violently attacked Ron Paul and put him in the hospital. What do the left do? They take the opportunity to show case their intellectual short comings by attacking libertarianism. Apparently people with principled notions of private property deserve (literally) a beating if they go against HOAs and 'rules'. So blaming the victim it totes okay within this straw man. Paul is the bad guy.
The assault was alleged to be due to a landscape dispute. Whatever happened to 'when they go low we go high' and 'civil discourse' and all the other empty platitudes the left loves to spew?
And when they do acknowledge it's wrong, it comes with a 'to be sure' clause. GQ now publishes hot political takes too now. Sure why not? I look forward to Anthony Bourdain, Gordon Ramsay or Masterchef enlightening us all with their political options on the Food Network.
Like I often write on this blog, principals over principles when it comes to the progressive outlook.
In any event, tying a dispute between neighbours to ideology is stupid and you're an idiot for engaging in it.
As if these sorts of things happen because of someone's ideology. It happens every single day for endless and countless reasons across the continent.
The U.S. Department of Justice says two Iranian men who worked with someone pardoned by President Barack Obama have been charged with hacking a Vermont software company and stealing software that does aerodynamic analysis and design for bullets and GPS-guided artillery shells.
Court documents say beginning in 2007 the men worked to steal software from American companies with a third person, who was pardoned by Obama last year. The documents say in 2012 they stole software from South Burlington company Arrow Tech Associates by hacking into its computer system and then sold it in Iran.
An indictment of Mohammed Reza Rezakhah and Mohammed Saeed Ajily was announced Monday. Arrest warrants have been issued for the men, who are being sought.
The third person was Nima Golestaneh, who was pardoned by Obama as part of a prisoner swap with Iran."
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Taxes are the price for civilization don't you know?
In other words, they just added someone they merely disagree with. Personally, I don't see a) the need and b) what's so threatening about her.
However, I do agree with the notion the SPLC is extremely dangerous in its antics. Heck, I could be added for merely writing this given their low standards and threshold for such things.
And that includes jerk offs who try and justify it a-la Jack Moore of GQ when he offered the left-wing calculus of Libertarians = assholes = fair game for a beating.
I'm just glad there's a chance here to finally break the monopoly that exists in Hollywood. Just like blogging helped to democratize journalism and show that truth can't be funnelled into a few newspapers or news anchors (much to the chagrin of the gatekeepers and we see how they're lashing out), companies like Netflix give outlets to actors. The more of them, the better since it lessens any grip one person may have. All the power in one person inevitably leads to assholes like Weinstein.
'Nigger', for example, is a word that we're free to use in proper context. We shouldn't over react when it is used to make a point or in some other acceptable capacity.
If you do this, you're just paving a path to hell.
"The cases of misreported or erroneously reported major news stories begin to make you wonder, 'Are the news media just out there to get Trump,'" says W. Joseph Campbell, communications professor at American University and the author of Getting It Wrong: Ten of the Greatest Misreported Stories in American Journalism. "The relationship with the president is very tense and is very strained and very stretched, and probably more stretched than strained than it has been in the recent past." ******
KKK membership is anywhere between 3000 and 6000.
But the BBC felt it necessary to report on this fringe organization on the periphery of American life that no one pays attention to.
And what makes the BBC full of shit is they almost most assuredly know this fact.
If I'm the BBC I'd worry more about the violent left-wing screw balls and violent Islam in the UK. Unless George Soros has them by the balls too.
But hey. BBC, CNN, CBC. All part of the narrative network.
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Hm. This is strange. I had this Douthat Tweet lined up but it has since disappeared. Did he remove it or did the tyrants at Twitter force him to?
I tried to link to it but it says the account was suspended and couldn't find it on his feed.
File under: Why I loathe Twitter reason 99599697.
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One habit Justin has developed is to not answer questions in a forthright and honest manner. He dips, dodges, ducks and dives and isn't particularly good at it.
You want to smack that smirk right off, no?
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Though the growth of his gun club is tied to national politics, Smith is careful to not focus his advocacy on the president or the NRA. He says his toughest critics, so far, have been others in the African-American community, who don’t see a strong correlation between the Second Amendment and a sense of full citizenship.
“I’m trying to let everyone know that you have the right – not the God-given right, but the right as an American – to carry a gun,” says Smith. “We have things to overcome in the black community in terms of what you believe you have a right to do as a citizen.
“My job is to convince people that it is not radical to have a gun ... to protect your family.”
Whenever half wits like Jemele Hill make a preposterous statement it should be challenged at every turn particularly this 'owners own slaves' narrative.
Draymond Green - noted scholar and intellect - even got his licks in.
And you're damn straight they'd better start issuing apologies for their unsubstantiated claims. It's one thing to spew ignorance and quite another to impugn people's names or races with it. If you do, you will be justly challenged and called to cite or back up your argument with FACTS and REASON.
Lines need to be drawn here because pretty soon these millionaire asses are gonna whine about the word 'owner' soon.
The other part about this is it harkens to Marx's economic systems that went from tribal to ownership to slavery to feudalism and to where we're at with capitalism. Of course, he asserts communism will eventually overtake capitalism.
Notice ownership is before slavery.
Is Green, wittingly or otherwise, suggesting we're going backwards?
Journalists continuing to pretend they're objective despite their overt liberalism/progressivism and Democrat leanings points to how disconnected they are - and insulting.
Everyone should let their masks slip once and for all.
Say what you want about Fox but they admit they're conservative and it makes for a better product, more authentic and even competent and responsible.
"...When the Dakota Access Pipeline was approved, that removed $6-7 per barrel of cost from producing oil in the region, which brought more investment and jobs here,” he wrote. “A number of people told me they had felt their livelihood was blocked by the government, but when (Donald) Trump approved the pipeline they felt a sense of hope again. That word ‘hope’ came up many times around this. One person told me the night the pipeline was approved, people lit fireworks and rode trucks with American flags down Main Street to celebrate.
"It's interesting to see this perspective when science overwhelmingly suggests fossil fuels contribute to climate change."
Aside from the smugness of the his comment - cute but don't these people know they're killing the planet because sciencey? - notice how it went from fossil fuels (and greenhouse gases) being the main contributor and with man its biggest threat to 'overwhelming suggests' it 'contributes to climate change. And climate, as we all know, changes. All the time.
Neat trick they got going there.
Shift, shift, move goals posts.
He musta fainted when he heard they celebrated when Trump opened up the pipeline.
So the socialists in Seattle voted for an income tax on the rich.
Swell.
Guess what's gonna happen as it always has for thousands of years?
That's right. They're going to move 'things around' and Seattle is gonna get jack shit.
And then guess what's gonna happen?
They're going to raid and steal from the population not deemed rich. They're coming after you next.
Idiots. “No matter who starts out paying it, everyone will eventually suffer,” foundation CEO Tom McCabe said in the statement, warning that the tax would creep down the income ladder." That's precisely going to happen. "But Sawant insisted her only desire is to “tax the rich,” and Herbold said the legislation has been designed to give the city its best chance in court."
That's exactly what won't happen.
One of the most outrageous things to believe is that taxes are the price to pay for civilization. That's why you hear fools say 'I'd be happy to pay more taxes!" ***** More NYT faux-intellectual nonsense: "Recently I took a friend with only a high school degree to lunch. Insensitively, I led her into a gourmet sandwich shop. Suddenly I saw her face freeze up as she was confronted with sandwiches named “Padrino” and “Pomodoro” and ingredients like soppressata, capicollo and a striata baguette. I quickly asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else and she anxiously nodded yes and we ate Mexican." The douche is strong with this one.
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Even a simple 150th anniversary the Trudeau liberals messed up with all their SJW bull shit.
How a man (and I use the term loosely) like Guevara who sent innocent people to prison looks at himself in the mirror and his family at the dinner table in the eyes is beyond me. He has no soul.
Roma fans are known to have communist, erm, sympathies.
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Another big government story looking to ruin businesses...and lives:
Leaders at the Texas Capitol love to bash what they call out-of-control bureaucrats at city halls and in Washington, D.C., but a recent case pitting the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission against Spec’s Wines, Spirits & Finer Foods looks like state regulatory overreach on steroids.
After an investigation of the state’s largest liquor retailer, the TABC sought to yank permits for all 164 of the company’s stores — which would effectively shut itdown — or hit Spec's with fines of up to $713 million, according to court documents filed last week. The agency also put the company’s expansion plans on ice by freezing Spec’s new permit applications during the three-year probe, records show.
What did Spec’s, a family-run company based in Houston, do to deserve the business equivalent of the death penalty? That’s what a couple of Texas administrative law judges wondered last week.
They poured out the TABC like stale beer in a blunt 151-page ruling. The judges said TABC failed to prove dozens of allegations, rebuked agency lawyers for failing to disclose evidence to their own witness (and the court) and called out the agency for “stacking” charges, a tactic commonly used to pressure defendants into a settlement.
Government agencies like TABC use Mafia-like tactics to get their way.
The cuts proposed by the House Appropriations Committee this week amount to a year's worth of regulations under the Obama administration, said the report from American Action Forum."
Anything that brings CO2 emissions down is good at this point in time. Moreover France will be reducing, not increasing, its dependence on nuclear energy. Meaning that the extra consumption will come from renewables. And the good thing about powering car batteries is that you can do so when there's lots of wind or sun; you don't necessarily need a baseload source of energy."
Sounds, erm, ambitious.
Good luck with that. I bet you they'll invent something better than EV's. In fact, that's the problem with all this tinkering. It absurdly assumes a linear thinking without any room for the inevitable innovation that will take place.
Also.
Nuclear energy is the best route but, well, you know.
Let that sink in. To shut down the beach because of politics is preposterous.
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Let's see here. Turns over rock. Nope. Not white hispanic. Turns over another rock. No. Not a right-wing terrorist. Looks under another rock. La-dee-da. Not white
That people like Obama and other leftists declare something 'fake news' is something we should be highly skeptical, if not suspicious, of.
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Obama's economic thinking in one paragraph:
"...Why did the food stamp program spiral out of control? The Obama administration believed that maximizing handouts would maximize prosperity: “Every $5 in new [food stamp] benefits generates as much as $9 of economic activity.”
"The central issue is solving the problems that people have in their everyday lives. Pace Maureen Dowd, Trump is actually doing that. Sure, everyone she “hangs with hates Trump.” But even as she screams about how “pathetic” and “nuts” Trump is, his administration is moving ahead on the issues that actually matter to people, from immigration and jobs to taxes, health care, and national security.
The Democrats believe that process, sufficiently leavened by the emotion of virtue, is enough to win power. Trump has understood that product matters more than process and that professions of virtue are hollow when unsupported by results."
Robert Naviaux from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine thinks that autism symptoms could be driven by a metabolic dysfunction, causing a breakdown in the communication between the brain, gut, and the immune system at the cellular level.
He attributes this dysfunction to the 'cell danger response' hypothesis, stating that the normal cellular response to injury or stress can sometimes "get stuck", and cause abnormal behaviour that leads to chronic disease.
"When this happens during early child development, it causes autism and many other chronic childhood disorders," says Naviaux.
This abnormal cell danger response could be maintained through purinergic signalling - the cell communication process that involves molecules like adenosine and ATP.
"...Suramin has been around since 1916, and is used in the treatment of the parasitic disease African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness).The first promising results came in pre-clinical mouse studies, when the researcherssuccessfully reversed autism-like symptomswith a single dose of the drug. These studies paved the way to the first human trial, and the results are now in."
"...He also notes that even if suramin itself doesn't turn out to be the right treatment for ASD symptoms, these preliminary results might spark interest in the development of new antipurinergic drugs."
Promising indeed. *****
Break from Derp!
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Back! Hope you took a nice...moving along.
The open defiance we see is not one rooted in principles but in hatred of people who disagree with them. The Constitution means absolutely nothing to them. All they are consumed by is ramming their vision and ideology they mistakenly see as enlightened.
How can they be principled when they're willing to uproot and openly challenge a democratically elected official while using the bureaucracy and media to undermine him? Do they not see they very actions they use can be used against them down the road? How stupid are they?
They want a fight. Many a progressive have arrogantly told me so. 'Fuck them' as one put it.
There's no way to enter a reasoned and rational discussion with them.
“When Trump got into office, white supremacists got more confident, because they have one of their own in the White House,”
For once I'd like a reporter to reply, 'do you have proof?'
You're entitled to your opinion, sure, but to pass it as fact without evidence is plain wrong.
“That’s why you see these rallies happening so often. You didn’t see that very much, before. Racism never really left, but you see so much more of it. This is why athletes kneel.” Again. Citation? *****
He wasn't being misogynistic or disrespecting Williams.
What was ridiculous was her response. That she never played a man somehow diminishes McEnroe's comments is not a rebuttal that negates his point.
Williams serve and forehand may over power women and all around game wouldn't be much of a challenge to a college player let alone one on the pro tour.
I'm glad McEnroe is sticking to his guns and not apologizing. He has nothing to apologize for.
He was right.
And this has nothing to do with Williams and her excellence.