2017-02-28

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The Daily Derp: The Smell Of 2017 Derp

Darn this fake news.

"...In a recent story about President Obama proposing sanctions against Russia for its roll in cyberattacks targeting the United States, CNN grabbed a screenshot of the hacking mini-game from the extremely popular RPG Fallout 4. First spotted by Reddit, the screenshot shows the menacing neon green letters that gamers will instantly recognize as being from the game."

Fake news you can trust!

CNN. Rotten to the core.

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It may be 2017 but there remains much derp.


Nadav Raz ‏@FG_Nadav 9h9 hours ago

@ImInSTL @BostonGlobe Ur being sarcastic, but you obviously don't understand consumer economics and how raising the minimum wage is a net positive in the long run
[in response to a sarcastic comment about not knowing that raising employer costs raises cost of living]
Okay. Why not $20 or $50 or why bother to pay people at all? 
"...These businesses have been living off of us all the years we approved the last minimum wage without cost of living increases. If they are stressed about their jobs, and likely they are, they may have significant health problems. We the people pay Walmart's employees a significant portion of their wages and subsidize their health insurance. Allowing companies to slide all these years has lowered many people's standard of living, including the ones who might have received a raise, but for the fact that wages stayed stagnant because the minimum wage didn't rise. Yes, some businesses will have to rethink how they do things, or whether their business is actually profitable. It was all an illusion anyway if not. Time to end taxpayer funded business. It's not an unintended consequence if the business was never really viable to begin with."
Public education destroyed minds. 
This person has no clue whatsoever about economics and finance. None. Now it would be one thing if it was the opinion of one idiot but the problem is many, many people agree with this moronic take. The last bit is a classic tactic by the left. 'If you can't absorb losses to pay your workers more then you weren't a viable business or a good businessman'. Another variation of this is when excessive regulations kill of business and a bureaucrat says, 'Another will take its place' without considering the damage and loss to the economy by superficially removing a business due to regulation. 
That can't be replaced and the negative impact (which is nearly impossible to calculate) has negative ramifications for the economy. 
This is the logic and mindset of a 10 year-old. 
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Expect the left to double down.
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Philadelphia is run by stupid, arrogant people. They've decided a soda tax is the way to go but when sales collapsed and retails merchants as well as consumers took issue with it, the mayor of that town - some guy named Kinney - did what all statist morons do and blame 'greed' for the results of their own stupidity. 

Of course, low income people will be hurt by this - as is usually the case whenever politicians stick their fat noses in our business through regressive taxes that rarely lead to efficient or desired outcomes.
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Seeing that all the lefties are sooo in love with Alexander Hamilton these days. Here's a quote from Alex:
"A power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will".
But the lefties will gloss over the parts of history they don't like, right?
Right.
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Whenever someone uses the word 'wellness' around you nod, smile, quietly walk out and RUN.

Again, this isn't a genetic counselor writing this, it's a chiropractor. A chiropractor who believes fixing subluxations alters genes.

"...Our ideal circumstance is what we call Pre-Conception Care. This is when parents come to us at least 2 years before conceiving a child to first correct unidentified health issues with them in order to prevent those genes from being passed down. If this time has already passed, our next line of defense is caring for an already pregnant mother where we can ensure they have the healthiest birth possible, to the best of our abilities. We start care with children as young as an hour old through adulthood."

Run like hell.

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Don't kid yourself. Teachers are well compensated. Better than they claim. Sure, it can always be better and there are challenges - as is the case in most if not all industries - but they're afforded a solid wage and living.

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Sports writers can be such self-important dicks with a misplaced sense of righteousness.

I don't give a shit what you think of an athlete personally, I want you to set that aside, do your fucken job as a professional and vote accordingly if they should belong in the Hall of Fame.

And spare me the bull shit because we all know journalists are willing to be lenient or turn a blind eye towards athletes they like.

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Oops.

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Okay, time to erect barriers to entry...NOW!

"In Montreal you can apply for a restaurant permit and get it immediately—that's a problem for me" says David McMillan, a supporter of the restrictions, whose high-end restaurant, Joe Beef, is an intended beneficiary of the ban.

Huh.

"I don't believe in the free market anymore," says restaurateur Carlos Ferreira. "We have to protect the good restaurants."

As if McMillan's comment wasn't full of smug shitness itself, this guy takes it to another level.

Cute.

Free-markets were great for him just until he established himself and (presumably) made himself some money and built up some influence (to crush competitors no less) and then once he achieved it, wants to deny others of the chance.

Quite the selfish and anti-intellectual position right there, Carrrrlos.

These guys want to use to the coercive force of the state to suppress free markers and competition under the guise of 'quality' and other specious notions.

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Obama's legacy.

It still thinks.

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A recounting of his criminal justice reform record. Verdict: He did okay. But could and should have done more.

"Obama writes that "presidents are not private citizens" and thus, when "a viral YouTube video...leads the evening news, incites protests, and drives calls for reform," the commander in chief needs "to be careful about speaking about legal matters before all the facts are in—even if it appears that everyone else in the United States is commenting on them."

Could you believe this guy? I don't think I need to review how he broke his own words on a couple of occasions. When the country needed a statesman they got a lecturer.

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"White House Fingers John McCain As Media Leak; Believes U.S. Senator Eavesdropped on Trump’s Classified Phone"


A most unfortunate choice of title.

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When my solidified he was a terrible leader.

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The virus that could cause obesity.

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Remembering Nick Drake. 

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Western media cheers Al Queda in Syria.

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Question is, will he peddle influence with it like Broom Hilda Hillary did?

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The country that threatens to not allow a democratically elected official into its country - Donald Trump - is poorer than any of its states. 

The UK not OK.

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Rogan and McInnes discuss the SJW argument tactic of being victims.


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Media fact checks should never be treated as final verdicts. 

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Oh look, it's every principled person's favorite partisan poppy-head Krugman stating deficits now matter again.

Next up. Wars are bad again.

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This is a real fucken idiot. Feel sorry for this guy.

Sorta.

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Word of the day: Consociationalism. 

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How the military viewed Obama. Generally, not very favorably: 

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How Brexit was won.

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To be fair, while overall the media did drool over Obama, there were pockets of journalists who did criticize him. But they were a minority and probably were up a big wall of sycophancy. 

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The tolerant, intellectual left. Well, attaching 'intellectual' to MTV might be a tad strong:


Deadbeat.

But par for the course for this shithead.

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Obama sure knows how to talk up his failed Presidency.

He'll attempt to stay ahead of the narrative moving forward to protect his legacy. Since he seems bent on staying in the spotlight, everytime he does he's fair game for further criticism and pushback.

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Here's a story about an apple, Justin and a tree.

How Pierre Trudeau interpreted free speech:  "The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society." 

Shorter Pierre: You have rights right up to the point we say you don't have them. It is entirely up to the state's discretion. Suckers.

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"They may not be familiar with the word abortion, but they can read and understand that "something" kills children," Anderson said in a written ruling issued on Dec. 22.
"Expression of this kind may lead to emotional responses from the various people who make use of public transit and other users of the road, creating a hostile and uncomfortable environment."
CCBR argued that the city's decision infringed on its right to freedom of expression under the charter."
Cute. /tickles Pillsbury Doughman.

It's almost as if they think the government is going to guarantee freedom of expression. 

/Points to plaque that reads:  Pierre's 'reasonable limits'.

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First unintended consequence of the carbon tax?


"Two grieving Alberta families have each been slapped with a $100 carbon tax bill after having a relative cremated, just days after the tax was introduced in that province.
The $100 fee was handwritten on Ed Connon's bill when he paid to cremate his 93-year-old mother, Margaret Connon, who died Jan. 7. The funeral home staff had no explanation for him.
"I said, 'wow.' She just kind of looked at me and I said, 'this doesn't seem right'."
No shit.
No quit your complaining and bow before Gaia and your politico-science masters.

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"The recent U.S. election cycle has intensified the already significant pressure to address border protection and illegal immigration, with similar movements crystallizing in Europe… Concerns about vulnerable borders have been building for years as rapid globalization highlights the need for stronger controls.”

This truly global event will bring together senior law enforcement officials and leading industry experts from Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and USA to discuss how to enhance border security measures around the world."

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Trump's Tweet is a splendid one invoking of Occam's Razor.

have been allowed to run - guilty as hell. They were VERY nice to her. She lost because she campaigned in the wrong states - no enthusiasm!

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"...Ryan's students read A. Breeze Harper, an academic "who argues that vegans of color have been excluded from food movement narratives." Ryan brags that students' personal views "evolve" over the course of the semester."

/Face palm.

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The media is its own worst enemy.

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Horrifically pathetic anti-humanism alert:

Thanks for the education honey on how exactly not to think about life and decency.

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Reason online is losing its mojo since Trump's election but this is a good article on Obama's unilateral interventionism.

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More on Obama...from the Iranian side:

"In addition to Iraq and Afghanistan, the “reluctant warrior” and Noble Peace  Prize winner expanded Bush’s “War on Terror” with major military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. In addition, he involved Special Operation units and private contractors in combat operations in 134 countries – with no UN mandate and certainly no legal justification.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, in 2016 alone, the Obama administration dropped at least 26,171 bombs on many Muslim nations. This means every day last year, the US military blasted combatants, terror leaders, “lieutenants" and civilians overseas with drone strikes. Obama also authorized over 10 times more drone strikes than George Bush, and automatically painted all males of military age in these regions as combatants, making them fair game for remote controlled killing."


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California's political geography. It may not be what you think.

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The ugliest place on earth.

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Originally, it was the Lockean interpretation the Founding Fathers went with. That is, individual inalienable rights come straight from God's authority (and one I subscribe to). Unfortunately, it's Rousseau's 'general will' that prevails today. The version whereby the state has the final say for the 'greater good'.

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Rand Paul proposes Obamacare replacement.

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King Alfred. What a guy!

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Personally, I don't think FT and The Economist are neutral. If there's a story where they have to pick a side, they'll likely lean left; especially FT. As for Reason, they're more to the centre than given credit. 

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I have little sympathy for worker's of an agency that hard grown increasingly aggressive and thuggish (levying fines and destroying businesses) against free people.

"Environmental Protection Agency employees have not accepted Donald Trump's victory and are still "coming to work in tears" more than two months after the election."

Life's a bitch. And then you get Trumped.

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T.C.'s Nugget:

Welcome to America where we love illegal immigration so much we invite you to break our laws!

We, the faux righteous, insist on conflating illegal immigration with anti-immigration because it enhances our virtue signalling!

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Gee, here's a shocker. Liberals most likely to unfriend you over politics.

The tolerant left. It's all good....until you disagree with us.

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Heard someone on sports radio say 'I'm glad Kim Mulkey (Baylor women's basketball coach) said what she said. Atlas we're talking about the subject'.

That's precisely why we must defend freedom of speech. People who want speech laws don't realize what they're asking for. You bludgeon or stunt speech, you don't see legitimate problematic speech above board. Rather, it's driven underground. Sweeping things under the rug don't help anyone lor solve any problems. In fact, they create unnecessary ones. Never mind hate speech laws make criminals of people for their opinions. What I'm seeing out of Europe is obtuse, absurd, and downright preposterous where free speech is concerned. We have nothing to learn from Europe; except to not mimic their authoritarian approach to free speech.

It's anti-intellectual and immoral to ever support hate speech laws. 

Full stop.

As for everyone at Baylor. Just stop talking for now.

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Psychos run the show.

Charges dropped against kid accused of stealing milk cartons.

Dammit I want this animal off the streets! Hear me? Or at least ruin his life!

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What the heck is going on in Philadelphia? They're starting to lead the continent in really bad ideas.

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I may have posted about this already but hey....still good to keep reminding.

"Yet in the past 10 years the Government has spent hundreds of millions supporting the wrong sectors, putting the wrong centres in the wrong locations, and failing to nurture the right ones – those with real commercial potential. Among its die-hard tech favourites in this latest strategy are space, graphene, and unmanned vehicles – none of which are likely to become UK industry leaders of the future.

First, space has often been described as a sector with huge potential – totalling £19bn in turnover by 2020 and 70,000 jobs. In fact, space revenue is rather modest – a few hundred million – which goes into satellites and instrumentation development, with a few lucky firms taking the lion's share."

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Remember Rotherham? You know, the one where Muslims raped a bunch of kids and the police and politicians ignored? 

Yeh well, a couple of those assholes were sentenced. Guess what they shouted in court?

And it wasn't 'we're sorry' or 'fire!'

As for the police and politicians who failed those kids. They should resign. Personally, I'd recommend something more honourable. Think Samurai.

Scumbags for putting politically correctness over the safety of children. Pure piece of shits.

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As usual, the left is projecting and if you look hard enough there's plenty of hypocrisy to go around with regards to Milo - who is neither a Nazi or violent or a racist or whatever else these intolerant left-wing clowns call him.

They conflate 'racism' or 'abuse' with his use of sarcasm to provoke a response. It's the same thing. 
I'd add he's - or any other hated person on the right - not anywhere near as mendacious as the race-baiting, idiots leftists we see in the DNC, or from the likes of Madonna, editors/writers of left-wing rags condoning 'righteous violence' and the sort. In fact, Leslie Jones has been far more unhinged in her violent outbursts while Dunham and Sarah Silverman, have made provocative comments about molestation as well. Didn't Dunham admit to raping her sister? 
So spare me the bull shit that these jerk-off celebrities actually care about 'children'. They care about their narrative.
With Milo, you know what you're getting. With them, you just see their masks of intolerance and faux righteousness slipping.
The attacks on Milo (who is not my cup of tea let it be known lest someone further confuse my defence of his rights with agreeing with him) are direct attacks on freedom of speech and expression.
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"Organizers of the anti-Milo Yiannopoulos demonstration last week at UC Berkeley that ended in $100,000 worth of window-breaking chaos declared it a “stunningly successful” protest — one they’ll happily repeat if the right-wing provocateur tries to return to campus."

There you go. Any questions?

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More on these trouble-making violent thugs here at Reason.


"...In reality, the Nazis didn't show up and the protesters themselves were the only totalitarians in sight. The Black Bloc thugs—"about 150 masked agitators who came onto campus and interrupted an otherwise non-violent protest," says UC-Berkeley—seem to imagine themselves as stars of a Weimar Germany reenactment. In their minds, they march through the streets as the phalanx of the center-left Eiserne Front (or, more likely, the communist Rotfrontkämpferbund), battling their deadly enemies in the Nazi SA between sessions at the beer hall.
But the anti-fascists couldn't find any Nazis at Berkeley. So instead "[t]hey shattered the glass of our Amazon Pickup Center, one of the few places Berkeley students can receive packages without fear of them getting stolen. They created a bonfire of trash in the center of the chaos, picked up barricades to drive through the building's glass walls, set off fireworks, and left a trail of rage-filled destruction in their wake as they stormed the very streets we call home," in the words of a student who saw a peaceful anti-Trump protest hijacked by visitors from 1930.


Oh, and they sold a whole lot of books for Milo, who is less a Nazi than a professional troll and self-promoter who has tied his personal brand to that of Donald Trump."
They're going ghost-Nazi hunting. Like looking for Big Foot.



2017-02-24

The Daily Derp: It's Been Quite A Long Derp

To anyone of sound and sane mind the Democrat party is broken.

From The Intercept:

"The more alarmed one is by the Trump administration, the more one should focus on how to fix the systemic, fundamental sickness of the Democratic Party. That Hillary Clinton won the meaningless popular vote on her way to losing to Donald Trump, and that the singular charisma of Barack Obama kept him popular, have enabled many to ignore just how broken and failed the Democrats are as a national political force."

"...A failed, collapsed party cannot form an effective resistance. Trump did not become president and the Republicans do not dominate virtually all levels of government because there is some sort of massive surge in enthusiasm for right-wing extremism. Quite the contrary: This all happened because the Democrats are perceived — with good reason — to be out of touch, artificial, talking points-spouting automatons who serve Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the agenda of endless war, led by millionaires and funded by oligarchs to do the least amount possible for ordinary, powerless citizens while still keeping their votes."

In sum, demanding that one refrain from critiquing the Democratic Party in order to exclusively denounce Trump over and over is akin to demanding that one single-mindedly denounce cancer without worrying about who the treating doctor is or what type of research is being conducted to cure it. Trump happened because the Democrats failed. And he and similar (or worse) phenomena will continue to happen until they are fixed.


Wasserman Schultz was replaced as DNC chair on an interim basis by longtime party operative Donna Brazile, who was quickly engulfed by her own scandal when she got caught secretly passing CNN debate questions to the Clinton campaign, then repeatedly lying about it by denying it and insinuating the emails were forged by the Russians. For that misconduct, CNN fired her, as anchor Jake Tapper denounced her cheating as “horrifying” and CNN said it made the network “completely uncomfortable.”
"...But Brazile continues to this day to run the DNC. Think about that: Her behavior was so unethical, dishonest, and corrupt that Jeff Zucker-led CNN denounced it and publicly disassociated itself from her. But the DNC seems perfectly comfortable having her continue to lead the party until the next chair is chosen.
"...Perhaps worse than the serial cheating itself was that it was all in service of coronating a candidate who — as many of us tried to warn at the time — all empirical data showed was the most vulnerable to lose to Donald Trump. So the very same people who bear the blame for Trump’s presidency — by cheating to elevate the candidate most likely to lose to him — continue to dominate the Democratic Party. To describe the situation is to demonstrate the urgency of debating and fixing it, rather than ignoring it in the name of talking only about Trump..."
"...So in Tom Perez’s conduct, one sees the mentality and posture that has shaped the Democratic Party: a defense of jobs-killing free trade agreements that big corporate funders love; an inability to speak plainly, without desperately clinging to focus-group, talking-points scripts; a petrified fear of addressing controversial issues even (especially) when they involve severe human rights violations by allies; a religious-like commitment never to offend rich donors; and a limitless willingness to publicly abase oneself in pursuit of power by submitting to an apology ritual for having told the truth."
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Learn the government lingo. 
"X = extortion; Y = taxation
X = robbery; Y = taxation
X = unjust (and often pointless or destructive) compulsion of innocent persons; Y = regulation
X = kidnapping; Y = imprisonment of persons convicted of [victimless] crimes
X = torture; Y = enhanced interrogation techniques
X = imperialism; Y = global peacekeeping operations
X = spying on citizens without cause; Y = homeland security operations"
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What an insufferable dick Bernie Sanders is. Here's the thing; the skinny. If you're gonna be an asshole about something (i.e. business) you should at least have, you know, a fucken clue by having been a business owner before your sprout off bull shit showcasing your ignorance you parasite.
Will someone find the cure for progressivism already? Please!
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Meanwhile, back in Norway. Just what are those superior Scandy-navians up to these days?

"...Extra security measure have been enforced by a city council in Norway after the announcement a transit centre for refugees in set to open nearby.
Scared parents insisted on better measures to keep their children safe after horror stories of girls being raped and abused by migrants across Europe have emerged.
The migrant centre will open just a few hundred meters from Lysaker School in Bærum. 
At a public meeting parents said their community was under threat and security 'compromised' by the decision to place the centre near the school."
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What does 50 grand buy you anyway? And just what the goopy-loopy-dope are these nutty professors up to? 
"Several college professors picked apart Jane Austen, who would have turned 200 years old this year. In a packed room full of female attendees at the Modern Language Association (MLA), the professors criticized Jane Austen’s “whiteness” in her writing and how post-Trump, people can turn to Austen’s readings to escape from reality.
Mary Favret, an English professor at Johns Hopkins University, directed her remarks at four main points:
  1. When and how Jane Austen comforted whiteness?
  2. Is Jane Austen taught in HBCUs?
  3. Was there an influence on black writers?
  4. Can we read Jane Austen alongside authors of color?"
Ah. Got it.

Intellectualism you can believe in!

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"President Obama has issued a form of executive action known as the presidential memorandum more often than any other president in history — using it to take unilateral action even as he has signed fewer executive orders.
When these two forms of directives are taken together, Obama is on track to take more high-level executive actions than any president since Harry Truman battled the "Do Nothing Congress" almost seven decades ago, according to a USA TODAY review of presidential documents."
But Trump!

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"While the punditocracy whipped itself into a justifiable if ritual lather over another Ottawa bailout of Bombardier, the $372-million loan is small change compared with the multi-billion-dollar green electric power fiascos across the country.
A rough tally of the ballooning financial plight of the electricity sectors in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Newfoundland quickly runs to more than $50 billion in new debt and imbedded costs for investments that threaten to be money-losing drags on growth and consumers — and the federal government —for years to come.
The looming disasters have two things in common. They are the work of government-controlled and politically manipulated Crown corporations. They are also the product of a deliberate push to produce clean, green and renewable carbon-free electricity. No fossil fuels allowed. Money is no object."

Hey Canadians, next time you feel the urge to bash the '1%' for your eroding wealth or perceived unfairness just remember this. THIS is the source if our problems: Cronyism. And you're not invited.

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Ever wonder why the official color for Italian auto racing is red, green for British racing and a blue/ white stripe combination for USA racing?


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Dependence on government index from Heritage.

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Sarah Silverman is an idiot. 

Apparently, Twitter is okay with this sort of stupidity and 'intellectual fakeness' but will block Sargon.

Here's hoping to Twitter going by way of the Do-Do bird. Any organization that treats freedom of speech this way; that is with a poorly thought out, faux righteous double standard, deserves whatever ill-fate it gets.

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If you don't get unalienable rights you lost the plot.


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Sales of Orwell's 1984 has gone up since Trump's election. Somehow I think they're going to manage to miss the entire point. 1984 is a world that would exist if progressivism reaches its final destination. We've been on a path to 1984 since the birth of progressivism. Even when I read it the the first time as a teenager I figured it out it depicted a left-wing world more than a conservative one.

Just the mere fact they think a dystopian Orwellian world comes out of ONE election shows how shallow their understanding of history really is.

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11 examples of how Obama's rhetoric made discourse less civil.

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Intolerant gays? I don't believe it! /sarc.


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Nice article from Reason about Trump. Reason is hardly on the Trump band wagon but they still are able to offer more sober and intelligent takes on him.

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The public school battle map in the USA.

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"...In 2011, for instance, coop members were caught paying other people — notably their nannies — to take over their 2-hour-per-week shifts at the market. As it turned out, the well-heeled bankers and lawyers and psychiatrists in the neighborhood who bill several hundred dollars an hour for their time didn’t think rearranging the broccoli was worth it.
Which is not exactly shocking. It happens to most socialist utopias, eventually. In a 2002 article in Commentary called “Socialism’s Last Stand,” Joshua Muravchik describes how even the socialism of the Israeli kibbutzim has had to succumb to this logic. “These days, Thai immigrants work in . . . fields, and Arabs clean the hotel guestrooms and serve the meals.”
It’s not that rich or middle-class people will always pay someone else to do their manual labor. Some people like cooking dinner for their families or planting their own gardens. But very few people — even when offered good produce in return — would choose to spend their spare hours working in a supermarket. Not even the virtue-signaling that comes with belonging to the coop could make up for time spent keeping the parsley properly watered.
But this is part of the problem with socialism. Most people aren’t looking to live out Karl Marx’s vision “where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity,” but everyone can “hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner.”
People who aspire to be lawyers want to be lawyers and want to be paid accordingly. They don’t want to fish for their dinners after work.
It’s not only the basic misunderstanding of human nature that makes socialism a problem. It’s also all the self-dealing and the corruption.
One of the trustees of the pension fund was a friend and investment adviser of President Barack Obama. A coop member asked in the organization’s newsletter: “I am curious why and how we have a relationship with him. It certainly isn’t because there’s a dearth of financial acumen in New York City.” No kidding."

No kidding indeed.

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