Thursday, February 19, 2015

Fox News Producer Quizzes Beachgoers on Basic U.S. History, Gets Some Very Wrong Answers in Return

Fox News Producer Quizzes Beachgoers on Basic U.S. History, Gets Some Very Wrong Answers in Return | Video | TheBlaze.com:
"For President’s Day, a Fox News producer took to the beaches of Malibu, California, to quiz individuals on basic American history — and the answers he received in return were at times shockingly wrong.
“What does the ‘F’ in John F. Kennedy stand for?” Jesse Watters, a producer for the “O’Reilly Factor,” asked a pair of women."



Pot shot: Scientists hone in on 'munchies' mystery

Pot shot: Scientists hone in on 'munchies' mystery - Yahoo News:
"Paris (AFP) - People who empty the refrigerator after smoking cannabis can blame their cravings on brain cells that normally suppress appetite, a study published on Wednesday said.
Researchers using genetically-modified mice pinpointed circuitry in the hypothalamus used by the active ingredient in cannabis to cause the "munchies..."

Photographer takes our breath away with time-lapse travel

Photographer takes our breath away with time-lapse travel | Cult of Mac:
"When camera companies began putting a “record” button on DSLRs, things got really interesting for Rob Whitworth.
Is he a photographer or a filmmaker?
The ambiguity about his work description does not matter for anyone who has taken a heart-racing, stomach-dropping ride through his time-lapse videos.
In his latest, Dubai Flow Motion, viewers will feel shot out of a canon for a three-minute hectic but thorough tour of this sparkling Middle East city.
Whitworth’s camera will take you up the tallest skyscraper, send you blasting through its floors to see rooms teeming with life and send you crashing into the sea."

History for February 19



History for February 19 - On-This-Day.com
Nicolas Copernicus (Mikolaj Kopernick) 1473 - Polish astronomer, known for the Copernican theory: the sun is the center of our universe , Carson McCullers 1917 - Author ("The Member of the Wedding", "Reflections in a Golden Eye"), Lee Marvin 1924 - Actor ("The Caine Mutiny", "The Dirty Dozen", "Delta Force") 


Smokey Robinson 1940 - Singer (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles), Lou Christie (Lugee Alfredo Giovanni Sacco) 1943 - Singer, Jeff Daniels 1955 - Actor ("The Purple Rose of Cairo", "Terms of Endearment") 


1856 - The tintype camera was patented by Professor Hamilton L. Smith. 


1878 - Thomas Alva Edison patented a music player (the phonograph). 


1942 - U.S. President Roosevelt signed an executive order giving the military the authority to relocate and intern Japanese-Americans. 


1945 - During World War II, about 30,000 U.S. Marines landed on Iwo Jima. 


1985 - Cherry Coke was introduced by the Coca-Cola Company. 


1986 - The U.S. Senate approved a treaty outlawing genocide. The pact had been submitted 37 years earlier for ratification. 
 




1986 - The Soviet Union launched the Mir space station. 


1987 - A controversial, anti-smoking publice service announcement aired for the first time on television. Yul Brynner filmed the ad shortly before dying of lung cancer. Brynner made it clear in the ad that he would have died from cigarette smoking before ad aired. 


2004 - Former Enron Corp. chief executive Jeffrey Skilling was charged with fraud, insider trading and other crimes in connection with the energy trader's collapse. Skilling was later convicted and sentenced to more than 24 years in prison. 

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Intel: ISIS planning attacks on U.S. soil

Intel: ISIS planning attacks on U.S. soil:

"Some of the information indicates the new offensive will not be limited to the Arab world. Timed to coincide with its planned surge, ISIS is plotting possible attacks using cells abroad.

ISIS and its jihadist allies could activate cells to carry attacks in Europe and possibly within the U.S., the senior Egyptian official warned.

The official advocated the deployment of significant ground troops acting on multiple fronts to stop ISIS’ progression. He complained the Obama administration and international community has been hesitant to take major action against ISIS advances."

Democrats Confronted by Subsidy Lie - The Rush Limbaugh Show

Democrats Confronted by Subsidy Lie - The Rush Limbaugh Show:

"They discovered that their tax refunds would be withheld, all or in part, in order to satisfy the debt they owe for not having insurance. These people had no clue this was even a part of Obamacare, because the people that did know about it, the Democrats and the media, didn't tell anybody. The Republicans were trying to, but they couldn't get the word out, other than places like this. You knew, and probably a majority of Americans, but Democrat voters didn't know."

Michigan sales tax increase backers raise $3.2M, mostly from road builders

Michigan sales tax increase backers raise $3.2M, mostly from road builders | Crain's Detroit Business:
ANSING — Supporters of increasing Michigan's sales tax as part of a plan to improve roads are reporting an early financial advantage over opponents of the proposal on the May ballot.
A group backing Proposal 1, Safe Roads Yes!, says it raised $3.2 million as of a week ago. 
More than two-thirds of the money came from the Michigan Infrastructure & Transportation Association, a road building group.

'Success:' Obamacare Website Falters Again, Dems Demand Enrollment Extension

'Success:' Obamacare Website Falters Again, Dems Demand Enrollment Extension - Guy Benson:
Obamacare's second enrollment period has been far less technologically embarrassing than the famous debacle of 2013 and 2014 -- but despite billions of taxpayer dollars having been spent on the website, it still didn't go off without a hitch:
A technical problem that had been interfering with sign-ups for President Barack Obama's health care law has been fixed, officials say. Any consumer whose enrollment was hampered by the glitch will be provided with a special enrollment period. The problem popped up the day before a Sunday deadline to sign up for subsidized private health insurance. It had been intermittent, meaning some people were able to complete their applications and submit them...Some people trying to get coverage hadn't been able to get their income information electronically verified. That's crucial because the amount of financial assistance to help pay premiums is based on people's income. The health care law offers health insurance to people who don't have coverage on the job. More than 8 in 10 of those who apply qualify for help. Without it, most can't afford the coverage.
The "Affordable" Care Act isn't affordable for "most" enrollees without hefty taxpayer assistance.  
Even with the subsidies, many consumers are discoveringthat they can't afford the substantial out-of-pocket costs beyond the premiums, while others are turned off by coverage plans' inconvenient and narrow networks.  
Bloomberg piece published last week entitled, "Yep, Obamacare Costs a Fortune" lays out why expenses beyond monthly rates (which are still on the rise) are hitting Obamacare consumers hard:
Start with annual deductibles. For bronze plans in 2015, they're enormous -- $5,372, or about five times what the average person with employer-based individual coverage faced last year. 

A HUGE Victory for the Rule of Law Over Obama’s Illegal Amnesty

A HUGE Victory for the Rule of Law Over Obama’s Illegal Amnesty:

"A multitude of recent polls show that the Democrat Party’s scheme to import unskilled government-dependent foreigners, simply to garner votes at the expense of hard-working American taxpayers, remains highly unpopular, even polls by the leftstream media. 

Americans were recently outraged to learn that the Obama IRS would be dolling out tax refunds or “retroactive amnesty bonuses” to illegal alien non-citizens, even for prior years that they paid no taxes. "

Obama's enforcement arm at war with America!-------IRS Commissioner CONFIRMS: Non-taxpaying Illegals can collect refunds going back to 2011

IRS Commissioner CONFIRMS: Non-taxpaying Illegals can collect refunds going back to 2011 - Allen West Republic:
CONFIRMED: IRS Commissioner John Koskinen confirming this week that illegal immigrants will be eligible to receive potentially billions of dollars of tax credits under President Obama’s amnesty fiat. 
And illegals can collect refunds going back to 2011 even if they’ve never before paid taxes or filed a return….

Did you hear about the CHRISTIAN stabbing Muslims in Detroit?!!!-----Police say Muslim man stabbed two others over religious beliefs at a Southfield bus stop

Me neither.....
Police say Muslim man stabbed two others over religious beliefs at a Southfield bus stop | MLive.com:
"SOUTHFIELD, MI - Southfield police have arrested a 39-year-old man who allegedly stabbed two other men multiple times at a bus stop near Northland Mall in Southfield Saturday night.
Terrence Lavaron Thomas, of Detroit, will be arraigned on charges of two counts of assault with intent to murder, one count of carrying a dangerous weapon with unlawful intent and one count of possession of marijuana.
Thomas's bail was set at $1 million cash or surety bond.
According to police, Thomas attacked the victims, a 52-year-old man and 51-year-old man from Detroit, after he "made several comments about his religion and asked the victims about their religious beliefs just before the assault occurred."
Nick Loussia, Deputy Chief of Police for the Southfield Police Department, said Thomas "is Muslim, and asked the victims what religion they were" before allegedly attacking them."

Sierra Leone Loses Track of Millions in Ebola Funds

Sierra Leone Loses Track of Millions in Ebola Funds - NYTimes.com:
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — A report by Sierra Leone’s national auditor says government ministers lost track of more than $3 million in internal emergency funds to fight the Ebola virus, impairing the response to the disease. 
There is no paperwork to support payments of 14 billion leones, or $3.3 million, from government Ebola accounts, while $2.5 million in disbursements had incomplete documentation, the country’s auditor general, Lara Taylor­Pearce, said in the report.
The accounting lapses ultimately resulted in “a reduction in the quality of service delivery in the health sector,” according to the report, which was posted on the Audit Service’s website.
It was presented to Parliament on Friday.
It is hoped that adequate action will be taken to address issues raised in this report,” the report added.

White House: There’s ‘No Profile’ on the Type of Person Who Will Turn to Radicalism | TheBlaze.com

White House: There’s ‘No Profile’ on the Type of Person Who Will Turn to Radicalism | TheBlaze.com:

"The Obama White House said Monday that there’s no evidence Muslims are more likely to become radicalized than any other group of people in America, and said that’s why this week’s summit on countering violent extremist won’t focus on Muslims in particular.

The Obama administration has repeatedly avoided saying that radical Islamic extremists are the cause of recent terrorist events around the world, drawing criticism from Republicans who say the White House is ignoring reality."

What ISIS Really Wants

What ISIS Really Wants - The Atlantic:
In fact, much of what the group does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse.
The most-articulate spokesmen for that position are the Islamic State’s officials and supporters themselves. 
They refer derisively to “moderns.” 
In conversation, they insist that they will not—cannot—waver from governing precepts that were embedded in Islam by the Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers. 
They often speak in codes and allusions that sound odd or old-fashioned to non-Muslims, but refer to specific traditions and texts of early Islam.
To take one example: 
In September, Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the Islamic State’s chief spokesman, called on Muslims in Western countries such as France and Canada to find an infidel and “smash his head with a rock,” poison him, run him over with a car, or “destroy his crops.” 
To Western ears, the biblical-sounding punishments—the stoning and crop destruction—juxtaposed strangely with his more modern-sounding call to vehicular homicide. 
(As if to show that he could terrorize by imagery alone, Adnani also referred to Secretary of State John Kerry as an “uncircumcised geezer.”)

Hamas's New Army of Children

Hamas's New Army of Children:
If Hamas has the resources to fund and arm a new "Liberation Army" consisting of 17,000 fighters, why does it continue to demand that the international community allocate billions of dollars for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip?

Hamas has turned the Gaza Strip into a huge training camp for jihadis and militiamen affiliated not only with it, but also with the Islamic State.

Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar declared that some of the boys would be recruited to fire mortars and rockets at Israel. And of course, he reiterated Hamas's true goal, namely the destruction of Israel. When Hamas talks about "liberation," it means it wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and replace it with an Islamic state.

Obviously, the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, do not see Hamas's cynical exploitation and abuse of Palestinian children as a war crime.

If and when the International Criminal Court convenes to consider "war crimes" in the Middle East, the first thing the judges should consider is how Hamas sent thousands of Palestinian teenagers to their deaths, and, as this was happening, how Abbas and the Palestinian Authority looked the other way.
For the past several months, Hamas leaders have been complaining that they do not have enough money to rebuild the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the last war with Israel.
However, it appears that Hamas does have enough funds to train, arm and indoctrinate thousands of young Palestinian men and boys.
While thousands of Palestinian families who lost their houses during the war continue to live in public shelters throughout the Gaza Strip, Hamas recently established 18 camps for military training.
The Hamas military training camps, under the motto "Vanguards of Liberation," have attractedsome 17,000 Palestinian males aged 15-21. The young recruits were trained how to use various types of weapons, including pistols, rifles and mortars. They were also "educated" about the need to eliminate Israel and "restore Palestinian rights."

The things most likely to kill you in one infographic

The things most likely to kill you in one infographic in Heal Yourself curated by Healthy Survivor

‘A Modern-Day Panopticon’: Beck Reveals the Chilling History of America’s ‘Big Brother’ State | Video | TheBlaze.com

‘A Modern-Day Panopticon’: Beck Reveals the Chilling History of America’s ‘Big Brother’ State | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"Glenn Beck on Tuesday investigated the history of America’s domestic surveillance programs, saying he is disturbed by the “shockingly cavalier” response to the news that the NSA has been secretly collecting Americans’ telephone records, among other forms of communication.

“[We're] treated like prisoners, guilty until proven innocent,” Beck said. “The amount of personal data the NSA collects on law-abiding citizens is staggering. The amount they plan to collect is nearly beyond comprehension.”

Beck said when surveillance cameras are considered, society today is comparable to a “modern-day panopticon.”

Despite $39B in Annual Gov't. Subsidies, Solar Produced 0.5% of Electricity in US

Despite $39B in Annual Gov't. Subsidies, Solar Produced 0.5% of Electricity in US | CNS News
"Despite receiving an estimated $39 billion in annual government subsidies over the past five years, the solar energy industry accounted for just one half of one percent (0.5%) of all the electricity generated in the U.S. during the first 10 months of 2014, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Between January and October of last year, the U.S. produced a total of 3,431,473 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity.
But only 15,973 million kWh were generated by solar thermal or photovoltaic (PV) solar modules that use semiconducting materials to convert sunlight into electricity, according to EIA's latest Monthly Energy Review."


Poland To Spend Billions on Defense

Poland To Spend Billions on Defense:
"WARSAW — Looking east to the bloody conflict gripping Ukraine, NATO-member Poland has kicked off an unprecedented military spending spree worth billions to overhaul its forces as Warsaw believes peace in Europe is no longer a given.
The escalation of tensions with Russia over its annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and subsequent role in the crisis in that country's east has sounded the alarm on NATO's eastern flank in countries that were under Moscow's thumb during the Cold War.
..."The key to a political and military solution lies in Moscow," Poland's President Bronislaw Komorowski told reporters Thursday in Warsaw.
"The possibility of a lasting peace still isn't close," he said, insisting that the previous Minsk accord failed due to the "Russian separatists in Donbas.""

History for February 18

History for February 18 - On-This-Day.com:
Mary Tudor 1516 - The Queen of England known as "Bloody Mary", Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta 1745, Louis Comfort Tiffany 1848 - Glass maker and interior designer 



Enzo Ferrari 1898, Gahan Wilson 1930 


Cybil Sheppard 1950 - Actress, John Travolta 1954 - Actor ("Pulp Fiction"), Molly Ringwald 1968 - Actress ("Sixteen Candles) 


1861 - In Montgomery, AL, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the President of the Confederate States. 





1885 - Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" was published in the U.S. for the first time. 


1930 - Elm Farm Ollie became the first cow to fly in an airplane. 

1930 - The planet Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh. The discovery was made as a result of photographs taken in January 1930. 


1972 - The California Supreme Court struck down the state's death penalty. 


2001 - NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, Sr., was killed in a crash during the Daytona 500 race.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Islamic State Militants Reportedly Burn to Death 45 in Iraqi Town | TheBlaze.com

Islamic State Militants Reportedly Burn to Death 45 in Iraqi Town | TheBlaze.com:

"Islamic State militants burned to death 45 people in the Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi, the local police chief said, according to the BBC.

It was not immediately clear why the individuals were killed, but authorities suspected many were members of security forces."


The United States is Again Upstaged in Dealing with ISIS; This is Beyond Embarrassing

The United States is Again Upstaged in Dealing with ISIS; This is Beyond Embarrassing:

"The Egyptian military carried out a series of airstrikes against ISIS Monday morning, specifically targeting weapons caches and training locations. It was announced on Egyptian radio by the Armed Forces General Command that the strikes were “to avenge the bloodshed and to seek retribution from the killers.” They added, “Let those far and near know that Egyptians have a shield that protects them.”

Meanwhile, the White House sent out a tweet almost simultaneously with the announcement that 21 Coptic Christians had been beheaded of Obama shooting basketball and encouraging people to sign up for Obamacare. He is currently on his annual Valentine’s Day golf trip with the boys away from his wife and daughters."

Failed Discipline, Failed Reforms And Grexit: Why The Euro Failed

Failed Discipline, Failed Reforms And Grexit: Why The Euro Failed | Zero Hedge:
There is no substitute for the discipline of a market that cannot be manipulated by political elites.
It's not that difficult to understand why the euro is doomed to fail. 
Given its structure, there is no other possible outcome but failure. 
Greece's exit (Grexit) will simply be the first manifestation of the inevitable structural failure of the euro. 
To understand why this is so, we have to start with two forms of discipline: the market and the state.
The market disciplines its participants by discovering the price of not just goods and services but of currencies and the potential risks generated by fiscal and trade imbalances.
 ...The other form of structural discipline is imposed by the state (government in all its forms, including central banks). 
A typical example is the state legislature imposes a cap on state borrowing, i.e. the state is not allowed to borrow more than 3% of expenses annually.
 We all know what happens to these kinds of state-imposed discipline: they are ignored, bypassed, watered down or gutted. 
Why is this so? 
The reason is that all political systems, regardless of their ideology, are influenced by powerful elites and vested interests. 
When some political cap stands in the way of enriching or protecting a politically powerful elite or vested interest, the cap is quickly reduced to a PR play. 
This is the fundamental flaw in state fiscal discipline: it is always a political construct and thus contingent on what benefits powerful elites and constituencies...
Read on!