History for April 10 - On-This-Day.com

History for April 10 - On-This-Day.com:
Commodore Matthew Perry 1794, Lew Wallace 1827 - U.S. novelist ("Ben Hur"), William Booth 1829 - Founder of Salvation Army, author ("In Darkets England") 


Joseph Pulitzer 1847 - Publisher, his will left $2 million for a fund which established annual prizes for literature, drama, music and journalism, Harry Morgan 1915 - Actor ("M*A*S*H"), Steven Seagal 1951 - Actor ("Out for Justice") 


1849 - Walter Hunt patented the safety pin. He sold the rights for $100.


1912 - The Titanic set sail from Southampton, England.


1932 - Paul von Hindenburg was elected president of Germany with 19 million votes. Adolf Hitler came in second with 13 million votes.

1938 - Germany annexed Austria after Austrians had voted in a referundum to merge with Germany.


1941 - In World War II, U.S. troops occupied Greenland to prevent Nazi infiltration.


1963 - 129 people died when the nuclear-powered submarine USS Thresher failed to surface off Cape Cod, MA.


1992 - Outside Needles, CA, comedian Sam Kinison was killed when a pickup truck slammed into his car on a desert road between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.


1996 - U.S. President Clinton vetoed a bill that would have outlawed a technique used to end pregnancies in their late stages.

Chrysler Announces 1,300 Layoffs in Michigan - Breitbart

Chrysler Announces 1,300 Layoffs in Michigan - Breitbart:

"The announcement comes on the heels of decisions from both GM and Ford to close plants in Michigan and move manufacturing and jobs to Mexico.

Earlier this week Ford Motor Co. announced it was planning to spend $1.6 billion on new facilities in Mexico.

Ford’s announcement came only a few months after GM announced similar plans, in its case a plan to spend a whopping $5 billion on building new facilities in Mexico."

No, Gays and ‘Transgenders’ Are Not Being Bullied. They Are The Bullies

No, Gays and ‘Transgenders’ Are Not Being Bullied. They Are The Bullies. | TheBlaze.com
This week, Gov. Phil Bryant of Mississippi signed a religious liberty bill protecting businesses and individuals from being forced to participate in gay marriages.
The legislation also fortifies the rights of business owners to keep their bathrooms segregated by sex, as all business owners have done up until 4.5 seconds ago.
Meanwhile, a few weeks earlier, North Carolina signed a now infamous bill that will require men to pee in rooms with other men, and women in rooms with other women. 
Again in keeping with the reasonable and totally normal policies that have been in place everywhere in America for the entirety of your life and your grandparents’ lives.
...But the left is not accustomed to being disobeyed in such a manner, which explains the utterly shocked and stunned reaction from leftists across the country to these two pieces of legislation.
While the vicious attacks against Mississippi over their bill are just beginning, the outrage over the “anti-trans” law in North Carolina has reached apocalyptic volumes.

...Anyway, the next step in this North Carolina “controversy” was inevitable.
Dozens of massive corporations began putting pressure on North Carolina to scrap the law.
Mayors of major American cities banned travel to the state, prohibiting people from going to a place in order to protest North Carolina’s attempt to prohibit people from going to a place.
...It is the seemingly total lack of kindness, magnanimity, and rationality displayed by many in their camp that necessitates this sort of legislation.
If gays would simply respect the beliefs of Christian business owners, and if “transgenders” would simply respect the privacy of women and children, there would be no need for laws forcing the matter. 
But here we are.
And it’s not the fault of Christians and conservatives that we arrived here.
On the contrary, it’s the fault of the very people now whining about being persecuted.
Here’s the reality: gays and “transgenders” are not being victimized, nor are they are being martyred, oppressed, bullied or otherwise put upon. 
You can walk through Mississippi and find nary a business with a “We Won’t Serve Gays” sign hanging in the window.
You can travel down to North Carolina and not find a single instance where a government agent showed up at a so-called transgender’s house and instructed him to take off his wig and blouse.
For the most part, these people are free to do what they want and be who they are — or, in the case of “transgenders,” who they aren’t.
The only caveat is that the half dozen “transgenders” in North Carolina have to do what every other human in North Carolina has to do, and what most humans in the civilized world have to do, and share public restrooms with people who share their anatomy.
In Mississippi, gays can get married, as per the royal decree of the Supreme Court, but if they happen to stumble upon a baker or photographer who’d rather not participate in the event, they simply must find someone else.
That’s it.
In other words, they are just being asked, and now being forced, to display the faintest modicum of tolerance and respect for their fellow citizens..."

Environmental Inquisition Targets Think Tank for "Climate Denial"

Environmental Inquisition Targets Think Tank for "Climate Denial" | Foundation for Economic Education:
The campaign to attach legal consequences to supposed “climate denial” has now crossed a fateful line:
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) today denounced a subpoena from Attorney General Claude E. Walker of the U.S. Virgin Islands that attempts to unearth a decade of the organization’s materials and work on climate change policy.
This is the latest effort in an intimidation campaign to criminalize speech and research on the climate debate, led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and former Vice President Al Gore. ...
The subpoena requests a decade’s worth of communications, emails, statements, drafts, and other documents regarding CEI’s work on climate change and energy policy, including private donor information. It demands that CEI produce these materials from 20 years ago, from 1997-2007, by April 30, 2016.

CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman said the group “will vigorously fight to quash this subpoena. It is an affront to our First Amendment rights of free speech and association.” More coverage of the subpoena at the Washington Times and Daily Caller.
A few observations:

• If the forces behind this show-us-your-papers subpoena succeed in punishing (or simply inflicting prolonged legal harassment on) groups conducting supposedly wrongful advocacy, there’s every reason to think they will come after other advocacy groups later. Like yours. 
• This article in the Observer details the current push to expand the probe of climate advocacy, which first enlisted New York AG Eric Schneiderman and then California’s Kamala Harris — into a broader coalition of AGs, with Massachusetts and the Virgin Islands just having signed on. More than a dozen others, such as Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, seem to be signaling support but have not formally jumped in. More here: Peggy Little, Federalist Society.
Much more!

BOOM: Franklin Graham Announces 'Hypocrite Of The Year' Award - Liberals Want To Keep This Quiet...

BOOM: Franklin Graham Announces 'Hypocrite Of The Year' Award - Liberals Want To Keep This Quiet...:

"In a Facebook post Wednesday, Graham wrote, “PayPal gets the hypocrite of the year award! This company says they’re not coming to North Carolina because the legislators and Gov. Pat McCrory have passed a law to protect women and children against sexual predators by not allowing men to use women’s restrooms and locker rooms.”

The North Carolinian went on to explain the source of the hypocrisy by quoting Rep. Robert Pittenger, R-N.C., who represents a district near Charlotte. “PayPal does business in 25 countries where homosexual behavior is illegal, including 5 countries where the penalty is death, "

Sweden: A Beggar on Every Corner

Sweden: A Beggar on Every Corner

• For the last few years, Sweden has been overwhelmed with Roma beggars from Romania and Bulgaria. Recently, the government estimated that there are now around 4,000 in Sweden (population 9.5 million).
• "We do not fool anyone. We just benefit from the opportunity." — Bulgarian beggar in Sweden who said he "owned" five street corners.
• 

  "If the begging is profitable, they stay miserable.... [Giving money] improves the acute situation. At the same time, it contributes to making the bigger issue permanent -- the misery.... It will not help the Roma, but it gives you a chance to feel like a good person. ... The basic concept of racism is precisely that we as westerners and Swedes are far superior (smarter) and that the Roma are inferior (dumber). If this... is not racist then I do not know what is. ... One could add that the image is inverted among Roma. They consider themselves superior and smart, while the gadjo (non-gypsies) are stupid, naïve and gullible." — Karl-Olov Arnstberg, Swedish ethnologist
• "It is our very strong recommendation not to give money to beggars. It turns the panhandling into an occupation... To give [money] encourages a life with no future; moving from country to country does not solve their problems." — Florin Ivanovici, director of the Life and Light Foundation, Bucharest, Romania.

Nobody knows exactly how many of them there are, but for the last few years Sweden has been overwhelmed with Roma beggars from Romania and Bulgaria. 
In 2014, the newspaper Sydsvenskan reported that an estimated 600 Roma beggars lived in the country; a few months ago, the government-appointed "National Coordinator for Vulnerable EU Citizens," Martin Valfridsson, found that there are now around 4,000. 
You see beggars sitting outside virtually every store, not just in the big cities, but also in small rural villages. 
In the far north of Sweden, at gas stations in the middle of nowhere, patrons are greeted by beggars saying "Hello, hello!" while holding out their paper cups. 
Not long ago, begging was considered eradicated in Sweden. 
In 1964, the law of 1847 against begging for money was abolished -- the welfare state was considered so all-encompassing that there were no longer any poor people; therefore the law was obsolete. No one would ever have to beg anymore. 
The people who, for some reason, could not work and support themselves were taken care of via various social welfare programs. Swedes who grew up in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s had never seen a street-beggar in Sweden.

US Air Force deploys B-52 bombers in Middle East to combat Islamic State | Fox News

US Air Force deploys B-52 bombers in Middle East to combat Islamic State | Fox News:

"The U.S. Air Force has deployed B-52 long-range bombers to the Middle East for the first time since the Gulf war ended over 25 years ago to begin striking the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, officials said Saturday.

The U.S. Air Force Central Command said in a statement that an unknown number of B-52s will be based at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The U.S.-led coalition’s Combined Air and Space Operations Center (CAOC) responsible for running the air war against ISIS is also based there.

The U.S. Air Force pulled its B-1 bombers in February and sent them back to the U.S. for maintenance. At the time, senior U.S. military leaders said there would be no capability gap.

But the number of bombs dropped on ISIS fell to an eight-month low in February, according to statistics published by the U.S. Air Force."

Lunch video-----Syrian warns Europe about the migration invasion

Noon-toon

Advocates Admit $15 Minimum Wage ‘May Not Make Sense,’ but Offer a Glimpse of Motivation for Hike | TheBlaze.com

Advocates Admit $15 Minimum Wage ‘May Not Make Sense,’ but Offer a Glimpse of Motivation for Hike | TheBlaze.com:

"California Gov. Jerry Brown and other advocates of hiking the minimum wage to $15 per hour have conceded that the pay increase might not be the best way to help workers, causing questions about the sincerity of the “Fight for 15” movement.

“Economically, minimum wages may not make sense,” Brown told the Sacramento Bee before signing the wage increase for his state. The governor followed suit with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who did the same last week."

Worthy read-Science is not unbiased----------The sugar conspiracy

The sugar conspiracy | Ian Leslie | Society | The Guardian:
In 1972, a British scientist sounded the alarm that sugar – and not fat – was the greatest danger to our health.
But his findings were ridiculed and his reputation ruined. 
How did the world’s top nutrition scientists get it so wrong for so long?
...“If only a small fraction of what we know about the effects of sugar were to be revealed in relation to any other material used as a food additive,” wrote Yudkin, “that material would promptly be banned.” The book did well, but Yudkin paid a high price for it.
Prominent nutritionists combined with the food industry to destroy his reputation, and his career never recovered. 
He died, in 1995, a disappointed, largely forgotten man.

Good guy. He's not alone-----Here’s the Struggle You Don’t See Fox News’s Neil Cavuto Going Through When You Watch Him on TV

Here’s the Struggle You Don’t See Fox News’s Neil Cavuto Going Through When You Watch Him on TV:
"...And his struggle to maintain good health hasn’t exactly been a secret.
He battled advanced non-Hodgkins lymphoma (cancer) in the late 1980s, and in 1997, was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
The effects of MS can be so severe that many who have it are unable to continue working, and Cavuto admits that the symptoms can be unpredictable and quite severe:
“I’ve heard MS described as a mercurial menace in that it can rob senses and muscles indiscriminately, anytime and anywhere.
It’s a disease that doesn’t much care about what you’re doing when one, or several, of its infamous exacerbations hits.
All I know is it hits hard, and to this day, I never seem quite ready when it does. 
Over the years, it has literally taken the legs right out from under me.
There are times when I can’t walk, other times when I am walking as if I’m dragging an anchor, as I’m trying to ‘be’ an anchor.”
...“Its vagaries are as weird as their fallout is fast. Mid-shows, I’ve been blinded, literally, as my vision is all but blacked out.
Adjusting to that alone took years.
I’m now at the point I no longer use a TelePrompTer at all, not because I’m smooth, but because I have no choice.
I’ve taken to memorizing scripts and bullet points, even guests’ points of views and myriad of segment facts, so I’m ready for anything, any time.
These weren’t choices I wanted to make; these were choices I ‘had’ to make..."

Hillary’s State Department Pressured Haiti Not To Raise Minimum Wage to $.61 An Hour

Hillary’s State Department Pressured Haiti Not To Raise Minimum Wage to $.61 An Hour
In Haiti, people work for peanuts.
Slave wages.
Less than $5 per day, but they supply the U.S. with tons of affordable clothing from big-name brands like Levi’s, Hanes and Polo.
Haiti’s big advantage, compared to Asia, is their proximity to us, and thousands of Haitians are employed in the textile industry in part because of that.
When Haiti passed a wage raise from $.24 per hour to $.61 per hour, American companies were predictably outraged.
U.S. companies, especially the clothing manufacturers, outsource their manufacturing to places like Haiti specifically because they can get away with paying slave wages.
They would only support a minimum wage increase to $.31 per hour, and decided to get the U.S. Department of State involved to try and pressure Haiti’s government to keep the wage raise down.
This took place in 2011, and Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State. 
...In 2012, everyone from Clinton herself, to celebrities like Ben Stiller and Sean Penn, gathered at the opening of a new industrial park in Haiti.
In 2015, Hillary said this about it :
“We had learnt that supporting long-term prosperity in Haiti meant more than providing aid. So we shifted our assistance to investment to address some of the biggest challenges facing this country: creating jobs and sustainable economic growth."
...the U.S. government interfered with a foreign, sovereign government for the benefit of rich American corporations. 
This particular instance happened under a Secretary of State who promised jobs, but probably didn’t let on that those jobs would pay next to zilch. 
Investing is good.
It’s better than aid, but we’re half-assing it there, all in the name of profit.”

Takers always gonna take-----White Folks Gonna Have To Give Up Stuff, Sacrifice - For Black Lives Matter

White Folks Gonna Have To Give Up Stuff, Sacrifice - For Black Lives Matter | RickWells.US
With arguments consistent with those of the race-baiters Hussein Obama and Eric Holder, Black Lives Matter co-founder Marissa Johnson blames white people for everything that’s wrong with her life. 
When she can’t deal with reality it’s because her reality is too hard.
There are lots of white people going hungry; her life seems to be much easier than theirs.
She doesn’t want a real reality, she wants a separate, on demand, “more fair reality,” crafted for her by a redistributive Marxist government.
White People Are To Blame And This Commie Wants To Take Their Stuff
...The over-acting agitator asks, “Do you know what I’d give to live in a world where I didn’t have to say black lives matter? 
Do you know how horrific it is to grow up as a child in a world that so hates you that you have to literally say to other people, ‘my life matters?’”
She mocks a response of the “white people” saying that every life matters and then complains that blacks are being shot in the streets or being rounded up and mass incarcerated.
...She spells it out, saying, “What it’s gonna take to dismantle white supremacy is white folks actually got to give up something,” bringing out her first smile of the interview.
She continues, saying, “You have to actually sacrifice yourself.
You have to be willing to give up the things that you currently benefit from..."

Chris Matthews Asks Sanders Supporter If She Knows Who Will Pay for His Free College Tuition ‘for Everybody’ Idea. Watch Her Stunning Answer. | Video | TheBlaze.com

Chris Matthews Asks Sanders Supporter If She Knows Who Will Pay for His Free College Tuition ‘for Everybody’ Idea. Watch Her Stunning Answer. | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"“He’s talking about free tuition at the University of Wisconsin, wherever the campus is,” Matthews said Tuesday. “Free for everybody, free at University of Michigan, free Berkeley, free Penn State, free for every state university, and I keep asking myself, ‘Where is all that enormous amount of money coming from?’ And do you think he has a way of getting that money?”

“Of course he does,” Lawton replied. But after she continued further, Matthews apparently wasn’t satisfied.

“You say ‘we,’ but who is going to pay for it, who?” Matthews asked."

Cowardice always fails...and kills-----How Islamists Are Slowly Desensitizing Europe And America

How Islamists Are Slowly Desensitizing Europe And America
The freakouts when people raise valid questions over Islamist actions are meant to frighten people into silence so Islamists can continue their attacks.
Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine whose offices Islamists attacked in 2015, published an editorial recently titled “How Did We Get Here?” that has raised some eyebrows.
In it, they ask how Europe has become where European-born Muslims have attacked the hearts of Paris and Brussels. 
Their answer has proved distasteful to many on the Left.
The editorial has been harshly criticized and the magazine accused of racism and xenophobia. 
The Washington Post says Charlie Hebdo blames extremism on individual Muslims—the veiled woman on the street, the man selling kebabs.
There’s some truth to this accusation, and to the extent that there is, Charlie Hebdo is wrong.
But this, and other critiques, miss the larger point of the article, which is to demonstrate the gradual and quotidian way in which criticizing Islam has been silenced.
It’s worth quoting Charlie Hebdo at length:
"In reality, the attacks are merely the visible part of a very large iceberg indeed. They are the last phase of a process of cowing and silencing long in motion and on the widest possible scale. Our noses are endlessly rubbed in the rubble of Brussels airport and in the flickering candles amongst the bouquets of flowers on the pavements. All the while, no one notices what’s going on in Saint-German-en-Laye. 
...Tariq Ramadan is never going to grab a Kalashnikov with which to shoot journalists at an editorial meeting. Nor will he ever cook up a bomb to be used in an airport concourse. Others will be doing all that kind of stuff. It will not be his role. His task, under cover of debate, is to dissuade people from criticising his religion in any way. The political science students who listened to him last week will, once they have become journalists or local officials, not even dare to write nor say anything negative about Islam. The little dent in their secularism made that day will bear fruit in a fear of criticising lest they appear Islamophobic. That is Tariq Ramadan’s task."
The Charlie Hebdo editorial correctly points out that in Europe the dominant liberal culture has pounded into us that we must adapt to Muslims who come to our country, and never ask them to adapt to any of our ways. 
Doing so would be colonialist and wrong.
It’s a double standard, of course.
As the welcoming countries, Europeans must suppress their own culture and ideals for those of the Islamic immigrant population.
But when they go abroad to non-Western countries, either to live or to visit, it’s considered offensive not to adapt to their ways of life..."

AM Fruitcake

History for April 9

History for April 9 - On-This-Day.com:
Charles Proteus Steinmetz 1865, Frank King 1883 - Cartoonist, creator of "Gasoline Alley" cartoon strip, Ward Bond 1903 - Actor ("It’s a Wonderful Life", "The Maltese Falcon") 


Hugh Hefner 1926 - Publisher, Michael Learned 1939 - Actress ("The Waltons", "All My Sons"), Dennis Quaid 1954 - Actor ("Wyatt Earp", "The Right Stuff"), brother of Randy Quaid 


1865 - At Appomattox Court House, Virginia, General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate Army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in the parlor of Wilmer McClean's home. Grant allowed Rebel officers to keep their sidearms and permitted soldiers to keep their horses and mules. Though there were still Confederate armies in the field, the war was officially over. The four years of fighting had killed 360,000 Union troops and 260,000 Confederate troops.


1867 - The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty with Russia that purchased the territory of Alaska by one vote.


1916 - The German army launched it’s third offensive during the Battle of Verdun.


1940 - Germany invaded Norway and Denmark.


1942 - In the Battle of Bataan, American and Filipino forces were overwhelmed by the Japanese Army.


1950 - Bob Hope made his first television appearance on "Star-Spangled Review" on NBC-TV.


1959 - NASA announced the selection of America's first seven astronauts.


1967 - The first Boeing 737 was rolled out for use.

AZ to Grant Driver's Licenses to Illegal Immigrants

AZ to Grant Driver's Licenses to Illegal Immigrants:

"Earlier today, a three-judge panel of the infamous Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an injunction against an Arizona policy denying drivers licenses to DACA recipients.  That initial injunction was ordered by a Republican-appointed judge, which tells you the insufferable judiciary is a bipartisan problem.
Whereas for 200 years our judicial system ruled that Congress has full authority over immigration and that illegal immigrants have no affirmative right to remain in the country, Judge Pregerson, the judge writing this liberal screed, ruled that Arizona had violated … you guessed it … the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.  Illegal aliens, who are to be placed into deportation proceedings pursuant to laws duly passed by Congress, now have an equal “right” to not only remain in the country but receive driver’s licenses. "

Pay Up: Americans Spend More on Taxes Than on Food, Clothing, Shelter

Pay Up: Americans Spend More on Taxes Than on Food, Clothing, Shelter:
"...it takes Americans 

• 46 days to earn enough to pay federal, state and local individual income taxes, 
• 26 days for payroll taxes, 
• 15 days for sales and excise taxes, 
• 11 days for property taxes, 
• 9 days for corporate income taxes and 
• 7 days for estate, inheritance, customs duties and other taxes."

Only 3 US Airports Screen Employees Daily Before Work

Only 3 US Airports Screen Employees Daily Before Work:
"At Senate Commerce Committee session, lawmakers heard that only three airports in the United States require their employees to undergo a security check before they begin their work day.
“Atlanta, Miami, Orlando.
What about the other 297 airports nationwide?” asked committee co-chair Senator Bill Nelson (D-Florida).
TSA (Transportation Security Administration) head Robert Neffenger answered that while the TSA has “increased the inspection of employees five-fold in the last five months,” more needs to be done.
Neffenger said that all airports were asked to provide a report by the end of the month assessing their vulnerabilies.
A 2015 TSA committee concluded most airports could not afford daily employee screening.
In addition, they said the full screening would not “appreciably increase the overall system-wide protection.”
“No single measure can provide broad-spectrum protection against risks or adversaries,” the committee concluded.
“Therefore, risk-based, multi-layered security offers the greatest ability to mitigate risks through the application of flexible and unpredictable measures to protect commercial aviation.”
The report argued daily screening “is incapable of determining a person’s motivations, attitudes and capabilities to cause harm, among other limitations.”
The Senate committee also heard from Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who assured the Senators recent reports that 73 airport employees were suspected to have terrorist ties were misleading."

Democrats keep using Benghazi as a pejorative. Here’s why they should take it seriously. | Select Committee on Benghazi

Democrats keep using Benghazi as a pejorative. Here’s why they should take it seriously. | Select Committee on Benghazi:

"Contradicting Sen. Reid’s accusations is the fact that seven Democrats joined House Republicans in voting to create the Select Committee, and its membership ratio (seven to five) is less partisan than others created in the past under then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (nine to six). The top Democrat on the committee even admitted in a moment of honesty that Republicans’ questioning of Huma Abedin was “overall fair,” and after Cheryl Mills testified she said Republicans were respectful and professional. As Chairman Gowdy explained, “The integrity of this investigation is my utmost concern. In fact, I have refused requests from the majority staff of other congressional committees to view our transcripts.”

As for the idea that the committee’s October hearing was “a flop” that produced “no new information,” in fact, it yielded numerous significant revelations, as many have reported:"

How the ACA Is Really Performing

How the ACA Is Really Performing | Economics21:
In March of this year the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) released a presentation on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) six years in. 
The document portrays the ACA in a very favorable light, as one would expect for one of the Obama administration’s signature pieces of legislation. 
A fuller and more objective understanding of the ACA, however, requires examination of facts beyond those which its advocates, or its detractors, may wish to emphasize.

The CEA presentation is notable in reflecting the core components of ACA advocates’ case for the law.
 It is fourteen slides long, and I find that its points break down into five main themes (in my own words):

1. The ACA represents a historic expansion of health insurance coverage (slides 2, 3 and 4).
2. The ACA is achieving policy goals such as reducing patient harm and hospital readmissions (slides 5, 12 and 13).
3. The ACA is helping to slow the growth of health care costs (slides 6, 7, 8 and 11).
4. The ACA has been good for job creation (slide 14).
5. The ACA is improving the federal fiscal outlook (slides 9 and 10).

The first two of these are reasonable, defensible claims, though they also involve subjective value judgments. 

The last three are more problematic; there is little evidence for #3, whereas the totality of the evidence points in the opposite direction from assertions #4 and #5. 
Dissecting the five themes in order:
Read on!

Do we even own things anymore?

Glenn Reynolds: Do we even own things anymore?
"...But back to Gilbert’s story.
He’s a gadget fan, and Google has left him hanging. 
Here’s how he tells it:
“Seventeen months ago, Google acquired Revolv, a very cool home automation hub. 
It is a small circular device about the size of a small container of hummus that uses a variety of common home automation radios to communicate with light switches, garage door openers, home alarms, motion sensors, A/C controllers etc. ... 
When I arrive home my lights turn on. 
In lieu of motion detecting lights, I have a Z-wave motion detector that notifies my Revolv when there is motion on any side of our home and turns on the appropriate lights. 
Although I do set a home alarm, there is really no more effective vacation security than the programmatic turning on, dimming, and turning off of lights in a manner that would indicate that people are home. 
After buying my Revolv I put my outdoor landscaping light on it and threw away the old timer. 
Now at Sunset my landscape lighting turns on. Holiday lighting does the same. It’s magical.”
But as we all know, in the fairy tales the “magical” tool that makes everything wonderful always has a catch. 
In Gilbert’s case, the catch is that Google will shut down his device. 
They won’t just stop updating it, or end support. 
They’ll turn it off. 
Even though it “belongs” to Gilbert.
Gilbert notes: “On May 15th, my house will stop working. 
My landscape lighting will stop turning on and off, my security lights will stop reacting to motion, and my home made vacation burglar deterrent will stop working. 
This is a conscious intentional decision by Google/Nest.”
They’re “bricking” his device, making it an inanimate lump of circuitry that no more useful than a brick.
Or, actually, less useful, since you can build things with bricks.
They can do this because although you own the hardware, you don’t actually own the software in your devices; technically, when you buy the device, you just get a license to use the software.
(In a similar situation, General Motors and John Deere have said that they still own the software in the cars and other vehicles you buy.)

Lunch video-----After 70 years, World War II Pilot Flies the B-25 again!