Japan Is Doomed

People have been talking about the death spiral of Japan’s demographics for a while now, but here is one statistic that is difficult to absorb

Adult diapers are set to outsell baby diapers in Japan by 2020 in just the latest example of the challenges facing a nation where more than 20 percent of the the population are 65 and older.

Changing the Fabric of the Nation

Cuidado: El Weathero Servico Natioñal estan issuingo un severo weathero warningo para todos los five burros. Un SharkÑado es comingo!

— Miguel Bloombito (@ElBloombito) July 12, 2013

The power of SharkNado.

Deprived as I was of the ENTIRE experience (and he’ll pay for THAT forever), I did live the movie viewing vicariously through Twitter. HILARIOUS. I really don’t think I missed a thing.

The Cinematic Tour de Force Of The Year

Hell, the Century.

Yes, Sharknado was that enjoyable.

And the Trend is…

…negative.

Americans Turn on Obama Over Foreign Policy
Once considered the president’s strength, a new poll shows troubling signs.

“Troubling”? I’d say “ever so encouraging” signs, in that even the most ardent of his “people” are FINALLY pulling the halo obscured lenses from their eyes and getting a glimpse of how they’ve thoroughly boned the rest of us.

Schmaybe even themselves…

Yesterday’s Heroes Are Criminals Today

Ah, who else longs for those halcyon days of yore when the government told us to consume as much omega-3 as possible?

Fish-oil supplements credited with a range of health benefits could trigger prostate cancer.

Experts found that omega-3 fatty acids may raise the risk of the most lethal form of the disease by more than 70 per cent.

Researchers warned against omega-3 pills, and recommended eating just one or two meals of oily fish per week.

Fish-oil supplements are said to protect against heart attacks and strokes, stave off arthritis, boost brain power and prevent behaviour disorders in children.

However, scientists found that those with the highest levels of omega-3 in their blood were 71 per cent more likely to develop fast-growing, hard-to-treat prostate tumours.

They were also more likely to contract the slower, less deadly form of the disease, with the overall prostate cancer risk raised by 43 per cent.

Enough of this.

I’m just sticking with my bacon cheeseburger and red wine supplements.

Is There ANYTHING On EARTH That Doesn’t Eventually Turn Out to Be TOO Complicated For the SUPER GENIUS and His EE-VILLE Toadies in the White House

…to implement “on time and as written”?

A Break For Smokers? Glitch May Limit Penalties

WASHINGTON (AP) — They huddle outside office buildings and they can’t satisfy their nicotine cravings by lighting up on planes and trains, but now smokers could be getting a break from an unlikely source.

A glitch involving President Barack Obama’s health care law means smokers may get at least some relief next year from tobacco-use penalties that could have made their premiums unaffordable.

In yet another health care overhaul delay, the administration has quietly notified insurers that a computer system problem will limit penalties that the law says the companies may charge smokers. A fix will take at least a year.

Older smokers are more likely to benefit from the glitch, experts say. But depending on how insurers respond to it, it’s also possible that younger smokers could wind up facing higher penalties than they otherwise would have.

Some see an emerging pattern of last-minute switches and delays as the administration scrambles to prepare the Oct. 1 launch of new health insurance markets for people who don’t have job-based insurance. Last week, the White House unexpectedly announced a one-year postponement of a major provision in the law that requires larger employers to offer coverage or face fines.

The smokers’ glitch is “a temporary circumstance that in no way impacts our ability to open the marketplaces on Oct. 1,” Health and Human Services spokeswoman Joanne Peters said in a statement.

A June 28 HHS document couched the problem in technical language:

“Because of a system limitation … the system currently cannot process a premium for a 65-year-old smoker that is … more than three times the premium of a 21-year-old smoker,” the industry guidance said.

Penalty, schmenalty. So, what KINDA MONEY we talkin’ hee-yah?

…For an older smoker, the cost of the full penalty could be prohibitive.

Premiums for a standard “silver” insurance plan would be about $9,000 a year for a 64-year-old non-smoker, according to the online Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator. That’s before any tax credits, available on a sliding scale based on income.

For a smoker of the same age, the full 50 percent penalty would add more than $4,500 to the cost of the policy, bringing it to nearly $13,600. And new tax credits available to help pay premiums cannot be used to offset the penalty.

The underlying reason for the glitch is another provision in the health care law that says insurers can’t charge older customers more than three times what they charge the youngest adults in the pool. The government’s computer system has been unable to accommodate the two.

The administration is suggesting that insurers limit the penalties across all age groups. The HHS guidance document used the example of a 20 percent penalty for young and old alike.

In that case the premium for a 64-year-old would be about $10,900, a significant cut from the $13,600 if insurers charged the full penalty.

Younger smokers and older smokers can still be charged different penalties, but if the total of premiums and penalties is more than three times greater for older smokers, the system will kick it out.

And…OUCH.

Now THAT’S a “Bang” Up Holiday

…if there EVER was one!

Ill. Rep Requests National Guard Help Stop Chicago Violence

CHICAGO, Ill. (IRN) – Gun violence in Chicago is so severe that a state lawmaker wants state police and the National Guard to assist the local cops.

State Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) is making the request.

“I am requesting with this press conference that Gov. Patrick Quinn order the Illinois National Guard (and) the Illinois State Police (to) come to Chicago and work with our mayor Ron (sic) Emanuel to provide safety for the childre, especially,” she said at a news conference in Springfield.

Oh, she pulled out the old “for the CHILDREN“!!! WHY? Because, at this rate:

…Over the holiday weekend, 74 people were shot and 12 killed in Chicago, and Davis says the police don’t have the manpower to make arrests.

…there won’t be any children left to keep Democrats in office there.

Legal Inequality

If you’re going to hook-up, well, you’d best film it for your protection

The hookup got hot and wild, and one of the two men whipped out his cellphone to shoot a video of the room-to-room romp with the woman they’d just met that night.

The sex video may have been the only thing that saved the two from prison.

The woman accused them of rape. The video showed otherwise, police and prosecutors said. What happened that night led to the vicious beating of one of the men two days later.

Last Friday, a Sacramento Superior Court jury convicted Jasmine Levanna Kurre of felony assault likely to produce great bodily injury and of another count of felony battery.

Jurors acquitted Kurre of the misdemeanor filing of a false police report and of another felony count of robbing the beating victim of his cellphone.

Unfortunately for Kurre, 27, the man’s friend shot the video, showing her laughing and carrying on with the two alleged rapists – hence, the lack of charges against them and the lodging of the misdemeanor false-report accusation.

Now here’s what I don’t understand: 1) how could the jury possibly not convict her of filing a false police report, and 2) how is falsely filing a rape report, rape being a pretty felonious felony and one which could have sent these fellows away for years and years, only a misdemeanor? She should face the same penalty she tried to inflict on them.

But I have to give the final word on this to Police Detective Ron Pfleger:

“This is great stuff,” Citrus Heights Police Detective Ron Pfleger told the man who shot the video, according to a transcript of his interview five days after the Feb. 17, 2011, beating of his friend, outside the assault victim’s apartment. “This is exactly what you guys are hoping for.”

He only looks at amateur pr0n for the interviews…

IMF: Hey, This Stimulus Really Hasn’t Done Jack, Has It?

So, naturally, they say “spend more”

World economic growth will struggle to accelerate this year as a U.S. expansion weakens, China’s economy levels off and Europe’s recession deepens, the International Monetary Fund said.

Global growth will be 3.1 percent this year, unchanged from the 2012 rate, and less than the 3.3 percent forecast in April, the Washington-based fund said today, trimming its prediction for this year a fifth consecutive time. The IMF reduced its 2013 projection for the U.S. to 1.7 percent growth from 1.9 percent in April, while next year’s outlook was trimmed to 2.7 percent from 3 percent initially reported in April.

“Downside risks to global growth prospects still dominate,” the IMF said in an update to its World Economic Outlook. It cited “the possibility of a longer growth slowdown in emerging market economies, especially given risks of lower potential growth, slowing credit, and possibly tighter financial conditions if the anticipated unwinding of monetary policy stimulus in the U.S. leads to sustained capital flow reversals.”

The fund urged central banks in wealthy nations facing low inflation and economic slack to keep injecting stimulus until recovery is entrenched, saying rising longer-term interest rates have hurt emerging markets the most. The developing economies need to be alert for financial risks if the “anticipated unwinding” of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s bond-buying program reverses capital flows, the IMF said.

And just what pray tell do they think that the result of rising interest rates will be on a US economy that now has trillions of dollars in new debt because of this insane stimulus?

Oh and exactly zippo in economic benefits to show for it?

This entire stimulus program has stimulated nothing except the growth of government and a truly unconscionable enslavement of our children to an unimaginably huge debt that they will derive zero benefit from; indeed, it will come to be their ruin.

Thanks to HotAir for the pointer to this.

And Now Some Red Meat For The Ladies

(and No, it’s not a statue of me)

Random Thoughts

I hate opening a bottle of 15-year-old Scotch because then I have explain to it about 9/11.

— Frank J. Fleming (@IMAO_) July 9, 2013

Now We Know Why The Rail Cars Rolled 7 Miles Down The Hill…

…to end up incinerating that town and an as yet unknown number of people

(Reuters) – Airbrakes that would have prevented the Quebec train disaster failed because they were powered by an engine that was shut down by firefighters as they dealt with a fire shortly before the calamity occurred, the head of the railway that operated the train said on Monday.

The runaway oil tanker train derailed in Lac-Megantic shortly after one o’clock in the morning on Saturday, exploding in a deadly ball of flames and killing at least five people, with another 40 still missing and feared dead.

The train had been parked at a siding on a slope near the town of Nantes, which is 12 km (8 miles) west of Lac-Megantic. The volunteer Nantes fire service was called out late on Friday night to deal with an engine fire on one of the train’s locomotives.

Nantes Fire Chief Patrick Lambert told Reuters the crew had switched off the engine as they extinguished a “good-sized” blaze in the engine, probably caused by a fuel or oil line break in the engine.

The problem was that the engine had been left on by the train’s engineer to maintain pressure in the air brakes, Ed Burkhardt, chairman of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway (MMA), said in an interview. As the pressure gradually “leaked off”, the air brakes failed and the train began to slide downhill, he said.

That’s one hell of a big goddamned “oops.”

You Can Understand Why They Thought It Flipped Over…

Holy schamoly.

For Those Who Used to Say There Was No Social or Redeeming Value in Saturday Morning Cartoons

…I offer exhibit “A”:

Drunk mans dies after peeing on third rail of G train

A drunken man was electrocuted and killed relieving himself on the third rail in Brooklyn this morning, sources said.

WHAT a HORRIBLE accident!

IF the lad had grown up watching “Ren & Stimpy” ~ as we insisted a tender, young Ebola did ~ he would have learned a lifesaving, “Conjunction Junction” sort of lesson that most probably ~ even in his inebriated state ~ would have kept him from his fatal act, SO catchy is the tune.

I know you’ll agree with me, since one can’t miss the meaning of…

“Don’t Whiz on the Electric Fence!“

A message that transcends childhood.

Low And Slow Is Perfect For Barbecue

For airplanes, not so much

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Officials investigating a jetliner crash in San Francisco have determined that Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was traveling “significantly below” its target speed as it approached the airport and that the crew tried to abort the landing just before it smashed onto the runway. What they don’t yet know is why, and whether the pilot’s inexperience with this type of aircraft and this airport played a role.

…Also Sunday, San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault said he was investigating whether one of the two teenage passengers killed actually survived the crash but was run over by a rescue vehicle rushing to aid victims fleeing the burning aircraft.

It is amazing that only 2 people died, and frankly a testament to how well the plane was built.

An Interesting Benghazi Discussion

And the link goes to another facet of the investigation.

Republicans want to talk to Col. George Bristol about Benghazi

Marine Corps Col. George Bristol was in a key position in the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) chain of command the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. As such, he’s high on the list of people that some Republican members of Congress want to interview. But they don’t know where he is and the Pentagon isn’t telling.

“He Looked So Cute Like A Big Stuffed Animal I Had To Kiss Him”

Only problem being he was a live lion with a girlfriend

A teenager has survived being mauled by a lion after it dragged her into its cage when she tried to kiss it.

Lauren Fagen, 18, says she was kissing the fur of a male lion named Duma when he suddenly reached through the bars of his cage, grabbed her legs in and began mauling her.

The lion’s female mate also joined the attack, which occurred at the South Africa’s Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, where Ms Fagen has been volunteering since June 16.

The lion’s mate was heard to roar “Bitch!” as she attacked.

Sucky Weather

Sucky president.

Job Growth Posts Large Gain in June; Unemployment Rate Holds at 7.6%

…The numbers provided a mixed bag of news: While the actual employment level grew by 160,000, the unemployment ranks increased as well, by 17,000.

Those working part-time for economic reasons also jumped, growing 32,200 for the month.

That pushed a more encompassing count of unemployment that includes discouraged and underemployed from 13.8 percent to 14.3 percent.

Moreover, the quality of jobs was weak.

The bulk of the gains—75,000—came in the hospitality industry of bartending and waiters.

The numbers damn sure tell you why we’re all drinking more and enjoying it less.

On A Normal Day There Are 40 People On My Bus In The Morning

Today there were 8.

Sadly including me.

We’re ExCEPTional

…but we’re DOOMED.

Man, I need a palate cleanser after that GREASY IDIOCY. Let’s watch Rick Monday save Old Glory from SOME FLAG BURNING HIPPIE, YEAH!

Have A Bacon And Bloody Fourth!

I know I am

Well that covers breakfast…

How do I nomnomnomnom Thee? Let me count the ways…

Happy 4th of July, My Fellow Americans!

And I don’t give a SHIT what that worthless piece of carbon in the White House thinks.

We ARE, and have ALWAYS BEEN…exceptional.

99% of us will willingly, gratefully BLEED red, white and blue.

Today we’ll wave it and remember what it took to have that most beautful of standards. This most magnificent of countries.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
——————————————————————————–
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the
positions indicated:
[Column 1] Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
[Column 2] North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
[Column 3] Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
[Column 4] Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
[Column 5] New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
[Column 6] New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

Happy Fourth of July!

Oh, And

…GO, Egypt!

We’re rootin’ for you.

Day-yum!

Brad Stevens exits Butler for Boston

BOSTON — The Boston Celtics have hired Butler’s Brad Stevens as head coach.

The team and the university made the announcement Wednesday afternoon. He will be introduced at a news conference on Friday morning.

Stevens has spent the past six years as the head coach of Butler, twice leading the Bulldogs to the NCAA championship game.

Stevens replaces Doc Rivers, who was acquired by the Los Angeles Clippers.

Talk about keeping your world class secret secret! No Snowdoens in those organizations.

Avian Cuisinarts Not The Solution To Energy Problems

Shocking, I know

The US has had wind farms since 1981, what the left and the green movement don’t want to talk about regarding windmills is (as usual) the truth. The truth is: windmills, like solar panels, break down. And like solar panels, windmills produce less energy before they break down than the energy it took to make them. That’s the part liberals forget: making windmills and solar panels takes energy, energy from coal, oil, and diesel, energy that extracts and refines raw materials, energy that transports those materials to where they will be re-shaped into finished goods, energy to manufacture those goods. More energy than those finished windmills and solar panels will ever produce.

But hey, let’s keep dumping money into them because, much like voting for unqualified candidates from particular groups, it makes us feel so good about ourselves.

And self-esteem is all that matters.