Author Archives: admin
2012 GOP Platform Survey — The Ron Paul Supporters are Angry
NYPD cop shoots carelessly into crowd @ Empire State Building
Don’t expect to hear a goddamn thing about this on the news. The state is here to keep us safe. That is all.
Doctors becoming Slaves in Massachusetts, as Obamacare will do nationally
In Massachusetts they eventually came to the conclusion that Washington will come to if President Obama is re-elected: that the only way to rein in health costs would be to assert government control over doctors and hospitals. Forget about those greedy health insurance companies. Now, it’s time to place government’s “boot” on the neck of the providers.
Under the new law, all Massachusetts doctors, hospitals, and other providers must register with a new state bureaucracy as a condition of licensure. Yes, if you are any kind of health care provider in Massachusetts, you now belong to the state- that is, if you want to actually earn a living in your field. The new “state bureaucracy,” not unlike the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) in ObamaCare, will have a lot to say about what providers do each day as it tracks and reports their financial performance, price and cost patterns, state-sanctioned quality measures, market share, and other statistics.
As WSJ indicates:
…Massachusetts takes 360-degree surveillance and converts it into a panopticon prison. An 11-member board known as the Health Policy Commission will use the data to set and enforce rules to ensure that total Massachusetts health spending, public and private, grows no more than projected gross state product through 2017, and 0.5 percentage points lower thereafter. (And Paul Ryan’s Medicare projections are unrealistic?)
According to the new law, no registered provider is permitted to make “any material change to its operations or governance structure,” without the commission’s approval. In addition, the commission has the authority to rewrite the terms of provider contracts with insurers as well as payment levels and methods if they are “deemed to be excessive,” to police providers who exceed benchmarks, and demand “performance improvement plans” of those providers found to be spending too much money on patient care. Providers who consistently spend above the authorized amount on patient care can be fined $500,000 for disobeying the rules of the commission, an amount that the uber-liberals of the state believe to be a mere pittance of a penalty.
(Read more)
The Showdowns that will define Europe’s future
In today’s Telegraph, we argue:
‘It will not be the case that the south will get the so-called wealthy states to pay. Because then Europe would fall apart.” Thus spoke Horst Köhler, former German president, finance secretary and IMF head, almost two decades ago.
Köhler’s remarks are worth pondering. A series of multi-billion-euro bail-outs – and more to come – have now planted a north-south political divide at the heart of the European project. Taxpayers in Europe’s north resent underwriting their southern neighbours, while voters in the south are equally frustrated at having austerity imposed upon them from abroad. As has been noted repeatedly, this is the greatest tragedy of this crisis: a project that was meant to bring people together, now risks driving them further apart. Alas, events in the eurozone this autumn could further exacerbate this tension. There are at least five key stand-offs to watch over the next few months:
Greece v Germany: Greece managed narrowly to escape running out of money today by raising almost 4 billion euros in short-term debt. But Athens will face an excruciating autumn. On almost every count, Greece is miles away from meeting its EU-mandated austerity targets, which raises the questionof whether Germany – or the IMF – will pull the plug on the country in October when its next progress report is due.
Though there is still scope for muddling through, almost any outcome will lead to rising political tensions. If Germany sticks to its guns, the popular disillusion in Greece will grow massively. If Berlin gives in, it faces a serious backlash from the country’s public – a majority of which wants to kick Greece out.
Spain v the North: Amid continued problems, Spain could possibly request EU cash as early as September. But the country is simply too big for a Greece-style bail-out, while Madrid would not accept having its economic policies fully decided in Brussels and Berlin. Instead a third way must be found involving less money and softer conditions, probably with heavy and controversial ECB involvement. The North will dislike such an arrangement – particularly cheap ECB money going to Spain – but may give in for fear of worse.
The bail-out funds v national democracy: On September 12, Germany’s constitutional court will rule on whether the eurozone’s permanent bail-out fund – the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) – is compatible with the country’s “basic law’, following a host of complaints. Though unlikely, should it strike it down, the markets will go absolutely crazy. Regardless, the ruling will leave a bad taste in Germany and shows how the ESM is becoming an increasingly toxic issue, with southern and northern politicians disagreeing fundamentally on its size and whether it should be given a direct credit line to the ECB.
The Dutch v Europe: September 12 will also see another example of national democracy reasserting itself: the Dutch elections. Geert Wilders, leader of the super-populist PVV, is seeking to turn the campaign into a referendum on Europe, hoping to tap into the Dutch anti-bail-out mood. At the same time, the Dutch socialists – currently leading in the polls – have vowed to resist both the EU fiscal treaty and further transfers of power to the EU without approval in referendums. A divided Dutch parliament and more assertive government will almost certainly make eurozone politics even more complicated.
Germany v France: This autumn will also see negotiations over whether the eurozone will take the next big leap towards an economic union, with an October EU summit tasked with providing a “road map” for more integration. Ideas include a banking union (with a single supervisor and joint backstop) and collective government borrowing in the form of eurobonds. The issues are tremendously complicated, subject to a cobweb of disagreements and will take years to clear away. But importantly, this could widen the gap between Germany and France, with the two disagreeing fundamentally on the order of events. Berlin wants a political union first, meaning greater German control over others’ finances in return for underwriting them – while Paris wants to press ahead with stronger bail-out mechanisms, via the ECB and others, leaving the oversight for later. The Franco-German axis is not about to break, but maintaining it will become increasingly difficult.
So how should Britain respond to all of this? Simple: try to control what it can control and leave the rest behind. The UK is right to seek to buffer up against a potential euro meltdown. It is also right to look for ways to ensure that further eurozone integration – such as a banking union – is not detrimental to Britain or the single market. But the UK government needs to stop giving unwelcome advice on the need to turn the eurozone into a “debt union” or for the ECB to start spraying the Continent with cheap money – both options effectively involving Angela Merkel completely running over her own voters.
The eurozone crisis has unleashed some seriously unpredictable political forces. EU leaders may have to choose between maintaining the euro and maintaining national democracy as we know it. In either case, we have no idea how voters – in the North and South alike – will respond. (Read more)
Anti-Gravity Science
As I understand it, Anti-Gravity research is related to free energy as written about by Nichola Tesla.
TSA harassment sends rape victim to emergency room
What would have likely been a routine flight out of a Florida airport this weekend ended with a woman being sent to the emergency room after TSA agents insisted on groping a traumatized rape victim in a security pat-down that put her in the hospital.
A user of the online Web forum FlyerTalk.com writes that his wife was admitted to the ER for treatment after agents with the Transportation Security Administration cited an “anomaly” in her bra as a reason to subject her to an intrusive closed-door screening on Sunday at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
The woman, described by her husband as the victim of brutal rape, was reportedly being transferred to a psychiatric ward for further treatment after what the man says was a “horrific experience.” (Read more)
Energy-Efficient Lightbulbs May Have Dark Side When It Comes To Health
Everybody knows that one good way to prevent a sunburn is to stay inside, where you’re safe from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. Right?
Well, that may not be true anymore if your house is lit with compact fluorescent light bulbs. Last month, researchers from the State University of New York at Stony Brook showed in a paper that tiny defects in the bulbs can let through UV light that can damage skin cells and lead to cancer.
(Read more)
Austrian vs. Mainstream economics. Great lecture by Walter Block!
Stockton, California Went Bankrupt. Is Your City Next?
The city is on the hook for more than $800 million in unfunded liabilities for pensions and other post-employment benefits.
African diplomats in Israel: We’re afraid to walk down streets
Due to the recent slew of offensive and racist statements made by Israeli politicians, African diplomats in Israel are afraid to walk down the street, said African ambassadors in Israel during a meeting with Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon.
The meeting, which was attended by the ambassadors of Angola, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia and the Ivory Coast, was recently held in the Foreign Ministry’s offices in Jerusalem, Yedioth Ahronoth reported. (Read more)
UN Soldiers can sexually and violently violate young girls with impunity
What do we do when those we entrust with our greatest hopes betray that trust? If the betrayers are United Nations peacekeepers, the answer seem to be nothing at all. There is distressing new evidence, most of it reported here for the first time, that foreign soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo can sexually and violently violate young girls with impunity so long as they wear that iconic blue beret or blue helmet. (Read more)
“Palestinians should die”
Settlers vandalized Palestinian property in the Ramallah village of Sinjil on Wednesday, a local official told Ma’an.
A group of settlers from Givat Ariel outpost wrote “Palestinians should die,” and “Stay away from our lands,” on a wall in the village, Sinjil mayor Ayoub Swaied said. (Read more)
Court Upholds Domestic Drone Use in Arrest of American Citizen
A North Dakota court has preliminarily upheld the first-ever use of an unmanned drone to assist in the arrest of an American citizen.
A judge denied a request to dismiss charges Wednesday against Rodney Brossart, a man arrested last year after a 16-hour standoff with police at his Lakota, N.D., ranch. Brossart’s lawyer argued that law enforcement’s “warrantless use of [an] unmanned military-like surveillance aircraft” and “outrageous governmental conduct” warranted dismissal of the case, according to court documents obtained by U.S. News. (Read more)