Author Archives: The Editor

Sad World Links

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This is also one of the reasons we can’t have a flat tax: Inside TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans From Filing Their Taxes for Free

Everything in this article seems like standard communist practice. The world has forgotten or never really wanted to remember that this is what they are like. A Million People Are Jailed at China’s Gulags. I Managed to Escape. Here’s What Really Goes on Inside

Why the sharp increase in such a short amount of time? The suicide rate among young Americans aged 10 to 24 years old soared by 56% between 2007 and 2017, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The homicide rate for that age group fell by 23% from 2007 to 2014, but rose by 18% in 2017.This reflects overall suicide rates. They’ve risen nearly 30% between 1999 and 2016, the CDC also said last year, citing mental-health issues as one major factor. Between 1999 and 2016, suicide rates increased significantly in 44 states, with 25 states experiencing increases of more than 30%.

Just to be clear, the whistle blowers are the ones on trial: Body Parts Buyers Were ‘Scalping the Babies,’ Planned Parenthood Trial Reveals

The Mexican Government Lost: Mexico’s president on Friday defended releasing a son of notorious drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman after security forces were outgunned by drug cartel members when the fugitive was captured.

The below is what you will not see on TV. Not sure how long it will even be on YouTube….

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My main thought reading this is why does anyone in this day and age still think it is a good idea to store nukes in Turkey? Seems like the US can destroy all the likely (and unlikely) targets just fine without them. Belated Realization: The Old World Order Is in Shambles

Average users believe a lot of wrong things: Undercover agents in Washington D.C. monitored the site, filled with images of child rape, and were able to deanonymize the Bitcoin transactions, something that average users often believe is impossible.

Kinda funny if you have a sick sense of humor: Riot police blast firefighters with water cannons during Paris protests

Possible Brexit deal is all in the news. Events are moving to fast for anyone to give any useful information but for what it is worth here is two non-US based perspectives. What’s new in this Brexit deal? and Brexit: madder and madder

Reading this story makes me think that the US has resorted to spaming countries it does not like and calling it cyber attacks to make it seem like a bigger deal. U.S. carried out secret cyber strike on Iran in wake of Saudi oil attack: officials

China Running Out Of People

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The below video is a good if simplistic overview of China’s demographic issues. It is worth a watch if you don’t have time to read up on the issue as it is short and to the point. That said, it does have its issues. The biggest groaner comes when they are trying to pretend that there is a non-catastrophic way out for China at the end of the video and suggest that China might allow more immigration into the country. Where in the world do they think these people would come from in numbers great enough to make a difference to China?

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Its not just your imagination: Used Cars Cost Almost Double What They Did Nine Years Ago

Its tough being in the government when you have to impose liability on companies and protect them from that same liability at the same time. California utilities serve customers spread over vast terrain, in a landscape one spark away from bursting into flame. They face an additional challenge under the state’s unusual legal doctrine of “inverse condemnation,” which holds utilities liable for all damages caused by their equipment, regardless of whether the utility was negligent. Facing an estimated $30 billion in liabilities from recent fires, PG&E filed for bankruptcy protection in January. In July, Newsom signed a controversial bill creating a fund to help shield utilities from some fire-liability costs. But, since it might take only two or three major fires to drain the $21 billion allocated to the fund, utilities remain vulnerable.

Before long, the only thing they will not be required to provided is an education: Calif. Gov. signs law requiring colleges to offer ‘free’ abortions

Its effect on girls sports is the least of my concerns: Every Democratic frontrunner has pledged their support of the Equality Act, which would make “gender identity” a protected characteristic under federal anti-discrimination law. Among other things, the bill would force public schools to expand female athletic teams to include biological males who identify as transgender girls.

They are too determined to be respectable to have any kind of real effect: Motorists in Germany are banding together to oppose climate activists’ calls to limit the use of cars. Politicians are taking them seriously because, unlike the Fridays for Future movement and its leader Greta Thunberg, most members of the Fridays for Horsepower group can vote.

I am not a fan of Christopher Columbus, but Howard Zinn is a very unsafe guide to history: Howard Zinn lied about Christopher Columbus. Here’s how.

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From the department of unintended consequences: In the rush to harvest body parts, death investigations have been upended

The Turkish invasion of Syria presents the US with complex issues that are not well reported in the media: Among them, 21 previously received aid from the CIA or the Pentagon. Also, 14 have been provided TOW anti-tank missiles. This reveals a stark dilemma: The groups that were educated and equipped by the United States west of the Euphrates are now fighting against the groups east of the Euphrates that have been also educated and equipped by the United States. In other words, two US-backed groups are fighting with each other.

Just a reminder about how little we know about the past: Combing through the scans, Acuña and her colleagues, an international 18-strong scientific team, tallied 61,480 structures. These included: 60 miles of causeways, roads and canals that connected cities; large maize farms; houses large and small; and, surprisingly, defensive fortifications that suggest the Maya came under attack from the west of Central America.“We were all humbled,” said Tulane University anthropologist Marcello Canuto, the study’s lead author. “All of us saw things we had walked over and we realized, oh wow, we totally missed that.”Preliminary images from the survey went public in February, to the delight of archaeologists like Sarah Parcak. Parcak, who was not involved with the research, wrote on Twitter, “Hey all: you realize that researchers just used lasers to find *60,000* new sites in Guatemala?!?

Guess the State: Legislator Who Argues Housing Is a Human Right Also Suing to Stop Affordable Housing in Her District

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California is not the only crazy State: Cuomo orders utility to pump imaginary natural gas

On purely principled grounds, I support this. But this is the same crowd that believes in forced vaccination. This was a common theme at Thursday night’s CNN town hall focused on gay and transgender issues, sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign. Host Anderson Cooper, for example, called laws criminalizing HIV nondisclosure “antiquated” and based on “old science.” Presidential contender Pete Buttigieg agreed, saying, “It’s not fair and it needs to change.” And both on the CNN stage and in her new LGBT issues platform, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has endorsed decriminalizing HIV transmission as well.Sen. Cory Booker has also signed on to this radicalism, explicitly agreeing that laws requiring disclosure of HIV status to sexual partners are “archaic” and have “no scientific basis,” calling for their complete repeal.

On a different, but related note: Rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) continue to rise, with combined cases of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia hitting a record high in 2018.

Video at the link: Brilliant Midnight Fireball Lights Up Sky Over Northeast China

Nobody is ready for third world service: Massive California power outage triggers chaos in science labs

The important thing is to keep panicking: Some corals ‘killed’ by climate change are now returning to life

FYI: Tens of thousands of troops were deployed on rescue missions across Japan on Sunday after a powerful typhoon caused widespread flooding and landslides, leaving at least 26 people dead and 15 missing.

Mostly in the News…..

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Turkey has limitations. Linking to it mostly because it is from one of the more astute bloggers around: Turkey’s border offensive against the Kurds, far from being a blitzkrieg, is limited by the resources available to Ankara’s forces. According to DW, its goal is to bring a 15,360- square kilometer swath under its control. “Turkey wants to create a 32-kilometer-deep, 480-kilometer-long corridor (20 miles deep, 300 miles long) inside Syria along the border to protect its security… it plans to resettle nearly 1 million of its 3.6 million Syrian refugees who hail from other parts of Syria inside the ‘safe zone.'” But it must do so by installment and on a shoestring.

A Russian sponsored look at Trump’s decision to get out of the way of the Turks.

A collection of links on power black outs in California and the problems they represent: Unsustainable California: No Easy Remedy for PG&E Blackouts, Fire Risks

Controlling the price has never before in the history of the world increased supply but it might be different this time: California governor signs statewide rent-control law

For what it is worth, here is an overview of the polls: Do Americans Support Impeaching Trump?

Sad World Links

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I had never heard of this either but I can’t say I am suprised. Eric A. Fong’s manuscript had been conditionally accepted. The editor said Fong needed to ensure it conformed with the journal’s style and to shorten it to meet the word limit. That was easy enough. But the third condition gave Fong pause.He’d cited only one source from the journal he’d submitted the article to. The editor wrote in an email that that was “unacceptable,” and told him to “please add at least five more.”Adding citations to articles in the same journal, as the editor had requested, would inflate the journal’s impact factor, which often dictates a journal’s importance. It’s a phenomenon some scholars call “coercive citation,” but Fong, then an assistant professor of management at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, had never heard that term.

Just in case it is of interest: In the wake of Blizzard’s shameful cowardice, designer, fellow gamer, and former Blizzard team lead Mark Kern is taking a stand

A reminder of data that is not talked about: More than 100 more people were killed with hammers and clubs in 2018 than were killed by rifles. There were 443 people killed with hammers, clubs, or other “blunt objects”.

Something you already know: The FBI’s use of the database – which, again, is specifically defined in law as only being allowed to be used for foreign intelligence matters – was completely routine. And a result, agents started using it all the time for anything connected to their work, and sometimes their personal lives.