GOP Goes After Women in a Big Way: Well Female Candidates and Voters Anyway

It seems that the "binders full of women" might turn into actual conservative women if this full-court press works out.

The RNC, joined by the National Republican Congressional Committee, Republican Governors Association, National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Republican State Leadership Conference, and the College Republican National Committee, launched “Women on the Right Unite” which will oversee two other initiatives announced to encourage conservative women to run for higher office and nurture them once they are there, as well as getting more women involved in conservative politics.

The National Republican Congressional Committee announced “Project GROW” (Growing Republican Opportunities for Women), which is focused on recruitment and campaigns, while the Republican State Leadership Committee launched “Right Women, Right Now,” which pledges to recruit 300 new candidates, with the goal of electing 150 women at the state level.

Let's hope that these conservative women that have been recruited from this initiative aren't future Sarah Palin's and Michele Bachmann's. I would love to see a renewed GOP Intellectual Class (yeah there was one once) with a female William F. Buckley coming to the forefront to challenge liberal ideas when it comes to women. A cheerful and smart conservative woman who isn't fingernails on the chalkboard like Ann Coulter is something that America really needs right now.  

Can Noodles & Company be the Next Chipotle or Panera?

Well the company is IPOing this Friday and it seems they are raising the range on the company.

The company had initially priced its IPO in the range of $13 to $15 a share, but announced on Tuesday that the range would be lifted to $1 to $17, showing that investor demand is high. The company was originally to raise $75 million from the IPO, based on $14 per share, in the middle of the original range. 

Assuming Noodles prices in the middle of the higher range at $16 per share, proceeds will likely be in the $85 million dollar ballpark. This should help combat investors' main worry going into the IPO: Growth versus debt. 

They seem to be using quite a bit of that money to pay down their debt which isn't due until 2017. They have some nice earnings growth metrics which add up to 120% since 2010. Also the food looks pretty damn tasty. I would eat the Penne Rosa and the Pesto Cavatappi right now. The BBQ pork sandwich looks pretty good as well. 

Of course there are none in Hawaii but they have a few in Oregon and California. The menu doesn't look too huge and imposing but I would like to see more Japanese noodles represented though. I think Americans would enjoy Udon or Soba in broth.

How Dicks Sporting Good Dodges the Amazon Juggernaught

It seems that only the strong survive in retail with Amazon smashing everything in its path and Dicks Sporting Goods might be one of them.

Which is why Dick’s shareholders can take some comfort from that Deutsche Bank analysis. Looking at 190 of Dick’s best-selling products, the report found that only 12 were sold and shipped by Amazon itself. Of those 190 products, 55 didn’t appear on Amazon.com at all, even for sale by outside vendors.

We can point out one more way Dick’s is avoiding the A-bomb of retailing: guns and ammo. Dick’s new chain of Field & Stream stores, which will be aimed at hunters and fishers, will sell both. (Dick’s Sporting Goods stores don’t.) Go try to buy that on Amazon.

The idea that you can't buy a gun or bullets on Amazon is huge selling point. It is kind of like how Best Buy is jacking up their appliance sales. You can't drop ship a refrigerator all the way across the country for free so you have to walk in that showroom. Appliances will always dodge Amazon unless they can somehow gain a warehouse presence.

Dicks also prospers from the anti-government sentiment that you need a gun to protect your family from the NSA/IRS/Obama's drones/terrorists missed by NSA snooping/etc. People are lined up around the block at gun shows so that they can get some protection.

Also if you are a hunter or a fisherman you can only buy the majority of your hobby from a store like Dicks. I just can't picture a hunter buying a tree stand for hunting deer, or a fisherman buying a new reel (let alone a motor boat) without putting their hands on it first. I'm sure some of them might buy camouflaged clothes on Amazon but you would figure they would buy that stuff at the same time as shotgun shells or decoys. 

Senate Tries to Hammer out Student Loan Interest Rate-Hike Compromise: Tying it to Treasuries?

Um this might not be a good idea with treasury rates going higher once the FED stops the money printing presses.

Interest rates for subsidized undergraduate loans, which are currently fixed at 3.4 percent, will rise to 6.8 percent on July 1 unless Congress acts.

The Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act ties interest rates on new student loans to the 10-year Treasury note and adds an additional 1.85 percent to subsidized and unsubsidized undergraduate Stafford loans. The proposal adds 3.4 percent to the Treasury rate for graduate Stafford loans and 4.4 percent for PLUS loans, which are issued to parents of students.

So that means whenever there is a rate hike when the economy improves student loan rates leap higher? Maybe if they tied it to inflation plus a certain fixed percentage it would be more palatable because it is the FEDs job to keep inflation in check. So student loan rates are kept low by someone that has the power to keep it down.

I guess a student can build an interest rate hedge if they are short Treasuries as the rates rise. That way when the 10 year treasury inevitably shoots higher they are somewhat protected. In any case the idea that their loan rate doubles on July 1st will probably not go down so well after they are expected to pay for the bulk of Obamacare.

Supreme Court Speaks: DOMA is dead and Prop 8 goes away

Well hopefully this whole issue gets swept away so it doesn't haunt the GOP going forward.

The decision was 5-4, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy. It said that the law amounted to the "deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment." 

In a separate case, the court ruled that it could not take up a challenge to Proposition 8, the California law that banned gay marriage in that state. That decision means that gay marriage will once again be legal in California. 

That decision was also 5-4, written by Chief Justice John Roberts. 

The ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act means that the federal government must recognize the gay marriages deemed legal by the states — 12 plus the District of Columbia, before the California case was decided. 

I no longer have any problem with gay marriage. If there is a clause that exempts religious institutions from performing them on a separation of church and state grounds then I have no problem with it. In fact if you are a freedom loving GOPer you should be cool with it. It gives gay people the freedom to marry whatever person they want to. I don't care about some other person getting married. Their lives don't affect mine at all.

The whole slippery slope argument can be done away with as well. If some guy wants to marry his dog or three people want to get married then deny that. Stop the egregious stuff and everything should run smoothly. Marriage is pretty much a tax thing anyway in the eyes of state. If churches don't have to perform them because of their beliefs then it should be okay.

Draconian Texas Bill Outlawing Abortions Fails: Sounds Good to Me

This whole mess is exactly why the GOP is hated by many people in the us.

"Get them out!" Sen. Donna Campbell shouted to a security guard, pointing to the thundering crowd in the gallery overhead that had already been screaming for more than 10 minutes.

"Time is running out," Campbell pleaded. "I want them out of here!"

It didn't work. The noise never stopped and despite barely beating the midnight end-of-session deadline with a vote to pass the bill, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said the chaos in the chamber prevented him from formally signing it before the deadline passed, effectively killing it.

Dewhurst denounced the protesters as an "unruly mob." Democrats who urged them on called the outburst democracy in action.

Well I don't condone "democracy by the mob" I still think they did a great service to the women of Texas. I have no idea why this anti-abortion sentiment is still an issue. I mean Roe vs. Wade will never be overturned after being decades in effect. In fact it has been in effect my entire life. The morning after pill is now available over the counter.

And even if Texas did ban abortions I'm sure liberal groups can charter buses or give gas cards to women who wanted to get abortions in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, or Louisiana.  Use some of Soros' money to do some good for someone for a change.

In any case it just makes the GOP look further anti-woman. It takes away a choice that a woman has had for nearly 40 years and replaces it with the uncertainty of back-alleys and illegal behavior. I mean the woman is the one solely responsible for caring for an unwanted child. She should have the choice to abort the child, put it up for adoption, or raise it. Taking one of those choices away just makes it harder on women.

If the GOP was smart they would not fight this battle and instead provide more support for women that choose to have a baby. In other words better adoption protocols, some sort of child care reimbursement, and maybe free pre-natal care for all women that request it. Maybe even a tax break for companies that have longer maternity leave or on premises child-care should be on the GOP radar. In other words make the choice to put the kid up for adoption or raise it much more palatable than it is now.

Microsoft to Restructure in a Big Way: Unfortunately they Will be Keeping the CEO

Well it seems that Microsoft is shuffling the jobs again for whatever reason.

Under that plan, Microsoft would combine currently separate Windows businesses- Windows 8 and the Windows Phone operating systems - into one new division. The new OS division might be led by Terry Myerson (now the Windows Phone boss) and Julie Larson-Green (head of Windows engineering). 

Industry watchers believe the restructuring plan is making many of Microsoft's current senior executives wondering what will happen to their jobs. So far, Ballmer had kept his plans close to his vest. He is expected to gather his top advisers in the next few days to let those closest to him know what he has in mind for the next fiscal year. 

I hope they fire whoever was responsible for Windows 8 getting rid of the Start button and thinking that touch-screen was the interface of the future. I hear good things about the Windows 8 Phone but people don't want that same interface on their work PCs.

Also I hope they fire whoever was responsible for the Xbone needing an always on internet connection and restricting you from letting your friends borrow your games. It nearly sunk the system before it has even been introduced.

Finally fire Ballmer. He has been there for decades but the stock price has been in a holding pattern nearly that entire time. He provides no value for shareholders and their missteps in the past few years have been pretty egregious.    

Pope Dodges Ritzy Concert: Too Busy Attending to the Poor?

Well I guess the needs of the poor supersede the needs of the cardinals used to rich food and nice concerts.

The gala classical concert on Saturday was scheduled before his election in March. But the white papal armchair set up in the presumption that he would be there remained empty.

Minutes before the concert was due to start, an archbishop told the crowd of cardinals and Italian dignitaries that an "urgent commitment that cannot be postponed" would prevent Francis from attending.

The prelates, assured that health was not the reason for the no-show, looked disoriented, realizing that the message he wanted to send was that, with the Church in crisis, he - and perhaps they - had too much pastoral work to do to attend social events.

This empty chair needs to be a symbol that the rich-rich version of the Vatican might not be appropriate when the Church needs to be ridding itself of scandals and helping the less advantaged.

Obama Rushes to Meet with "Oversight Board" over Snooping

I guess there is suddenly a need for this board after all.

The five-person independent agency that has been largely dormant since 2008 and held its first full-fledged meeting on Wednesday after the Senate confirmed David Medine as its chairman last month.

Obama is scrambling to show Americans he has credibility on the issue after coming under fire for the scope of surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency, which was revealed in a series of disclosures by former government contractor Edward Snowden.

I guess Obama was presenting them with their official rubber stamp to okay whatever snooping needs to be done. At least Big Brother is smiling.

Volte Face! Microsoft caves and Frees the Xbox One from All Impediments

Well I guess MSFT will not be giving up the console war before a shot is fired after all.

In a stunning reversal, the company announced that the system would no longer require an Internet connection to play offline games (beyond an initial period when users first set up their system), dropped all restrictions on trading and loaning games to friends and did away with region-locking restrictions. 

Now they only have to convince me that paying $100 more is actually worth it or not. I might do it simply to have any multiplayer game hosted in the cloud instead of by one of the players. That will kill cheating, lag-switching, exploits, modded controllers, and all that mess. If MSFT is smart they will bundle it with some games already loaded on the hard drive. Maybe some old Xbox360 stuff or something like that. If they do that then the $100 value will be realized.

Oh and it is safe to go long GameStop again. The new console war will put piles of money in their pockets.  One analyst thinks it will be a bad deal as more games are delivered digitally but the speed isn't there yet. I bought Blood Bowl a while back and it took like 3 hours to download. I could have went back and forth the GameStop twice in that time.

Holy Crap Tony Soprano err James Gandolfini Died!

Now this is some shocking news indeed.

Gandolfini was traveling in Italy on vacation when he fell ill; conflicting reports have him suffering either a heart attack or a stroke. He is survived by his wife, Deborah Lin, and an eight-month-old daughter, Liliana, as well as a son, Michael, from a previous marriage.

HBO confirmed his death in a statement: "We're all in shock and feeling immeasurable sadness at the loss of a beloved member of our family. He was a special man, a great talent, but more importantly a gentle and loving person who treated everyone no matter their title or position with equal respect. He touched so many of us over the years with his humor, his warmth, and his humility. Our hearts go out to his wife and children during this terrible time. He will be deeply missed by all of us."

Too bad. I always thought he would be good in a comedy as the wacky dad to some teenaged daughters in a Nickelodeon Network style show to play against type. He acts all scary and imposing but actually a big sweetheart. Maybe Schirripa could do that instead. He did write a book about raising daughters.

Obama Scrambles and Calls NSA Snooping a "Ruckus"

Well Obama sees the recording of every email, text message, and phone call by an agency with no oversight as no big deal.

“If you're a U.S. person, then NSA is not listening to your phone calls and it's not targeting your emails unless it's getting an individualized court order,” Obama said in the exchange, which was recorded before the president left for Europe.

“There are two programs that were revealed by Mr. Snowden -- allegedly, since there's a criminal investigation taking place -- and they caused all the ruckus,” he told Rose. It was his only reference by name to Edward Snowden, whom the Guardian has credited with being the source for recent exposés of U.S. surveillance.

Yup, its just a "ruckus" don't you want to see who I picked for the NBA Finals? Or maybe listen to my "common sense solutions" to a bunch of stuff no one cares about? Please look at my left hand "US person" because this NSA snooping in my right is just a "ruckus." Obama does point out checks and balances in the NSA snooping.

Asked about making government surveillance more transparent, Obama replied: "It is transparent. That's why we set up the FISA court." But the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court renders its rulings in secret, and acts largely as a government rubber stamp -- turning down only a tiny handful of government requests.

Um, tiny handful? Try only one since 2009.

[The FISA court] last rejected a request back in 2009, and that was only one out of 1320. In its entire history, since 1979, the court has rejected a grand total of 11 applications. 11. Out of 33,939 applications. That's 0.03%. Not 3%. 0.03% with not a single rejection in over three years. That's not careful review. That's a rubber stamp

That rejected application in 2009 was probably accidentally sent in PDF format instead of the required Office.doc format that the FISA court requires. Also the page that contained the place for the rubber stamp was accidentally omitted. I mean you can't approve an application without the place to put the rubber stamp.

New Cleric in Town?: Moderate Leader Rohani Wins in a Landslide in Iran

Well he looks like a peaceful enough sort of fellow.

President-elect Hassan Rohani held out the prospect on Monday of better relations between Iran and the world, including the United States, and progress on resolving the nuclear dispute. 

But the moderate cleric who scored a surprise election victory on Friday insisted Washington and the West must recognize what he said was Tehran's right to enrich uranium, not interfere in Iran's internal affairs and end their hostility.

Iran is not going to stop enriching uranium but if the West has assurances that they won't build a bomb and only plan to build reactors for power then I don't mind sanctions being lifted. So as long as UN inspectors go in there and make sure that there is no bomb making then Iran should be okay.

I always heard that nonsense that they have so much oil why don't they just build oil power plants as short sighted. The idea of having nuclear power plants shows the world that you are a 1st class power technologically. It is a violation of sovereignty to tell a nation that they can't have 1st world technology to power their nation if they prove they aren't weaponizing said technology.

This is also a major opportunity for Obama to polish his woeful foreign policy legacy. If he can get assurances that Iran won't build the bomb (and the UN will verify that) then a massive threat to the world leaves the stage. If he can then bring in North Korea and form some sort of lasting peace there then the so-called Axis of Evil will have been defeated.

Well Good News From Syria: Western Kurdistan Might Have Been Born: Saladin the Great (a Kurd) Smiles Happily from Paradise

Well, to balance the bad news coming out of Syria it seems that the Kurds have formed a new semi-autonomous nation.

Over the past year, some Kurds began openly calling for an officially autonomous region in Syria similar to that of northern Iraq.

Vehicles sporting license plates reading "Rojava Kurdistan," or "western Kurdistan," have become more common. Kurdish red, green and white flags with a sun in the middle — the same flag flown in Iraqi Kurdistan — fly over homes and public offices. A local police force known "Asayish," whose members include women, have taken over security in the areas abandoned last year by Assad's forces.

Kurds now study their own language and cultural heritage in schools. Under Assad, Kurds have not been allowed to openly teach their language or celebrate their New Year, or Nowruz, and Kurdish activists were routinely jailed.

Maybe they will form up with Iraqi Kurdistan and part of southern Turkey and become a new nation. Kurds seem pretty bad-assed from what I read about Saladin and seem pretty secular and open when it comes to Christians and such. They could be a perfect ally with the West and be a bulwark against Muslim fundamentalism.

Yeah We are Going to Arm These Guys?: Syrian Rebel Leader Eats Lungs of Dead Soldier

Well, when you do nothing for years and allow Al-Quida scumbags and other assorted Muslim crazies into the country this kind of thing happens.

The actions of Khaled al-Hamad, known by the nom de guerre Abu Sakkar, handed an instant propaganda victory to the Syrian govenrment, which accused the West of ignoring rebel atrocities. 

The video purported to show the leader of a breakaway rebel faction cutting the lungs out of a soldier’s corpse before apparently eating a small piece of the organ. 

”I swear to God we will eat your hearts, Alawite soldiers of Bashar the dog,” he said, referring to supporters of President Bashar al-Assad from the minority Alawite sect.  

I would like to know that our arms and anti-aircraft weapons aren't going to guys who eat the lungs of their enemies. I would like to see Assad fall but I do not want guys like Abu Sakkar (aka Abu the "Lung-nibbler" or Abu "mmmm tastes like shwarma") to fill the void. Also the lungs and the heart look quite different. I wonder if Abu "the human kebab-maker" knew the difference? Maybe he just grabbed some organs and hoped for the best.

Scandals Finally Eating Into Obama's Popularity: Millennials with a 17% About Face; It's the NSA Snooping Stupid

Well it seems that the triple scandals and the leaker admitting that the NSA is snooping everyone's phone calls and emails are finally damaging the Obama brand.

Public views of Mr. Obama’s personal qualities have also taken a hit: The latest CNN/ORC International survey, released Monday, shows that, for the first time in his presidency, half the public does not believe Obama is honest and trustworthy. All of the above cuts into Obama’s “political capital,” that elusive commodity that fuels a president's second-term mojo.

One group that is really turning on Obama are the young.

But perhaps most concerning for the president are the numbers among young adults.

“The drop in Obama's support is fueled by a dramatic 17-point decline over the past month among people under 30, who, along with black Americans, had been the most loyal part of the Obama coalition," CNN polling director Keating Holland said in the cable network’s report.

I don't think any of this is only because of the scandals and its more because of the NSA snooping allegations. Obama is continuing something that hated Bush put in place is taking their toll as well. In other words their savior-man Obama is no better then devil-Bush. 

Also the idea that some creepy dude with a rat face (ie NSA Director James Clapper) is reading their text messages, snooping their Gmail, and listening to their phone calls probably doesn't sit well with millennials at all. I mean this guy just looks like a dastardly spy sent right from central casting.

In fact this is the guy who has the potential to read all of a given millennials sexting, has every naked picture she sent to her boyfriend when she was studying abroad in Madrid, and has all of her text traffic with her pot dealer (who was born in Pakistan) in a folder titled "Debbie Pinkowski (24, Kissimee, FL) potential actionable Intel" somewhere on an NSA server farm.

I mean every stupid thing that a millennial has done on the Internet or using their phone is just a PRISM search away. A dossier can be built on anyone and scary, spy man can listen in on any phone conversation without a warrant or with anyone even knowing it. Big Brother is a real thing and there doesn't seem to be a discussion of how ethical their approach is.

The worst part is all of this snooping is supposed to be preventing terror. But two Chechen brothers with a couple of pressure cookers and gunpowder bought at a fireworks shop still bypassed all this scrutiny and unprecedented levels of data collection and blew up the Boston Marathon. Their actions then shut down one of the largest American cities for an entire day. All of those zettabytes of snooped data was totally worthless and will probably remain so when the next terror attack strikes.

Google is Trying to Distance Themselves from NSA PRISM Internet Snooping

Well it seems that Google wants to come clean about the extent of the information that they are giving to the NSA.

Google made its plea in a Tuesday letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller. Google is trying to debunk media reports that the company has created a way for the National Security Agency to gain access to large amounts of its users' online communications as part of a secret program code-named "PRISM." 

The reports surfaced last week after a government contractor leaked confidential documents revealing the NSA has been tapping into the computers of Google Inc. and many other Internet services to retrieve information about foreigners living outside the U.S. The other companies linked to PRISM are: Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo Inc., Apple Inc., AOL Inc., Paltalk, Google's YouTube and Microsoft's Skype. 

So Google is trying to say that they didn't give the NSA email passwords or records of who searched for what and when. In other words they are trying to stop a rush to other email clients because users think that the NSA is reading their mail and building a secret dossier on them.

Well it Looks Like Al-Quida has Shoulder Mounted Anti-Aircraft Missiles

I guess this is what happens when you outsource warfare to other countries.

The 26-page document in Arabic, recovered by The Associated Press in a building that had been occupied by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb in Timbuktu, strongly suggests the group now possesses the SA-7 surface-to-air missile, known to the Pentagon as the Grail, according to terrorism specialists. And it confirms that the al-Qaida cell is actively training its fighters to use these weapons, also called man-portable air-defense systems, or MANPADS, which likely came from the arms depots of ex-Libyan strongman Col. Moammar Gadhafi.

I guess Operation Dawn Freshness or whatever our Libyan adventure was called seems to have made shoulder mounted missiles available to shoot down airliners. Who knows what Al-Quida scumbags have gotten their hands on in Syria as well.

PS4 Wins the Console War With a Few Little Words

Well it looks like I am going to be buying a PS4 for sure now.

"You can trade in the game, lend it to a friend, or keep it forever," said Jack Tretton, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment.

Sony expects most if not all PlayStation 4 owners to have a consistent broadband connection, and said such a connection was necessary to get the most out of the system. But the company stressed that single-player games would still work just fine even when there is no Internet connection. If you enjoy playing single player games online, PS4 won't require you to to check in periodically. "And it wont stop working if you haven't checked in in 24 hours," Tretton noted.

Yup no "always on" internet connection and I can sell my used games to Gamestop so sign me up. Also the idea of booting up a single player game when my internet is down sounds like a winner as well. I have bought several of my games used months after they have come out just to see what they were like. If I had to pay full price I would not have bought them in the first place.

I also like the option of playing a single player game whenever I lose my internet connection as well. No more threat of your X-box now working when you ISP craps out. I remember playing NCAA Football just fine when my internet dropped for several days. I didn't get the Sportcenter Radio thing or updated scores from around the league but everything worked without any interruption. The new XBone would not have let me do that. I just don't like the idea of paying $60 for a game and having it not work when I want it to.

Obama to Unleash the Cyber Hounds Domestically So Says Guardian Newspaper: You Thought Weaponizing the IRS was Bad?

It seems that the British Press keeps scooping our so-called "investigative reporters" AKA Obama water carriers? Kind of strange I should say. In any case this might be some dirty fighting from White House.

The newspaper, behind a string of revelations the last few days about U.S. security, said the U.S. is looking to "identify potential targets of national importance where [Offensive Cyber Effects Operations] can offer a favorable balance of effectiveness and risk as compared with other instruments of national power." The directive also contemplates the possible use of cyber actions inside the U.S., though it specifies that no such domestic operations can be conducted without the prior order of the president, except in cases of emergency.

Domestic cyber attacks need prior order of the president? You mean there is no oversight from any other federal agency or the Congress to unleash cyber attacks on domestic operations? We have the IRS going after Conservative Groups, the Justice Department reading emails and attacking reporters, the government recording every phone call made in America, and now this? I'm sure the domestic targets will be the following:

1. Insurance Companies that raise their rates too high to make Obamacare look bad.

2. Fox News and other conservative websites. I'm sure Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh have already been hacked and the dirt on their PCs being sent to Politico or Daily POS

3. Any Banks that don't toe the line and back whatever "common sense reform" the White House pushes. It's just a coincidence that JP Morgans web site went down after Jamie Dimon criticized Obama.

4. The NRA or just gun owners in general. I'm sure the NRA is getting hacked as we speak so that their donor list can be in the Justice Department hands. There is your national gun registry for you.

5. Oil Companies to show environmentalists that the White House means business. Maybe some oil company software will get a virus and a huge spill will occur. The EPA needs to regulate that entire industry post haste.

6. I'm sure the GOP will have web problems on the night of the midterm elections as well. The GOP couldn't contact the national headquarters and their Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook feeds all got hacked at the same time.

7. Al-Quida working in the US if the OCEO have a few servers left over after they launched all of their other attacks first. In fact no sense using bandwidth to put Al-Quida servers off line or try to find out where they are located. I mean Fox News is a bigger threat then any terrorist right and need to be dealt with first?

Headline from the Future: "Quantum Entanglement to Be Used to Communicate With the Proxima Centauri Generation Ship"

I read this article about how physicists now have an experiment that can find entangled particles that much easier.

To study entangled particles, physicists have to be able to detect them. In some experiments, researchers measure one of the entangled pair first, and its presence signals, or "heralds," the presence of the second particle. Recently, a team of physicists at the Joint Quantum Institute in College Park, Md., achieved a new record in heralding efficiency, meaning they were able to detect more twin particle pairs than ever before.

In the experiment, the researchers used what's called a pump laser to produce a beam of light that passes through a special type of crystal. Occasionally, the photons of light in the laser beam will split in two, essentially, after passing through the crystal, creating a new pair of correlated photons. These photons will hit a detector screen exactly 180 degrees apart, so if the researchers find one, they know to look directly across the circle pattern formed on the detector, to the point 180 degrees around, to find the other.

Okay now a long distance communication device can be created via Sci-Fi magic. You put a bunch of tangled particles in a special device and put their pairs in a similar device. Then you agitate one group of particles and the other group will mimic the same behavior.

So then you can do something similar to Morse Code via electricity in the 1800s. Or it can be used to transmit binary code depending on how many tangled particles are in each of the boxes. So someone at Mission Control on earth hits a button that puts a pulse or something into the group of particles on Earth and the identical box on a ship heading to Proxima Centauri lights up. This is a so-called "Generation Ship" where whole generations of people live and die on-board a massive ship moving slower than light toward that star.

When the Generation Ship "Proxima One" lands the box can then be used to transmit rudimentary communications with Earth. I can picture a small screen on the box that picks up the movement of the particles in a certain way that flashes "we have arrived at Proxima 3 and are in orbit. There is a settlement on the planet!"

Then the settlement turns out to be humans who came from Earth after they figured out space time folding and are there to greet the brave settlers of the "Proxima One" and declare them as heroes of mankind. These humans were afraid to tell the settlers that their mission was no longer needed after 150 years when space time folding was invented. They kept the weekly Earth communications via the "QT communicator" going so the settlers would not become discouraged.

GOP Commits Own Goal: Votes to Deport Children

This is why the GOP is so reviled by Hispanics and might still have a chance of becoming a regional rump party in the next 20 years.

The Republican-controlled House voted Thursday to resume the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children, a largely symbolic move in the first immigration-related vote in either chamber of Congress this year and a measure of the daunting challenge facing supporters of a sweeping overhaul of existing law on the subject.

The party-line vote of 224-201 was aimed at blocking implementation of President Barack Obama's 2012 election-year order to stop deportations of many so-called DREAM Act individuals. Democrats on the House floor reacted with boos when the provision was added to a routine spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security.

There is no other way to spin this other than to say that the GOP hates immigrant children and wants to send them away from the only home they currently know. That is a great way to get Hispanics to vote for you. This is the kind of thing that will make me join the Moderate party if there was such a thing. The conservatives in the GOP are trying to make sure a Democrat controls the White House forever.

New Class of Cancer Drugs (Immunotherapies) to Cost Big Money

Well this is going to be a serious burden on our healthcare system but some of these drugs are super effective and might be life savers so they would certainly be worth it.

Citigroup analysts expect such "immunotherapies" to cost around $110,000 in the United States for a year's worth of treatment and $80,000 in the rest of the world, generating sales of $35 billion a year in the next 10 years. That would represent a hefty proportion of total oncology drug sales, which research firm IMS Health has forecast reaching $88 billion by 2016.

Medicines already account for a higher percentage of oncology spending than for other diseases, but healthcare experts see an opportunity if more effective drugs will help reduce hospitalizations and other costs.

Well, there has to be some kind of savings from having someone pop some pills (or get this medicine intravenously) instead of suffering through weeks of chemotherapy. Still $100K is quite a bit of money but maybe the American Cancer Society can give patients some kind of monthly payment plan to help people afford the costs. Kind of a cancer drug installment agreement.

Wimpy High School Tennis Player Forfeited due to Crowd

Wow, talk about some wimpy people at the high school level.

“We had an unfortunate experience,” New Hampshire Interscholastic Activities Association Executive Director R. Patrick Corbin told the Nashua Telegrah. “I’ve never seen something like this at a tennis match.”

The forfeit occurred when Corbin attempted to shift the girls singles final to a different court at the conclusion of the first set, which Swett won 6-4. Yet, instead of heading to the new court, Leonard left the scene entirely, retreating to her car with her parents and driving home.

So the crowd was heckling her and instead of ignoring them and beating her opponent she just left? This was for the state championship as well. That doesn't make any sense. Although her parents statement says quite a bit:

The elder Leonards told the Telegraph that their daughter was being persecuted by the crowd because she lives in Massachusetts and attends high school in New Hampshire.

“They were bullying her,” Karen Leonard told the Telegraph. “This has been going on for two years. They’ve wanted her out for two years because she’s not a New Hampshire girl. Because we live in Massachusetts.”

Wow of all the words they could have used they used persecuted? Not cajoled or heckled or anything like that but persecuted? That might say a lot about the parents.

Also instead of standing up to the bullies she just got into her parents car and left? Wow, talk about a wimpy person. The parents should have given her a pep-talk and had her go in there determined to shut up the crowd by smashing her opponent. If she lost then at least she gave it her all and those evil New Hampshites threw her off her game. Instead she runs away like the proverbial little girl.

The College Republican National Committee Report is In: How the GOP lost the Young Voter

Well I hope all of the higher-ups in the GOP read this report because this is the key to keeping the party relevant for the next 20 years.

In the report, the young Republican activists acknowledge their party has suffered significant damage in recent years. A sampling of the critique on:

Gay marriage: “On the ‘open-minded’ issue … [w]e will face serious difficulty so long as the issue of gay marriage remains on the table.”

Hispanics: “Latino voters … tend to think the GOP couldn’t care less about them.”

Perception of the party’s economic stance: “We’ve become the party that will pat you on your back when you make it, but won’t offer you a hand to help you get there.”

Big reason for the image problem: The “outrageous statements made by errant Republican voices.”

Words that up-for-grabs voters associate with the GOP: “The responses were brutal: closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned.”

Yup the faster the GOP gets gay marriage and immigration reform off the table the better. Those are wedge issues that makes the GOP look anti-inclusive and nativist. Both things that younger voters just don't like.

Also that part about the party that will pat you on the back when you made it but won't give you a hand up to make it is apt. The GOP needs to re-brand itself is the party that wants everyone to live well rich, poor, or middle class. A rising tide lifts all boats. Also cutting things that people use and have had for decades like Planned Parenthood and Public Television when you save only pennies on the dollar is a waste as well.

Finally, the close-minded, racist, old-fashioned party is just not something that young people will go out of their way to support. I think it will take a while for the GOP to get rid of this stuff and it will take more than one election cycle to do it.