Conspiracy Theory Alert: Was the New York Snow-maggeddon Shutdown for Secret Reasons?: Transporting Weaponized Influenza or a High Value Target?

I was thinking about how nearly all transportation in New York seemed to have shut down all at once.

With meteorologists predicting blizzard conditions and perhaps as much as 18 inches of snow for New York City, city and state officials moved quickly to shut down as much of the transportation system as possible. Highways were closed to all but essential personnel. The Metro-North and Long Island commuter railroads were shut down, and all bus and subway service was suspended at 11 pm Monday night.

So what would you do if you had all transportation shut down in one of the biggest cities in the world? You could probably transport something scary or politically damaging and make sure people didn't either see it or try to stop it.

I was thinking what that could be and it would have to be something extremely deadly like small pox or maybe a weaponized version of the flu or bacteria. Officials could not risk letting slip that they were moving this item at all and especially through a major metropolitan area.

So what they waited until there was a "blizzard of the century" and then moved it via essential personnel driven vehicle. They loaded it onto a ship, under guard, and that ship left Tuesday for parts unknown. Maybe they are moving it by ship because of the fear that an airplane crash could release it accidentally or expose it to scrutiny.

Also it might have been to get a certain person of interest out of the country in a very secret way. Maybe Zacarias Moussaoui was traded to Al-Quida for aid against ISIS or some other trade of that sort. Right now there is a fake Zacarias Moussaoui residing at ADX Florence in Colorado. Maybe they didn't want to send him out through a military base because there would be too many witnesses. Moving him through silent streets in a van with tinted windows and then loaded on a slow boat could dodge prying eyes.

Bill de Blasio Says You Cannot Put a Price on Safety: Yeah you Can $200 Million

It seems that the storm of the century was only  a light dusting of snow for New Yorkers.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio again defended his administration's decision to prepare for the storm by banning travel.

"You can't put a price on safety," he said Wednesday on NBC's "Today" show.

Yeah you can. It seems that price tag was $200 million.

New York City lost an estimated $200 million in economic activity in the fizzled snowstorm and the decision to shut down the transit system had the biggest impact on businesses.

Michael Moore Doubles Down on the American Sniper Hate

I guess if you didn't have a reason to avoid Michael Moore movie's going forward this should do it.

One tweet stated, “Tomorrow's Sunday School (1) What Would Jesus Do? Oh, I know what he'd do -- hide on top of a roof and shoot people in the back!”

He followed that tweet with: “Sunday School: (2) But What Would Jesus Do if he could be a sniper & save soldiers lives by shooting "savages" in the back?”

I guess Michael Moore doesn't want to see the movie. In whatever case he is trolling the Right just like he wants to.

Fox News’ Todd Starnes sounded off on Monday against Moore. “There was a time when Hollywood and Democrats stood in solidarity with our fighting men and women,” Starnes said. “Folks like Jimmy Stewart and Bob Hope and John Wayne - American heroes. Those days are long gone and our sweet land of liberty has been soiled by the stinking stench of Michael Moore and Howard Dean and their liberal minions.”

I suppose Fox News can just ignore provocateurs like Moore but it is such red meat they probably cannot. This is the problem with liberals they just cannot fathom how movies like this are enjoyed by Americans they clearly do not respect. In fact Howard Dead spouts off.

“There’s a lot of anger in this country, and the people who go see this movie are people who are very angry,” Dean said. “And this guy basically says ‘I’m going to fight on your side.’ … I bet you if you looked at a cross-section of the Tea Party and the people who go to see this movie, there’s a lot of intersection.”

Yeah $200 million two week gross were just angry people who are also Tea Party nuts. I wonder how many of these sorts of people produced, bankrolled, and stared in this movie. It seems that Bradley Cooper who will probably win an Oscar isn't some angry Tea Party nut job. In any case it would be nice to be entertained by a movie and not have to be subjected to nuance and ambiguity all the time.

Well I Won't Be Shopping at Target Anymore: Perp Walk Leads to Employee Suicide

Just when they were living down the shame of one of the great hacks of all time this happens.

"The walk of shame is a Target policy to purposely cause shame, embarrassment and emotional distress to any Target employee who is suspected of stealing from Target,” the suit, filed last Thursday, states, according to NBC Los Angeles. ”The policy consists of employees being arrested and paraded in handcuffs through the Target store in full view of co-workers and customers.” The suit alleges that’s exactly what happened on July 15, 2014 to Gentles, who was later released and not charged with any crime. (The true reason for his firing, according to mom, was a verbal altercation Gentles had with another employee, off-site, months prior). 

So they perp-walked this kid out of the store and there were no charges or even a crime committed? That kind of thing has no place in retail or anywhere else in the US. Even the cops would let the kid leave the premisses before they cuffed him and put him in the squad car. Maybe Target couldn't afford removing his hand because of high insurance costs so the perp-walk would have to do.

Great Idea fround in liberal Washington Post: Tax Cuts for Companies that Pay Cost of Living Adjustment

Every now and then I am rewarded for reading liberal talking points in the main stream media. This is one such idea.

Democratic House leaders have introduced proposals to limit tax deductions for corporations that give their chief executives performance bonuses but don’t similarly reward their workers. (They should go further and propose reducing tax rates on companies that give their employees wage hikes keyed to increases in productivity and the cost of living.) 

The first idea about limiting tax deductions unless companies have to reward workers if their CEOs get performance bonuses sounds like something that could be dodged. However, that second idea is pure gold. Tying corporate tax rates to providing a COLA sounds like something the Congressional Budget Office needs to score. If the savings is substantial I can see quite a few companies reducing their taxes through giving their employees a raise.

You can tie tax incentives to quite a few different perks for employees as well. Perhaps providing strait dollar for dollar matching or maybe a 1.5x match to an IRA the company gets a tax credit. A corporate tax code that is advantageous to the worker that ties it to corporate tax cuts that benefit the company would be some great out of the box thinking. It would be a middle class tax cut that will really help America.

King Abdullah Dead at 90

It seems that there will be a new King in charge of the largest oil nation in the world.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, the powerful U.S. ally who joined Washington's fight against al-Qaida and sought to modernize the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom with incremental but significant reforms, including nudging open greater opportunities for women, has died, according to Saudi state TV. He was 90.

I wonder if they will have a lavish coronation or not? The Muslim world equivalent of Elizabeth IIs coronation in England? The Crown Prince was pretty much in charge for years so there won't be any kind of royal crisis.

Atomic Cassandras Move Up Doomsday Clock for Some Reason

Looks like we are back to 3 minutes until Doomsday.

The advocacy group founded by the creators of the atomic bomb moved their famed "Doomsday Clock" ahead two minutes on Thursday. It said the world is now three minutes from a catastrophic midnight, instead of five minutes.

"This is about doomsday; this is about the end of civilization as we know it," bulletin executive director Kennette Benedict said at a news conference in Washington.

She called both climate change and modernization of nuclear weaponry equal but undeniable threats to humanity's continued existence that triggered the 20 scientists on the board to decide to move the clock closer to midnight.

Equal threats? You have got to be kidding. Modernization of nuclear weaponry might have a chance of wiping out humanity but climate change has no chance. Even if things get hotter by whatever degrees and the polar ice caps melt or whatever "Climate Change Doom" scenario is cooked up it will not end humanity. We will adapt and move around and endure because that is what humans do. I think they only added climate change into their equations because the chance of global thermal nuclear war is so remote it makes this clock worthless.

Fox and Friends Blast Free Community College Tuition: Um, It's a Good Idea Shut Up

One of the few things I took out of the State of the Union speech that resonated with me is the idea that the government will foot the bill for community college. That sounds like a good use of my tax dollars. It seems that Fox and Friends doesn't agree.

While others have critiqued the president's plan for potentially high costs to states and unlikelihood of increasing the graduation rate, "Fox & Friends" co-host Steve Doocy had a slightly different complaint.

"Here's the thing that really bothers me about this," Doocy said Wednesday morning. "I made my final two college tuition payments about two weeks ago!"

And according to co-host Brian Kilmeade, this whole free college thing is just pointless anyway. I mean, it's not that hard to just pay for it. Right?

"If you want to go to college, you can get a part-time job and make that tuition payment even without a loan, which available to you, and even without grants," he said.

Okay, Steve Doocy is 58 so I guess his comment was hyperbole. However, if it is so cheap that you can pay off community college with a part-time job we might as well let the government pay for it. It won't be a huge expenditure because Tennessee seems to be doing quite well with it. They are a Red State after all.

Also with the public schools so poor quality maybe a few years of community college might be able to at least get people to a baseline skill level. I wouldn't mind my tax dollars go to something like that. I am tired of the knee-jerk conservative line to everything is "too expensive!" or whatever. Lets price it out and see where we can cut to make it happen. This is the kind of thing that will be a quick boost for the middle class so we need to see hard numbers on it.

Disney Ditched George Lucas's Ideas for Star Wars: Thank God!

I guess the idea for a kid friendly character named Car-Car Lings that was actually an offensive Asian stereotype seems to have been ditched by Disney.

Following comments that he had started to craft some ideas for a new "Star Wars" trilogy before Lucasfilm was acquired, Lucas was asked in an interview with Cinema Blend published Tuesday to divulge some of the ideas he had cooked up for new "Star Wars" material.

"Well, the ones that I sold to Disney and everything, they came up to the decision that they didn't really want to do those," Lucas told Cinema Blend. "So they made up their own. It's not the ones that I originally wrote."

I now really cannot wait to see the new Star Wars now. Lucas was great for creating the universe but his tinkering has been intolerable. "Han shoots first" Nuff Said.

Buy Shares in the US? A Great Idea!

Now this is some forward thinking financial engineering.

Let Treasury offer a more equity-like instrument, one that paid the investor a constant percent of nominal Gross Domestic Product ("GDP"), and nothing more, for, say, 30 years. Then the investor would have protection from inflation, Treasury would get some relief when the economy was in recession and, since it self-liquidates, there would be no need to refinance the issue; hence we would no longer burden our progeny with our profligate ways.
Indeed, we can sum up the benefits of GDP Certificates ("Certificates") as follows:
• Investors purchase a no-load, no-fee, marketable term annuity with inflation protection, growth, no counter-party risk and a low correlation with stocks and bonds during periods of inflation - a new asset class.
• Treasury raises capital, buys a financial hedge and sells inflation insurance with a self-amortizing instrument.

The idea of going long America (tax free) sounds like a great investment. The idea that if America does well your dividend increases sounds like such a great investment. You could also load up during a recession so your dividend increases when America recovers. It is so much better than endlessly increasing the debt load.

Climate Change Researchers Move Goal Posts on "Social Cost" of Carbon

I love how there models are always underestimating something.

"Rich and poor countries will fare very differently when dealing with future climate change effects."

Researchers from Stanford University found that the current price of climate change is more likely six times as much, approximately $220 for every ton of carbon produced. Using a new model to calculate the number, the researchers took into account the economic damage that catastrophic climate events, like storms or crop loss, could pose to a country’s GDP over time. “If climate change affects not only a country's economic output, but also its growth, then that has a permanent effect that accumulates over time,” Frances Moore, co-author and environmental scientist, said. Their findings appeared Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

I wonder if their model builds in the idea that growth might be helped by some aspects of climate change? For instance more carbon in the air might increase crop yields. Also some areas that were once impossible for growing things might become available as well. Maybe building up coastlines and moving cities would create large amounts of money for heavy industry and construction. Unions would certainly love climate change.

Also the thing about growth is that it is very hard to permanently keep it down unless its bad governance or bad economic policy. The idea that this growth will never come back is quite a leap of logic. Another thing I found interesting is that these climate scientists are are projecting growth out for decades. I don't think any economist can actually do that with any form of certainty. Who knows what the world will be like, technology wise, 50 or 60 years from now? Maybe there will be cold fusion that will reduce emissions down to negligible levels? I just never understood how you can project something out for a 100 years like this.

Predictions for 2015: All in One

Political:

1. The GOP Congress will work with Obama to a lesser extant but there will be many battles between them on immigration and other issues. Obama will veto several bills and have a few of them overturned with some moderate Democrats on-board.

2. A Grand Bargain on Tax Reform will be passed with work from both parties.

3. The Obamacare exchange will be made illegal by the Supreme Court. The federal government will require all states to have a Healthcare exchange and lawsuits are generated by GOP controlled governors. It will not be resolved in 2015.

4. Obama will start to withdraw from politics and start to prepare for his time after office. He will play lots of golf and lead from behind and basically just ignore his job.


World:

1. ISIS will be severely damaged by the end of the year. They will be attacked from many fronts and start to show signs of defeat.

2. Islamic terror will start to ramp up as ISIS starts to feel the sting of airstrikes and Iraqi and Syrian resistance. They will take the fight out of the "Caliphate" and into the West. More attacks like Charlie Hebdo will be felt across Europe. The lone Islamic terrorist with a gun or bomb will be the new thing to fear in the Western world.

3. China's economy will start to show cracks. Growth will slow and they will do everything they can to keep things going.

4. Russia will start to quiet down as oil prices stay low. They will rattle the sabre less and cooperate more in the wider world.

5. Low oil prices will disrupt the governments of Venezuela and Nigeria. They will have massive disruptions by the end of the year.

Economic Predictions:

S&P 500: 2250
Dow: 18700
Nasdaq: 4700
Crude Oil: $71
Gold: $1226 and ounce
EUR/Dollar: 1.09
10 Yr Bond: 2.15%

Sports Predictions:
NFL: Seattle Seahawks
NBA: Golden State Warriors
MLB: St. Louis Cardinals
NHL: NY Islanders
Premier League: Manchester City
Bundesliga:Bayern Munich
NCAA Football (played in 2016:) TCU Horned Frogs
NCAA Basketball: Duke

Charlie Hebdo Does not Back Down: Puts Mohammed on the Cover

Now this is the kind of backbone that is in short supply in this day and age.

The cover of the first edition of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo since its staff were murderously attacked by Islamist gunmen last week shows a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed crying and holding up a "Je suis Charlie" sign under the words: "All is forgiven".

The spineless cowards at Sony Pictures or the White House couldn't carry Charlie Hebdo's jockstrap. These guys are what is right about the Western world. Don't back down from extremists and fight strength with strength. That is the only thing they respect.

Ryan wont Run in 2016? That sucks!

The best (or one of the better men) for the job is going to sit on the sidelines in the next Presidential race.

Republican U.S. Representative Paul Ryan, the party's vice presidential nominee in 2012, said on Monday he will not run for president in 2016 in order to focus on his new role in Congress as chairman of the influential House Ways and Means Committee.

Ryan told NBC News he made the decision to pass up a White House bid "weeks ago," well before his former running mate, Mitt Romney, said on Friday he was considering another presidential bid.

I really hope Romney doesn't win the nomination because he failed already. Let's get some new blood in there. I also hope it won't be Hillary Clinton vs. Jeb Bush because in a nation of 316 million people we cannot find someone that is not part of the two families that has had multiple Presidents already?

White House Admits Blunder: Should have Sent at Least John Kerry to Paris Freedom March

Yup the tone deaf administration strikes again. At least they admit they screwed up for once.

While leaders from Europe, the Middle East and Africa linked arms for Sunday's march through the boulevards of Paris, the United States was represented by its ambassador to France. Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris for security meetings but did not attend the march.

"It's fair to say we should have sent someone with a higher profile," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. The administration also announced that Secretary of State John Kerry, who was on a long-planned trip to India Sunday, will visit France later this week.

Kerry was there but didn't march. Why he didn't march I have no idea. Maybe he was too busy windsurfing or something. In any case you have this picture of the heads of nearly every Western nation linking arms and we don't have any senior Americans administration people there at all. Also this part doesn't wash IMO:

"There's no doubt that had the president or vice president, on this very short time frame, gone to participate in this event that took place outdoors with more than a million people in attendance, that it would have significantly impacted the ability of those who attended the march to participate in the way they did yesterday," he said.

Yeah or they could have trusted the French to guard Obama or Biden's lives if there were there. I mean the Israeli PM was there and he would have been a big damn target for Jihadis to go after. In any case the Obama White House looks stupid, tone-deaf and leads from behind yet again. 

MS Treatment might Stop the Progression of the Disease

This seems pretty encouraging if you have MS.

The procedures, abbreviated as HDIT and HCT, are the focus of the multicenter trial that includes experts from seven U.S. states, plus Canada and England.
A three-year interim report published recently in the journal JAMA Neurology offered positive results: Nearly 80 percent of those enrolled, including Kearny, not only survived but also showed no increase in disability, relapse of MS symptoms or new brain lesions. Few serious complications or unexpected side effects were reported. 

That is pretty stunning news because 80% chance of stopping the disease in its tracks sounds outstanding. What is interesting is that the mechanism seems to be what you use to get rid of lueukimia

The trial patients all had failed standard treatments for MS in the 18 months before they enrolled; typically they’d exhausted three different lines of care, said Dr. Richard Nash of the Colorado Blood Cancer Institute.
They received high doses of drugs to wipe out their immune systems and then doses of their own stem cells to rebuild them.

It’s a technique first pioneered for to the now-common treatment for leukemia and other cancers.
This kind of sounds like CAR-T Immunotherapy but you use stem cells instead of specially engineered T-Cells. I guess your body uses the new stem cells to recreate the immune system without creating the lesions in the brain that come from MS.

De Blasio Blasts Cops for Turning Their Backs on Him; Quit While you are Behind Moron

This guy should just step down already. He has lost the confidence of the rank-and-file police and now he is badmouthing them again.

In his first public remarks on the officers' protests, de Blasio said the cops' searing rebuke was hurtful to the families of the two officers killed in an ambush last month and was an offense to the city at large.

"Those individuals who took certain actions the last two weeks, they were disrespectful to the families involved. That's the bottom line," de Blasio said at a news conference held at police headquarters. "I can't understand why anyone would do such a thing in the context like that."

No Mr Mayor you were disrespectful of them when you threw them under the bus so you can cuddle closer to Sharpton and his ilk. This mayor said he feared for his own sons life when he dealt with the cops who nominally work for him and his government. 

Those cops turned their backs in that context because they think Mayor and his rhetoric got two cops gunned down in cold blood. Their job is dangerous enough without the Mayor of their city badmouthing them and inciting nut-jobs to kill them off.

Here is the Program for the 1958 Rose Bowl Matchup Between Oregon and Ohio State

Wow 50 cents was big money in 1958. Remember a comic book cost 10 cents and a newspaper cost a nickle.

Oregon's National Champion Uniforms Looks Like the Came out of a Lame Best Buy Ad

Playing for one of the biggest games in their history and they end up taking the field in these boring things?

The Front:

The Back:

They look like the generic uniforms you see in a Best Buy ad for LCD TVs. The TV maker cannot show the actual uniforms due to licensing issues so they just show a generic white team and a generic red team.

My pick would be a throwback uniform to the 1958 Rose Bowl team that lost 7-10 against Ohio State. Call it the revenge match-up 57 years in the making.

Game Changer: Dish offers Streaming ESPN

Well it looks like the last reason to have cable (live sports) is about to fall by the wayside.

For $20 a month, Dish will offer ESPN, ESPN2, CNN, TNT, Food Network, HGTV and the Cartoon Network to consumers to stream on their laptops and mobile devices. It's a huge step in the cord-cutting movement, the ongoing migration away from cable contracts that require subscribers to pay for hundreds of channels they may never watch.

That really just leaves pay-per-view sports and local sports. I watch some BBC America, Comedy Central and FoxFX because they have Simpsons reruns but that is pretty much it. I am moving closer and closer to the cord cut myself. 

Should Killing Cops be a Hate Crime? I tend to Agree

This is an interesting question.

Violence against police officers that is motivated by anti-police bias should be prosecuted as a hate crime, the nation’s largest police union is arguing in a letter to President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders this week.

“Right now, it’s a hate crime if you attack someone solely because of the color of their skin, but it ought to be a hate crime if you attack someone solely because of the color of their uniform as well,” said Jim Pasco, the executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police.

I mean the ambush attack in New York was the definition of a hate crime. An insane person that hated the police shot them in cold blood. If he didn't commit suicide then you could make the argument that he was motivated by hate and thus committed a "hate crime." You can also prosecute those scumbags who tossed garbage cans on the heads of cops in the same way.

Maybe expand this legislation to people that shoot at firefighters or ambulance drivers as well. I mean these people are there to help so anyone that targets them should have a little extra added to their sentence. First responders should never fear for their safety when they are trying to do their jobs.

Yeah the Detroit Loins got Robbed

I was watching this game on Sunday and I have to say that if it happened to my team I would be asking for a Senate investigation. The pass interference was a judgement call and picking up the flag so late was egregious but this part was worse.

That fellow there without a helmet is Dez Bryant who is a wideout. He had no business being on the field to argue a call and should have been flagged for it. The ref in this game just pointed to the sideline and didn't throw a the flag all. The pass interference was a judgement call but there is no grey area with a guy running onto the field like that. The Cowboys need to send a fruit basket to whatever ref let this happen.

The only reason I was watching was out of loyalty to Bryant and Golden Tate who were both on my fantasy team this year. I really couldn't care less who won but it was still galling to watch a player that did so well on my team almost blow it for his real team.

Centrist Think-tank Urges Obama to Push Asian Trade Deal: Wait there is a Centrist Think Tank?

Yeah, there is such a beast.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies said if Obama can work with Republicans and address divisions within his own Democratic party over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, legislation to facilitate the pact could be passed midyear, enabling TPP's conclusion this fall.

I agree with this assessment as well. Pass these trade deals and let out goods flow out to these countries. Also let their goods flow back. Some authentic Thai food or Japanese delicacies would do well in certain parts of the US.

Stack-Ranking and Yahoo's QPR Systems need to be Put in the Dustbin of History

You figure that anything that messed up the MSFT of the Ballmer era should have been forgotten. However, it seems that Yahoo embraced the mess that was Stack-Ranking and it has the company reeling.

Mayer would stick to this semantic line of defense for the next year. It irritated employees, and even some of Mayer’s direct reports, to no end. The problem was that while “stack rank” and “bucket sort” were different words, the systems those words described had the same effects. Mayer had given the company’s senior managers orders for how many of their employees could go into each bucket. These senior managers had then passed down the ratios to the managers below them. And so on.

It was a forced curve. In general, only 75% of any group got in the top three buckets. Twenty-five percent of every team had to go into the bottom two — “occasionally misses” and “misses.” The result: Teammates directly competed with each other to make sure that they weren’t a part of that 25%.

It was stealth layoffs by any other name. What happens with this system is that talented people don't work together so you cannot multiply their brilliance. So there will be no All-Star team at any company because one of those people end up getting put in the bottom 25%. If Yahoo was smart they should have had this in place for maybe 6 months and you clear the deadwood. Then you change to a different system that rewards teamwork. Maybe a team bonus system or something similar. Mayer was lucky that AliBaba held up the stock price because the core Yahoo business seems to be in shambles.