MONEY: THOSE SAME THREE SILVER DIMES

Monday, July 7, 2014

http://www.kitco.com/ind/Brecht/2014-07-03-Gas-Prices-Near-6-Year-Highs-No-Inflation-Who-Says.html

Gas Prices Near 6-Year Highs, No Inflation? Who SaysThursday
July 03, 2014 12:59

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While official government statistics show U.S. inflation at still low levels, anyone who buys gas, food or health insurance can attest to the fact that inflation exists in our everyday lives. GasBuddy has predicted that U.S. consumers will see the most expensive July 4th since 2008 at the gas pump.

Despite the dramatic increase in U.S. oil production in recent years, GasBuddy estimates that Americans are likely to pay about $1.435 billion per day for gasoline during the holiday week, about $50 million more each day, or $350 million more per week than last year.

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Any wonder why the “stock market” is going up while the “standard of living” is going down like the Titanic!

The value of the Federal Reserve Note!

THREE silver dimes from 1964, when I started buying gas, would buy ONE GALLON of gas. At $21.15 per silver ounce, those SAME THREE SILVER DIMES are worth $5.70. Far more than a gallon of gas. (Never mind that today’s gas is better, cleaner, and healthier.)

So what’s changed?

The value of money has been inflated away by the Gooferment politicians and bureaucrats for the benefit of the Crony Capitalists and the Banking Cartel.

When do The Sheeple wake up?

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POLITICAL: WW2 wage and price controls cause today’s problems

Monday, July 7, 2014

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2014/07/time-to-cut-employers-out-of-healthcare.html

Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Time to cut employers out of the healthcare loop
Daniel Froomkin asks one of the right questions in the wake of yesterday’s ruling in the Hobby Lobby case: “Why should employers have anything to do with people’s health insurance anyway?”

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I, for once, agree.

I would say why should Gooferment or its corporations be in charge of “health”, “health care”, “health care insurance”, or something else?

Look at “life insurance”. “Cheap”, easily available, and virtually unregulated.

Even “car insurance” is relatively the same when compared to “health insurance”.

When you think about it, the current “system” comes from the WW2 wage and price controls. There, the Gooferment, created the problem and “they” keep “rescuing” us from the problem they created.

Could we at least consider an alternative?

If the problem was “uninsured”, (which I dispute), then could “we” NOT bought every uninsured person a policy and avoided the financial and systematic débâcle that was Obamacare?

I think that you liberals think that only the Gooferment can solve “problems”. When in actuality, it causes the problem it seek to proclaim it’s solving.

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CLOUD: Google is changing “stuff”

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Today, GOOGLE automagically merged three of my email accounts. Confused me to no end. Automatically when I was composing a message, it switched me to my PREP account when I was writing for my JASPER account. 

Argh!

I foresee bad times ahead. Have to prepare to abandon Google?

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MONEY: A defined-contribution program

Sunday, July 6, 2014

http://online.wsj.com/articles/lockheed-martin-to-freeze-defined-benefit-pension-1404220591

July 1, 2014 9:16 a.m. ET

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Lockheed Martin Corp. LMT -0.82% plans to freeze its defined-benefit pension plan for salaried workers and move them to a defined-contribution program starting in early 2016.

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Screw the little guys.

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RANT: Traffic camera ticket

Saturday, July 5, 2014

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/07/03/manhattan-judge-sues-over-traffic-camera-ticket/

Manhattan Judge Sues Over Traffic Camera Ticket
July 3, 2014 8:46 PM

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NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — A driver who just so happens to be a judge has filed a lawsuit against the City of New York for a traffic camera ticket he claimed was unjust.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey Wright sued Wednesday in the same court. City attorneys said they would review the suit upon receiving it.

Wright said his family got a notice saying a camera caught his car being driven in a Manhattan bus lane last October.

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Sorry, but it’s all about revenue.

Where is the Police Officer who stops the car and writes the ticket?

Where are the witnesses?

Argh!

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RANT: The “poor” Democrats

Saturday, July 5, 2014

http://nypost.com/2014/06/28/why-democrats-insist-on-lying-about-how-poor-they-are/

Why Democrats insist on lying about how ‘poor’ they are
By Kyle SmithJune 28, 2014 | 10:22am

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It’s all part of the increasingly delusional myth Democrats tell themselves that they are the tribunes of the middle class. In fact, their party is a strange two-headed beast — picture a Cerberus featuring the faces of Barbra Streisand and Lois Lerner.

The Dems are a coalition of ultra-rich cultural-elite donors on the one hand and government employees and their clients on the other. In 2012, President Obama carried those earning under $50,000 by a wide margin. But Romney easily bested him among those over that threshold.

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Yet even for Democrats, the Clintons got rich in an exotic way. They accumulated something like $100 million not by building a business or inventing something or even writing some hit songs. Their entire fortune came from political celebrity. (Their daughter has even accumulated $15 million by being the offspring of political celebrities. Or did you think NBC News paid her $600,000 a year because of her obvious broadcasting ability?)

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It’s all about power and control.

These folks aren’t “poor”. Nor are the interested in helping the poor. Maybe at one time, but Crony Capitalism is toxic.

And, the liberal media plays their “songs”.

“The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” –Margaret Thatcher

And, this is a symptom.

With a (French style) Revolution to come.

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POLITICAL: PO 08751

Friday, July 4, 2014

http://www.seaside-heightsnj.org/

Important USPS Announcement
July 2nd, 2014

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The Postal Service has established a review process for certain Post Offices known as the POST Plan. The Seaside Heights Post Office was among the offices evaluated under the POST Plan criteria. The Postal Service is now soliciting community input through surveys to help determine the best course of action for providing postal services to your community.

After receiving the results of this survey, the Postal Service will examine the responses and, unless the community has a strong preference (more than 60%) for conducting a discontinuance study for the Seaside Heights Post Office and establishing one of the additional sources of services described below, the Postal service intends to maintain the Seaside Heights Post Office with 6 hours of window service each weekday. Current Saturday window service hours and access to delivery receptacles will not change as a result of the POST Plan realignment of weekday window service hours.

In addition to this survey, the Postal Service will hold a meeting at the Seaside Heights Municipal Court at 116 Sherman Avenue Set 2, Seaside Heights NJ, 08751 on 8/7/2014 at 6:00 PM to answer questions and provide additional information about the POST Plan. At the meeting, local management will share the results of the survey, answer questions, and solicit input regarding the time of day the Post Office will be open. Although survey results will be known and shared, the Postal Service will not make a final decision regarding this office until after the public meeting. This will enable the Postal Service to obtain all community input and opinions, from both the surveys and the meeting, before making a final decision.

The Postal Service is also seeking locally established businesses or organizations to serve as contractor-operated postal retail units in communities like yours. If you are interested in operating a postal retail unit, please visit the website at http://about.usps.com/news/electronic-press-kits/expandedaccess/welcome.htm for additional information. Generally, these contractor-operated postal retail units will operate in combination with a community’s Post Office. However, selection of the third option in the survey indicates a preference of your Post Office to be studied for discontinuance with the establishment of a contractor-operated unit a a replacement for the Post Office.

If you are filling out the survey, please return it by 7/24/2014. We kindly request the inclusion of your mailing address so that we can ensure that one survey response is submitted per address. Please note that your response may be entered into a publicly accessible record.

Thank you for your cooperation. Please contact the Post Office with any further questions.

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And if you don’t get your mail delivered in 08751, then you don’t count.

Argh!

Should just outsource the whole mess to Fed Ex and UPS.

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RANT: Something to “celebrate” on Independence Day

Friday, July 4, 2014

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/07/the-final-trip-home-of-pfc-aaron-toppen/100768/

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The Final Trip Home of Pfc. Aaron ToppenJul 2, 2014 | 17
On June 9, 2014, during a security operation in southern Afghanistan, a unit of U.S. and Afghan soldiers was hit by a friendly fire airstrike, killing five Americans and one Afghan. One of the Americans was 19-year-old Private First Class Aaron Toppen, of Mokena, Illinois. A series of memorials and transfers then began, to return his body home to the U.S. for burial — a sequence of events carried out some 2,200 times since the start of the war in Afghanistan. Once his remains arrived in Chicago, Getty Images photographer Scott Olson stayed with the family through the processions, visitations, services, and burial, documenting the final journey of one of the most recent soldiers to have died in Afghanistan. Pfc. Toppen, who had always wanted to join the Army, signed on last July, and had only arrived in Afghanistan this March. 

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Bring all the girls and boys home now!

Put them on “border duty”.

Ours!

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: “No Refusal Weekend” on INDEPENDENCE DAY

Friday, July 4, 2014

http://www.infowars.com/oregon-celebrates-independence-day-with-no-refusal-blood-checkpoints/

OREGON CELEBRATES INDEPENDENCE DAY… WITH ‘NO REFUSAL’ BLOOD CHECKPOINTS
Police rename Fourth of July weekend “No Refusal Weekend”
by STEVE WATSON | INFOWARS.COM | JUNE 27, 2014

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During Independence Day weekend, a time to celebrate US freedom and unalienable rights, Americans in Oregon will be subjected to a “blitz” of ‘no-refusal’ blood-draw checkpoints, as part of a disturbing trend that now extends nationwide.

Local news station KVAL reports that State police are re-naming Fourth of July weekend “No Refusal Weekend”, as part of a crack down on drunk driving.

Any driver who is stopped by police and refuses to take an alcohol breath test will be subjected to a mandatory blood test either at the scene, at a medical facility, or at the nearest jail.

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Is this America or the “Pepuls Republik of North Amerika”?

Sorry, but as little L libertarian, I don’t want people damaged, hurt, or Heaven forbid killed by any driver.

And, if that happens, Society should demand “restitution”.

But, using technology that’s error prone and then, when the person objects, a “mandatory” blood test?

The Sheeple have allowed the “King” to take away their rights.

Happy Independence Day.

No man or group of men—including any group of men calling themselves “the government”—is morally entitled to initiate (that is, to start) the use of physical force, the threat of force, or any substitute for force (such as fraud) against any other man or group of men. “The Market for Liberty” Linda & Morris Tannehill (1970)

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INTERESTING: A “dry” Las Vegas

Thursday, July 3, 2014

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10932785/The-race-to-stop-Las-Vegas-from-running-dry.html

The race to stop Las Vegas from running dry

Amid a brutal drought the reservoir that supplies 90 per cent of Las Vegas’s water is fast disappearing and desperate attempts to save Sin City are under way

Lake Mead: boaters seen in front of a white
Lake Mead: boaters seen in front of a white “bathtub ring” on the rocks on the upstream side of the Hoover Dam Photo: Getty

By Nick Allen, Las Vegas4:11PM BST 28 Jun 2014

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Outside Las Vegas’s Bellagio hotel tourists gasp in amazement as fountains shoot 500ft into the air, performing a spectacular dance in time to the music of Frank Sinatra.

Gondolas ferry honeymooners around canals modelled on those of Venice, Roman-themed swimming pools stretch for acres, and thousands of sprinklers keep golf courses lush in the middle of the desert.

But, as with many things in Sin City, the apparently endless supply of water is an illusion. America’s most decadent destination has been engaged in a potentially catastrophic gamble with nature and now, 14 years into a devastating drought, it is on the verge of losing it all.

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I remember visiting Lake Mead when the “bath tub ring” was first appearing.

I say to my bride: “There is what happens when no one person owns the water. A private business would raise the prices to equilibrium. Selling exactly as much water — or pretty close to exactly — as is replenished. And cheap people would conserve.”

So true then. So true now.

The “tragedy of the commons” demonstrated.

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