PARADIGMS: Circles = sweetness?

Friday, January 26, 2018

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm

In science and philosophy, a paradigm /ˈpærədaɪm/ is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitutes legitimate contributions to a field.

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https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/circles-food-drink-sweetness-roundness

The Power of Circles in Food and Drink
Humans consistently associate roundness with sweetness.
BY PAULA MEJIA JANUARY 18, 2018

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A plate’s shape might be a subliminal factor in your eating experience, but it’s a significant one. Its design strongly influences how sweet or bitter we perceive a dish to be. Independent research has shown that you’re far more likely to associate sweetness with food served on round versus angular plates, whether it’s cheesecakeor beetroots. A 2017 Australian study even revealed that people drinking beer from a glass with curved sides reported it to taste both fruitier and more intense.

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Wow that’s a kick in the head. We’re fooling ourselves unbeknownst to us. Argh!

So, what else don’t we realize?

Time for a paradigm shift. (“shared preconceptions, made prior to – and conditioning – the collection of evidence”)

Argh! Argh!

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Crony Capitalist Medicine?

Thursday, January 25, 2018

https://www.ac2news.com/2018/01/do-we-have-a-free-market-medical-system/

Do We Have a Free-Market Medical System?
Posted on January 19, 2018 by Hunter Lewis

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Edward K. Glassman, my long ago Harvard classmate, author of Dow 36,000 (predicting Dow at that level by 2005), and current director of the George W. Bush Institute, extolls our free market medical system at FoxNews this week. The first reader to comment on the article agrees that we have a “ free market” system, but thinks that “profit based healthcare” should be “outlawed.” Another reader thinks that we actually have “socialized medicine.”

So what do we have? I think the most apt description would be “crony capitalist” medicine, one in which powerful special interests conspire with government officials to create legally mandated monopolies, with the specific goal of thwarting free market competition.

Here is how it actually works:

[Excerpts follow … …]

  • Most people wonder why there are no visible prices in medicine.
  • These monopolies are further sweetened for doctors by legally barring nurses, 
  • drug companies claim a legal monopoly when they patent a drug. The drug research may have been done by the government or by a university using government money 
  • the FDA approval process eliminates any competition 
  • FDA enforcement

No, this is not a free market system nor anything remotely close to one. 

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It’s obvious that Obama/SCOTUS/Trump care merely seeks to perpetuate and extend this corrupt cronyism.

The obvious solution is to withdraw consent as much as possible.

Seek to avoid the “medical establishment” as much as possible.

Take all their diktats as recommendations. Take responsibility for your self. Take issue with the powers that be at every opportunity.

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ECONOMICS: Where does the minimum wage funds come from?

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

https://www.aei.org/publication/exposing-the-minimum-wage-fallacy-its-an-ironclad-law-of-economics-that-to-stimulate-one-group-you-have-to-un-stimulate-another-group/

Mark J. Perry@Mark_J_Perry
December 28, 2017 1:38 pm

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Exposing the minimum wage fallacy — it’s an ironclad law of economics that to stimulate one group (workers) you have to un-stimulate another group (businesses)

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But here’s a question that never gets asked (or answered) by EPI and minimum wage supporters: Where will the $5 billion in additional wages come from? While thinking about this overlooked question that reveals an important economic fallacy, I was reminded of a similar economic fallacy illustrated by Henry Hazlitt’s famous essay on the broken window, which exposed the economic fallacy of the “blessings of destruction.” Using Henry Hazlitt’s essay as a template (which is actually based on Bastiat’s original essay on the broken window fallacy from 1850), I’ve written a new essay below to expose what might be called the “blessings of the minimum wage fallacy” on the eve of the 18 minimum wage increases schedule to take place next week.

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Groups like EPI that support increasing the minimum wage do a great job of addressing the benefits of higher wages to low-skilled workers, but then completely ignore the costs of those artificial wage increases. That is, they never answer the most important question of all, posed above: Where will the $5 billion in additional annual wages from the 18 minimum wage hikes next year come from?

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So why is raising the minimum wage different from the “broken glass fallacy”?

“We, The Sheeple” can’t think their way out of a paper bag!

Argh!

Watch the poverty increase!

For everbody.

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MONEY: Virginia repeals sales taxes on money

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2018/01/now-in-effect-virginia-law-takes-first-step-to-support-sound-money/

Now in Effect: Virginia Law Takes First Step to Support Sound Money

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RICHMOND, Va. (Jan. 7, 2018) –  On Jan. 1, a Virginia law that repeals sales taxes from some purchases of gold and silver went into effect. It represents an important first step toward encouraging its regular use as currency and breaking the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money.

A bipartisan coalition of delegates and senators sponsored House Bill 1668 (HB1668) and Senate Bill 934 (SB934). The legislation exempts gold, silver, and platinum bullion or legal tender coins whose sales price exceeds $1,000 from state sales tax. Each piece of gold, silver, or platinum or legal tender coin need not exceed $1,000, provided that the sales price of one entire transaction of such pieces exceeds $1,000. With gold over $1,000 an ounce, a single bullion coin will exceed this threshold.

Under the new law, the exemption will remain in place until June 30, 2022.

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This seems to be the first step to “killing” the Fed.

It’s a backdoor way but who cares how we can do it. Just that we do!

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TECHNOLOGY: Apple’s default SMS app is unavoidable

Monday, January 22, 2018

https://www.popsci.com/microsoft-google-apps-on-iphone?dom=rss-default&src=syn#page-2

How to keep your iPhone but switch to Google or Microsoft apps
Your guide to a new software ecosystem.
By David Nield 6 hours ago

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Skype for iOS can take care of all your video calling, voice calling, and messaging needs. However, Apple’s mobile platform won’t allow any app to take over SMS duties, so you’re stuck with its Messages app. Still, the newly-revamped Skype app has a clean look and a comprehensive set of features that includes group chats and group video calls. Your only problem might be getting your friends to use it.

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Isn’t that an anti-trust violation?

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NEWJERSEY: The new guv was honest; wrong but no surprises

Sunday, January 21, 2018

https://nypost.com/2018/01/20/jerseys-new-gov-charts-all-too-familiar-course-to-disaster/

OPINION
EDITORIAL
Jersey’s new gov charts all-too-familiar course to disaster
By Post Editorial Board
January 20, 2018 | 10:20pm

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New Jersey’s new Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, wants to move his state back to the future — or, more accurately, to the past.

The dismal past, that is, of such predecessors as Jim Florio, Jim McGreevey and Jon Corzine — who unleashed the fiscal woes that have left the Garden State’s economy in tatters and its taxes sky-high.

That’s the takeaway from Murphy’s inaugural address last week, with his vow to produce “the state that leads the nation in progressive policies” and a laundry list of hard-left priorities that surely thrilled the hearts of every Democratic activist and public-union leader in the house.

He promised pot legalization, a $15 minimum wage, “equal pay for equal work” laws, automatic and same-day voter registration, a new state Office of Immigrant Defensive Protection, action to make the rich “pay their fair share in taxes” and, of course, resolution to “stand our ground” resisting President Trump.

(It’ll be interesting to see how he squares that with asking Washington for help funding new Hudson River rail tunnels.)

Among the things Murphy never did mention were answers for the state’s ongoing crises — like pension reform, lowering property taxes, cutting state spending or making Jersey more business-friendly.

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Well, he did campaign on “rising taxes”. So, the inmates of the Pepuls Republik of Nu Jerzee can’t complain that he “lied”.

The question is how long before he runs out of “OPM” (other people’s money).

I expect that those evil “rich” people and businesses will “abandon ship” as quickly as humanly possible.

Connecticut and Maryland are the poster states for the “wealth escape”.

Why should Nu Jerzee be any different? We can only hope that a tax like the infamous toilet paper one wakes everyone up … … quickly.

Argh!

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POLITICAL: Never trust a Democrat with your gun rights.

Sunday, January 21, 2018

https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2018/01/15/gun-control-tops-new-virginia-governors-agenda/

Gun Control Tops New Virginia Governor’s Agenda
Posted at 12:00 pm on January 15, 2018 by Tom Knighton

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If you’re shocked by this, you shouldn’t be. This is exactly what Democrats want with every win. They desperately want to restrict your right to keep and bear arms. Their reasons vary from person to person, but they all ultimately mean restricting law-abiding citizens’ ability to defend themselves from predators.

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Never trust a Democrat with your gun rights.

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I don’t know why anyone would not be a one-issue “gun rights” voter.

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FUN: Now I have a descriptive name

Saturday, January 20, 2018

NewImage

That’s me. But it’s not “mine”; if it was, I’d fix it.

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POLITICAL: A great slam on Google and discrimination

Friday, January 19, 2018

https://youtu.be/3dTpCnZ7AR8

This Week in Stupid (14/01/2018)

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A great explanation of the Google discrimination suit!

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INOVATION: “Wall Bonds” to build “the Wall”?

Thursday, January 18, 2018

http://ncc-1776.org/tle2018/tle956-20180114-02.html

All About The Wall 
by L. Neil Smith 
lneil@netzero.com
Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

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If it were up to me, the proposed Mexican border Wall would be a straightforward replica of the Great Wall of China, at least thirty feet high, with crenelated “rails” or battlements, and wide enough that a pair of chariots (or tanks) could pass each other along the top. It would be a lot cheaper to cast in place out of reinforced concrete than it was for the ancient Chinese, building one brick at a time. I would let the “beautiful giant doors” Trump wants to set in the Wall become the seeds of new Southwestern communities, new cities on both sides of the border, with shops and restaurants and museums and other features that will help both countries pay for the attraction. Plans I’ve seen and approve of include two sets of high-speed monorail tracks along the top of the Wall, for vehicles going both ways. Initially, they will be for construction and maintenance. Eventually, the planners want excursion and sight-seeing trains—with bullet-proof glass—for tourists taking the 2700-mile trip from Southern California to Southern Texas. I’m ready to go, right now.

Anything less than a real Wall speaks dismally of a lack of cultural resolve. It also doesn’t do the Donald any good at the polls. Loose talk that there will be gaps where mountains and rivers will help form a “natural barrier” is half-hearted crap. Mountains and rivers won’t impede the hardy, intrepid people tradition calls “wetbacks”. Either America has got its skyscraper-building, dam-building, bridge-building, highway-building, space-station-building, Lunar colony-building cojones back or it has not. Mountains and rivers never stopped the ancient Chinese wall-builders, and the border monorail needs to be continuous to attract the dollars and pesos and pounds and euros and rubles and yen and yuan, etc. A really great Wall could bring people together.

How to pay for it initially? Two words: Wall Bonds. A tax on money being sent south by immigrants, illegal and otherwise, could begin paying them off. Millions of tourists from all over the world eager to enjoy one aspect or another of the Wall (including one hell of a train ride) will keep the money flowing. I don’t know about you, but I’d invest.

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I like the idea of making it a tourist attraction.

I’d buy one just to see the damned thing. Like the Great Wall of China or the Pyramids.

Seriously!

(No one ever said I had to be consistent. And I like this idea about it. Make it useful.)

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