"Operation Choke Point" is an FDIC program that identifies certain industries as "high risk" for banks. I'm not sure of the details, but the claim is that it has influenced a lot of banks to cut off customers in the gun or ammunition sale business. The program is supposed to have something to do with fraud, but the customers complaining of being cut off don't appear to have been accused of fraud, only of being in the gun-and-ammo business. They're losing access to things like credit-card processing and PayPal.
The first thing this makes me think of is the crying need for alternative banking providers to spring up, so I was pretty happy to read that new companies, such as one called Payment Alliance, are stepping into the breach. That's why it's nice to have lots of private institutions competing with federal ones, or even ones that have drifted into accepting too much federal control in return for goodies like FDIC insurance.
In other good news, the new Congress may be taking steps to get the regulators under control, too. So hurray for elections.
C.S.S. Hunley
They've started to look at it after pulling it out of Charleston's harbor, for those interested in such things.
Apropos of Last
Also, it's Friday.
Drink deep, killers.
UPDATE: For those who like jokes more than drinks, or jokes with your drinks.
Drink deep, killers.
UPDATE: For those who like jokes more than drinks, or jokes with your drinks.
That's Harsh
Kevin Williamson, again.
Dr. Ron Chapman, director of the California Department of Public Health, says that vaping should be treated like “other important outbreaks or epidemics.”One could say without offense that the philosophy entails a lifestyle. The claim here is that there's no coherent philosophy at all. True?
But epidemics of what? Prole tastes?
Progressivism, especially in its well-heeled coastal expressions, is not a philosophy — it’s a lifestyle. Specifically, it is a brand of conspicuous consumption, which in a land of plenty such as ours as often as not takes the form of conspicuous non-consumption: no gluten, no bleached flour, no Budweiser, no Walmart, no SUVs, no Toby Keith, etc.
These Are Good Movies
I was moved especially by the first one, but perhaps you'll like the others better.
UPDATE: Based on the picture he put with it, though, I can see that Bill Whittle doesn't know any bikers.
UPDATE: Based on the picture he put with it, though, I can see that Bill Whittle doesn't know any bikers.
Not going to have Mitt to kick around this time
NBC is reporting that Mitt Romney is about to announce he will not run. They observed that this "clears the Republican field for Jeb Bush." They never give up.
I Hate Public Transportation
Buses are always noiser, smellier, and disrupt traffic far more than guys in cars -- to say nothing of guys on motorcycles! But some want public transit to take over how you go anywhere, and they think it would be helpful if it were free.
Now, if you hate buses like I do, that doesn't seem like a good road. But I find it amusing that the first thing they did was to set up a free-market style insurance scheme, whereby you're indemnified against the cost of getting caught breaking the law by jumping turnstiles.
So what about the other people? I've drunk beer in Zamboanga in daylight during Ramadan, and traveled in rural Tawi-Tawi and Sanga-Sanga, where gasoline is sold in little plastic baggies because a gallon is far too great a sum, and nobody can buy an underground tank's worth.
People still had motorcycles. Trucks, even, sometimes.
Now, if you hate buses like I do, that doesn't seem like a good road. But I find it amusing that the first thing they did was to set up a free-market style insurance scheme, whereby you're indemnified against the cost of getting caught breaking the law by jumping turnstiles.
The group calls itself Planka.nu (rough translation: "dodge the fare now"), and they’ve banded together because getting caught free-riding comes with a steep $120 penalty. Here's how it works: Each member pays about $12 in monthly dues—which beats paying for a $35 weekly pass—and the resulting pool of cash more than covers any fines members incur.So what if nobody pays for the buses? Don't they go away? No, of course, because the use fees aimed at the poor can never cover the cost of their operation. They always depend on taxes on people who never use the damn things.
So what about the other people? I've drunk beer in Zamboanga in daylight during Ramadan, and traveled in rural Tawi-Tawi and Sanga-Sanga, where gasoline is sold in little plastic baggies because a gallon is far too great a sum, and nobody can buy an underground tank's worth.
People still had motorcycles. Trucks, even, sometimes.
A Moment of Steinbeck
A thing going around right now is a John Steinbeck quote from The Grapes of Wrath:
But consider: if the American people think of themselves as 'temporarily embarrassed millionaires,' then they are a people who are on Steinbeck's terms rich inside.
How are you going to make them feel poor?
If he needs a million acres to make him feel rich, seems to me he needs it 'cause he feels awful poor inside hisself, and if he's poor inside hisself, there aint no million acres gonna make him feel rich.This goes with a second quote allegedly from Steinbeck.
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."This is followed by a rant against the Koch brothers, etc.
But consider: if the American people think of themselves as 'temporarily embarrassed millionaires,' then they are a people who are on Steinbeck's terms rich inside.
How are you going to make them feel poor?
Bringing the Hammer
The payoff comes two minutes, twenty-eight seconds in.
That guy might have been President, these last six years.
That guy might have been President, these last six years.
"Meanwhile, in Norway..."
About 27 tonnes of caramelised brown goat cheese - a delicacy known as Brunost - caught light as it was being driven through the Brattli Tunnel at Tysfjord, northern Norway, last week.
The fire raged for five days and smouldering toxic gases were slowing the recovery operation, officials said.
The Viking Guide to an Evening Out
Legitimate advice from the Havamal is made accessible for the current generation.
Wait, What?
Via Hot Air:
The part that I want to hear more about is how the obligation to work is shared by everyone.
Really? Where is that coming from? How is this obligation grounded? What should be done to those who don't meet this obligation?
SESSIONS:The part of that statement Allahpundit is interested in is the part where people who are illegally in this country have a "right" to work.
Let me ask you this: In the workplace of America today when we have a high number of unemployed, we’ve had declining wages for many years, we have the lowest of Americans working, who has more right to a job in this country? A lawful immigrant who’s here, a green-card holder or a citizen, or a person who entered the country unlawfully?
LYNCH:
Well, Senator, I believe that the right and the obligation to work is one that’s shared by everyone in this country regardless of how they came here. And certainly, if someone here, regardless of status, I would prefer that they be participating in the workplace than not participating in the workplace…
The part that I want to hear more about is how the obligation to work is shared by everyone.
Really? Where is that coming from? How is this obligation grounded? What should be done to those who don't meet this obligation?
Interesting Analogs
How about a former US Assistant Treasury Secretary and working economist who proposes we think of Iranian nuclear issue in the model of The Lord of the Rings? Picture that in your mind for a minute.
Did it look like this?
Did it look like this?
If we use J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings as a metaphor for the West, the West is Mordor and Washington is Sauron.
It is pointless for Iran to negotiate with the West in hopes of gaining acceptance. Iran is on the same list as Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, and Assad. The only way Iran can be accepted by the West is to consent to being an American puppet state. Suspicion about Iran’s nuclear energy program is a contrived issue. If it were not the nuclear issue, it would be some other contrived issue, such as weapons of mass destruction, use of chemical weapons, terrorism, and so forth. Iran’s leaders should understand that the real problem is Iran’s independence of Washington’s foreign and economic policies.
Now There's A Headline I Never Expected to See
"Chemists find a way to unboil eggs."
“This method … could transform industrial and research production of proteins,” the researchers write in ChemBioChem.
For example, pharmaceutical companies currently create cancer antibodies in expensive hamster ovary cells that do not often misfold proteins. The ability to quickly and cheaply re-form common proteins from yeast or E. coli bacteria could potentially streamline protein manufacturing and make cancer treatments more affordable. Industrial cheese makers, farmers and others who use recombinant proteins could also achieve more bang for their buck.
When everything you know is wrong.
The WSJ editorial board wants the President to have a Seinfeld moment:
Mr. Obama is now taking credit for 2014’s job gains that his policies inhibited, much as he is for the boom in oil and gas drilling that his Administration resisted. Thus comes the opportunity for a late-term “Seinfeld” economic epiphany. Imagine the possibilities if the President realized that everything he thought about economics is wrong.
A President Costanza would cut the tax rate on capital, not raise it; reduce the incentives to go on disability, not increase them; and reduce regulatory costs on business, not add to them. Whatever economic instincts you have, Mr. President, do the opposite.
"How We Won the War on Dungeons & Dragons"
The "we" in this sense is the folks who enjoyed playing Dungeons & Dragons back when there was a huge uproar against it. Apropos of Tex's posts about nerd culture. They may feel oppressed, but sometimes they win!
We used to play D&D when I was a teenager too, and I think it's very helpful for kids. That kind of role-playing is one way of working out who you really want to be, and what's important to you. You can't actually be a barbarian king or a wizard, but you can explore what it might be like to have the virtues of courage or knowledge, and decide where you want to focus your own efforts to develop those virtues in yourself.
Of course, at some point, it's time to 'put away childish things,' and get on with the business of developing real virtue (although you can probably get back to it, as with other childish things, once you get old enough). At a certain age, when you aren't sure yet who you are or what you want, the games are helpful things.
We used to play D&D when I was a teenager too, and I think it's very helpful for kids. That kind of role-playing is one way of working out who you really want to be, and what's important to you. You can't actually be a barbarian king or a wizard, but you can explore what it might be like to have the virtues of courage or knowledge, and decide where you want to focus your own efforts to develop those virtues in yourself.
Of course, at some point, it's time to 'put away childish things,' and get on with the business of developing real virtue (although you can probably get back to it, as with other childish things, once you get old enough). At a certain age, when you aren't sure yet who you are or what you want, the games are helpful things.
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