Month: July 2013

Not So Innocent Skittles/Ice-Tea ~ `Taste the Purple Rainbow` (UPDATED w/AFTERBURNER)

Published by Papa Giorgio

I found this story very interesting. This is via Moonbattery, and is a truncated versions of these two posts:

Here is Moonbat’s post:

We know that Trayvon Martin had marijuana in his system on the night he tried to kill George Zimmerman, and had been suspended from school for using marijuana. Some believe he was a drug dealer. You might assume his famous mission to acquire Skittles candies and Arizona iced tea (actually watermelon juice, but the media is only good at narratives, not factual details) was a classic example of a pothead with the munchies. Here’s another theory:

RashManly.com accuses Martin of admitting on his Facebook account as early as June 27, 2011 of being an abuser of a codeine, soft drink and candy beverage popularly known as “Purple Drank” or “Lean.” …

Purple Drank is commonly used by Southern Rappers and “wannabe suburban teenagers” according to Urban Dictionary.

By mixing some cough syrup with the juice and Skittles, Martin could have produced some Purple Drank.

The Last Refuge backs up the theory with extensive documentation.

Purple Drank has been referred to as the “poor man’s PCP” due to its potential effect of turning users into psychotic maniacs. A habit of indulging in such drugs might explain why the media’s little darling attacked a neighborhood watch captain and attempted to dash out his brains against the pavement.

BIG NEWS (via Gateway Pundit) ~ first time in his 48 year career at the IRS this happened

Published by Papa Giorgio

Mr. Carter Hull (Recently Retired) a Tax Law Specialist with the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division, testified today before the House Oversight Committee. Hull told the committee that he recommended approval of a Tea Party group for tax exempt status but supervisors in DC overruled him. “This was highly unusual.”

  • According to Mr. Hull, sometime in the winter of 2010-2011, the senior advisor to Lois Lerner told him the IRS Chief Counsel’s office would need to review these applications.  Mr. Hull also indicated this was the first time in his 48 year career at the IRS he was told to send an application to Ms. Lerner’s senior advisor.

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A Reporter at the New York Times/Slate Admitted She Is A Creationist

Published by Papa Giorgio

See my extended debate because of this, here.

If science really is permanently committed to methodological naturalism – the philosophical position that restricts all explanations in science to naturalistic explanations – it follows that the aim of science is not generating true theories. Instead, the aim of science would be something like: generating the best theories that can be formulated subject to the restriction that the theories are naturalistic. More and more evidence could come in suggesting that a supernatural being exists, but scientific theories wouldn’t be allowed to acknowledge that possibility.

Bradley Monton, author of Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design ~ Apologetics315 h/t

The Blaze has this VERY interesting post!

Journalist Virginia Heffernan stunned many of her fellow reporters when she penned a piece last week entitled, “Why I’m a Creationist.” The reporter, who has had a successful career at The New York Times and Slate, among other outlets, is now the center of the ever-intense evolution vs. creationism debate. Currently, she works for Yahoo!, the outlet through which her faith-based proclamation was made.

Before we get into the nasty comments that have been thrown her way, let’s first look at what she said in the article. Heffernan began by announcing that she’s like most Americans: She doesn’t fear global warming and doesn’t hate religion. Then, she said, “at heart” she’s a creationist.

Heffernan admitted that this admission would be tough to understand for many of her compatriots in media.

“In New York City saying you’re a creationist is like confessing you think Ahmadinejad has a couple of good points. Maybe I’m the only creationist I know,” she said, touching upon the fact that it is rare for people in the city to hold such a viewpoint (one that many Americans in other areas of the country would actually agree with).

From there, Heffernan moved on, describing the process through which she became a creationist. Here’s how the explains the beginning of her journey:

This is how I came to it. Like many people, I heard no end of Bible stories as a kid, but in the 1970s in New England they always came with the caveat that they were metaphors. So I read the metaphors of Genesis and Exodus and was amused and bugged and uplifted and moved by them. And then I guess I wanted to know the truth of how the world began, so I was handed the Big Bang. That wasn’t a metaphor, but it wasn’t fact either. It was something called a hypothesis. And it was only a sentence. I was amused and moved, but considerably less amused and moved by the character-free Big Bang story (“something exploded”) than by the twisted and picturesque misadventures of Eve and Adam and Cain and Abel and Abraham.

Later I read Thomas Malthus’ “Essay on the Principle of Population” and “The Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin, as well as probably a dozen books about evolution and atheism, from Stephen Jay Gould to Sam Harris.

As for the latter, Heffernan said that she has never been quite sure why the book has been credited with debunking creationism, especially considering that it is not, in her view, a book about creation.

After years of reading and taking in data, stories, theories and information, she concluded in her Yahoo! piece that the stories that involve a higher power creating human beings are the most compelling. She even charged that evolutionary psychologists have become quite contradictory in their claims, noting that their theories have changed markedly over time. In contrast, the Bible, Heffernan says, remains coveted and highly read.

“I guess I don’t ‘believe’ that the world was created in a few days, but what do I know? Seems as plausible (to me) as theoretical astrophysics, and it’s certainly a livelier tale,” she said. “As ‘Life of Pi’ author Yann Martel once put it, summarizing his page-turner novel: “1) Life is a story. 2) You can choose your story. 3) A story with God is the better story.”

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It took 50-years, But Liberal Policies Destroyed a Once Fine City ~ Detroit Files for Bankruptcy

Published by Papa Giorgio

Breitbart:

On Thursday, Detroit became the largest city in U.S. history to file for bankruptcy.

Kevin Orr, whom Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) appointed in March to become Detroit’s emergency manager,filed for Chapter 9 protection in federal bankruptcy court after he was unable to convince creditors “to take pennies on the dollar to help facilitate the city’s massive financial restructuring.”

In a letter that was attached to Detroit’s bankruptcy filing, Snyder wrote there was only “one feasible path offers a way out” for Detroit and that “the citizens of Detroit need and deserve a clear road out of the cycle of ever-decreasing services.”

“Despite Mr. Orr’s best efforts, he has been unable to reach a restructuring plan with the city’s creditors,” Snyder wrote. “I therefore agree that the only feasible path to a stable and solid Detroit is to file for bankruptcy protection.”

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The Three Big Labor Unions Write the Prez a Letter About Obama-Care (That Is, `Being Swindled`)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via The Washington Examiner:

74% of small businesses will fire workers, cut hours under Obamacare

Despite the administration’s controversial decision to delay forcing companies to join Obamacare for a year, three-quarters of small businesses are still making plans to duck the costly law by firing workers, reducing hours of full-time staff, or shift many to part-time, according to a sobering survey released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“Small businesses expect the requirement to negatively impact their employees. Twenty-seven percent say they will cut hours to reduce full time employees, 24 percent will reduce hiring, and 23 percent plan to replace full time employees with part-time workers to avoid triggering the mandate,” said the Chamber business survey provided to Secrets.

Under Obamacare, just 30 hours — not the nationally recognized 40 hours — is considered full-time. Companies with 50 full-time workers or more are required to provide health care, or pay a fine.

[….]

Other key findings from the Chamber survey:

— 77 percent continue to think the U.S. economy is on the wrong track. However, small businesses are more optimistic about their local economy and individual business.

— The majority (61 percent) of small businesses do not have plans to hire next year.

— Concerns about regulation have increased significantly from 35 percent last quarter to 42 percent now. Small businesses are looking for leadership on issues that will remove barriers and encourage growth.

— 88 percent of all small businesses support addressing entitlement spending to resolve America’s growing financial challenges and escalating debt.

— 83 percent support congressional efforts to reform the tax code — with the majority focusing on making it less complex.

— 81 percent of small businesses surveyed believe the immigration system is broken and needs to be reformed.

— In contrast to the president’s recent speech pushing new energy regulations, 90 percent of small businesses support easing EPA regulations and opening up more federal lands for drilling.

…read more…

Via Forbes:

Labor Unions: Obamacare Will ‘Shatter’ Our Health Benefits, Cause ‘Nightmare Scenarios’

Labor unions are among the key institutions responsible for the passage of Obamacare. They spent tons of money electing Democrats to Congress in 2006 and 2008, and fought hard to push the health law through the legislature in 2009 and 2010. But now, unions are waking up to the fact that Obamacare is heavily disruptive to the health benefits of their members.

Last Thursday, representatives of three of the nation’s largest unions fired off a letter to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, warning that Obamacare would “shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.”

The letter was penned by James P. Hoffa, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; Joseph Hansen, international president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union; and Donald “D.” Taylor, president of UNITE-HERE, a union representing hotel, airport, food service, gaming, and textile workers.

“When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act,” they begin, “you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat…We have been strong supporters of the notion that all Americans should have access to quality, affordable health care. We have also been strong supporters of you. In campaign after campaign we have put boots on the ground, gone door-to-door to get out the vote, run phone banks and raised money to secure this vision. Now this vision has come back to haunt us.”

[….]

What surprises me about this is that union leaders are pretty strategic when it comes to employee benefits. It was obvious in 2009 that Obamacare’s employer mandate would incentivize this shift. Why didn’t labor unions fight it back then?

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Via HotAir:

Krauthammer: Unions are in a state of “desperation and disappointment” over ObamaCare

One of Democrats’ most traditionally loyal and vociferous factions of support, Big Labor is most upset about the law they for which they very proactively helped to shore up support and make sure stayed in place.

The usually solid benefits and health care options, for instance, are traditionally some of the biggest attractions for even being in a union in the first place; but with ObamaCare mucking up their multi-employer health plan system and with employers moving to part-time employees right and left, unions are now in an outraged and yet entirely predictable panic:

[Big Labor Wakes Up to ObamaCare]

The first union grievance is that the employer mandate is leading business to hold worker hours below 30 hours a week to comply with the Administration’s regulatory definition. Despite the one-year suspension of the mandate, many businesses that must provide insurance or pay a penalty are shifting to part-time labor, and the union chiefs explain that “fewer hours means less pay while also losing our current health benefits.” Nice to know Mr. Hoffa is reading these columns.

The unions are also aggrieved because they have failed to gain special subsidies for the multi-employer health insurance plans allowed under the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. The White House had no legal authority to grant such a request, so refusing to do so for a major political patron showed unusual restraint. …

What Mr. Hoffa and the other union reps don’t mention amid their cold sweats is that less employer-provided insurance means less of a role for unions as middle men in contract negotiations….

…read more…


Via Real Clear Politics:

Krauthammer: Unions Got “Swindled” By Obamacare, In State Of “Desperation And Disappointment”

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: It is true, they supported the bill, they supported the administration, they helped elect it, had the boots on the ground and they were swindled, but it isn’t as if they weren’t warned. People who looked at the bill said the way it is constructed, there’s this huge incentive for any business, small business, to drop the number of employees under 50, the firms are now known as the 49ers, so people get fired as a way to get under the requirement of employer mandate.

It also means that a lot of full time employees are going to lose at least ten hours of work, they have to get under 30 hours. So, if you’re a full-time worker now, you’re not going to be able to support a family on part time income. But the worst is as you indicated, that they’re going to lose their members. The glory of the union movement is that beginning in the second World War when there were wage and price controls, companies competed against each other by including health care in the package. That was the beginning of that. And that’s one of the great achievements of unions.

Now what they’re seeing is workers are looking at the exchanges and seeing, ‘I can drop out of the employer plan, I get a huge subsidy, I come out ahead, and don’t have to be a member of the union.’ So this is a disaster for the unions and that’s why you have this letter of desperation and disappointment. (Special Report, July 17, 2013)

Larry Elder Goes After Piers Morgan with a Vengeance

Published by Papa Giorgio

(The Blaze) Larry Elder Goes Off on Piers Morgan During Explosive Race Debate: ‘You’re Making Black People Feel as if They Are Under Siege…It’s an Outrage!’

CNN host Piers Morgan on Wednesday made good on his offer to have conservative personality Larry Elder on his show to debate the George Zimmerman trial, Rachel Jeantel and race relations in the United States. The exchange was just as confrontational and explosive as you might expect.

Elder told Morgan that his interview with Zimmerman trial witness Rachel Jeantel was terrible as he “condescendingly” tried to convince her that she was a “victim.”

“This is a young lady who didn’t apply herself, a 19 year old who is still in high school. Instead of saying, ‘Young lady, take this as an opportunity to take stock of your life,’ you treated her like she was a victim. And that’s how you’re doing this whole thing about race and racism,” Elder said.

He went on to point out that there were 7,000 murders last year of black people, almost all of which were committed by blacks. Elder also said there have been 480 blacks killed in Chicago alone and 75 percent of the cases have gone unsolved.

“Where are the cameras, where are the shows?” Elder asked Morgan. “It’s outrageous to act as if black America should fear some non-black guy stalking some black kid at night. The likelihood of a black person being killed by a non-black person is extremely remote, which is why this became a big national issue in the first place.”

Morgan said he agreed with Elder about the unacceptable levels of violence in Chicago, though Elder doubted his sincerity and called him a “bleeding heart liberal.”

“Half of the murders in this country are committed by black people, even though black people are 12 percent of the population,” Elder countered. “This is why commonsensical people profile.”

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A Top Wahabist Cleric SOLICITING GAY SEX IN SAUDI ARABIA

Published by Papa Giorgio

From Libertarian Republican:

Meet Sheikh Abdul Wahab. He’s a top cleric in Saudi Arabia. And he’s from the Wahabi sect that believes homosexuality should be punished by death. Well, turns out, he’s gay.

From the British blog, theMuslimissue.wordpress, DESCENDANT OF WAHABI FOUNDER ARRESTED IN BURKA SOLICITING GAY SEX IN SAUDI ARABIA:

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Another related LR post: Yemeni man executed by Islamists in Lahj province: His only crime? He was gay

Tavis Smiley Sums Up the Madness Well, from the `Looney Left`

Published by Papa Giorgio

The Political Intervention In The Zimmerman Case Is Un-American

“Both in the courtroom and in the media, educated and apparently intelligent people repeatedly said things that they seemed sincerely, and even fervently, to believe, but which were unprovable and often even unknowable.”…. The only real heroes in this trial were the jurors. They showed that this is still America — at least for now — despite politicians who try to cheapen or corrupt the law, as if this were some banana republic. Some are already calling for a federal indictment of George Zimmerman, after he has been acquitted” ~ Thomas Sowell


(H/T, The Blaze) From Patrick Howley at the Daily Caller:

African Americans benefit from Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law at a rate far out of proportion to their presence in the state’s population, despite an assertion by Attorney General Eric Holder that repealing “Stand Your Ground” would help African Americans.

Black Floridians have made about a third of the state’s total “Stand Your Ground” claims in homicide cases, a rate nearly double the black percentage of Florida’s population. The majority of those claims have been successful, a success rate that exceeds that for Florida whites.

[….]

Additionally, the majority of victims in Florida “Stand Your Ground” cases have been white….

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Smiley also suggested arming “every black person in America and then see what the NRA has to say.” Um, that IS WHAT the NRA did???

Via The Blaze:

See also post on Leo Terrel