In case anyone does not understand the real implications of Obamacare, the fact is it is so confusing, so convoluted and backed by federal threats of laws suits, fine, etc that most businesses – especially small businesses – will drop their coverage and dump everyone on the government dole. Therefore this study is way too optimistic, ywt it is bad enough:

About one in 10 employers plans to end workers’ health insurance as the new healthcare law takes effect, according to a new study.

The finding could bolster opponents of the law, who argue that its changes to the healthcare system will force workers out of insurance plans they like. Supporters of the law say most people will keep their current coverage.

Surveying 560 U.S. companies, consulting firm Deloitte found that 9 percent of employers are planning to drop employee health benefits within three years. Eighty-one percent said they would continue covering employees, and 10 percent said they were not sure.

If you like your current health care, you need to vote President Obama into retirement this fall.

Did I Say That?!

Jaw dropping:

“Just like we’ve tried their [the GOP] plan, we tried our plan — and it worked,” he [President Obama] added later in the speech.  “That’s the difference. That’s the choice in this election.  That’s why I’m running for a second term.”

Obama made these comments in Oakland, where the unemployment rate was 13.7 percent in May 2012. The national unemployment rate is 8.2 percent — up from 8.1 percent in May — for the second straight month.

If this current mess is what people want more of, go ahead and vote for more of the same. Given this current mess is the best this man can do, I can guarantee this is not the best this nation can do. It is time to get back to at least mediocre – as opposed to ‘epic fail!‘

Both Italy and California experience that wonderful Mediterranean Climate that people wish to live in. And they both produce some of the world’s finest wine, as well as being renown tourists magnets.

But they also are two of the areas in which leftist, socialist policies have made financial promises the tax base just cannot support, and so both going bankrupt one city at a time:

 Italy’s financial outlook darkened on Monday amid warnings that 10 cities are at risk of bankruptcy and schools may not be able to open in the autumn because of drastic spending cuts.

The cities at risk of running out of money include Naples, Palermo in Sicily and Reggio Calabria, on the toe of the Italian boot, according to the Italian press.

The Democrats are turning once vibrant economies into third-world disasters at a frightening pace, with California leading the implosion here in the US:

First, Vallejo, in 2008. Next, Stockton, then Mammoth Lakes and, now, San Bernardino and soon, perhaps, Compton. As Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach told Bloomberg News, the bankruptcy dominoes are starting to fall. One California city after another – following a decade-long spree of ramping up public-employee pay and pension benefits, as well as redevelopment debt – are becoming insolvent.

And the state’s legislators have nothing constructive to offer.

California’s exclusively Democratic leaders not only are unwilling to rein in the costs of benefits for their patrons, the public-sector unions, they have been erecting roadblocks in the paths of localities that want to fix the problem on their own. Yet all the political hurdles in the world cannot fix the basic problem of insolvency.

If anyone wants to explain to the voters what 4 more years of liberal insanity will bring, look no farther than Italy and California. Two regions of the globe blessed with all the perks life on Earth has to offer, and yet the left has proven they can screw up anything, given enough time and taxpayer money.

My apologies to everyone who looks forward to reading my trivial thoughts on the great issues of the day. This has been a brutal week of meetings, a big corporate function, ferrying kids across the state, a family reunion and a bad cold that turned into an infection. I have been operating on the very edge, and all down time was dedicated to getting some needed sleep.

I hope to post again today, though it will be later since the day job’s fire-drills are just beginning to pop.

But here is a quick Fly-By of some topics I would have posted on if I had had the time.

First up: The Norfolk Police n the UK ended their investigation into the publication of FOIA related CRU emails and data that are known today as Climategate. The information released so far does impart one important detail which shows ALL the information released to actually be CRU information:

… The second was entitled FOIA 2011 and contained 23 documents, 5292 e-mails and 220,000 files.

… the data was taken between September 2009 and November 2009 during a series of remote attacks via the Internet, which accessed an internal back-up server.

The information collected off the CRU back up server still looks to be carefully culled information focused on a few well known issues with CRU. It is specific to FOIA requests pending at CRU over many years of trying to hide the decline and other crap. In the brief period over which the data was ‘stolen’ off the CRU server, there was no time to screen a larger random set of data and be left with Climategate information and its level of focus. We know CRU has a lot more information in its servers and email logs than just this. So while the ‘theft’ of the data is not resolved, the content is clear. This data was a vast amount of FOIA data collected by CRU (and blocked) in response to FOIA requests. Thankfully, CRU compiled all this in one location so someone who apparently knew about it could go collect it and make it public.

Next up, Obama’s bad polls against Romney. This one must of scared the daylights out of the Dems:

According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney remain in a deadlocked contest, tied at 47 percent among registered voters and basically where they stood in late May.

If Obama is at 47% among ‘registered voters‘, he should see around 44% in the election with real ones.  This is confirmed at RCP, which has the President today at 45.9% (basically 46%). This is dead-lame-duck region for any sitting President. And I know he is desperately flailing away to find some way to regain support (e.g., the moronic claim people who build businesses don’t actually do it themselves). My prediction is this will be another epic wipe out for the Dems, who will of course go insane trying to deny the fact they have been complete disasters – and they ended support for government solutions in general.  It will take a series of elections to right this mess, so don’t believe it will all be peachy in 2013. But as long as the GOP starts cutting back the oppressive government and set the people free to invent and invest, we will get back on track.

Finally, I have to address the massacre in Aurora, CO. This level of horror, suffering and selfless acts of bravery always result in people pretending more restrictions on the behavior of normal citizens will stop the insane from doing damage.

Three survivors of the Colorado movie-theater massacre escaped with minor wounds, but were left with broken hearts because their heroic boyfriends died saving them.

In final acts of valor, Jon Blunk, Matt McQuinn and Alex Teves used their bodies to shield their girlfriends as accused madman James Holmes turned the Aurora cineplex into a shooting gallery.

If we could control events, we would not need heroes like the ones we saw in Aurora. I think Adolf Hitler and Stalin put the nonsense of state control equaling peace and serenity to rest. But many will always want to pretend we can stop the randomness of nature (both natural and human) by controlling the individuals. It does not work.

When someone goes off and kills their kids, or someone else’s kids, it is always horrible – but never avoidable. Fate has a way of creating random conditions that are explosive and deadly. While most of the time we are able to stabilize and isolate inherent random behavior  (Dahmer comes to mind) we cannot stamp it all out without having everyone on house arrest and 24×7 surveillance. So forget about turning the incidents like this to zero. As we strive for more and more benign behavior over time, we will necessarily have the occasional horror-filled event  pop up.

And while the horror of the event is devastating, the upside is these are very, very rare (one of 300 million or more) and most of the time we live happy and fruitful lives. In other words, it ain’t heaven, but isolated eruptions of hell does not mean we are going the way of Hades.

Congress is one of a few jobs that will allow you to screw up or just not do any work without any consequences or responsibility for their actions. Congress goes on vacation instead of doing their job again!

When are the people of this country going to stand up and say “Enough is Enough!” “Do your job or you will be fired!” While this historic default by the USPS will apparently not directly affect employees right now, it will affect employees long term. And what is Congress doing? Sitting on their hands again!

The office of Sen. Tom Carper (D., Del.), one of the authors of the Senate bill, said Wednesday that “every day that is lost in passing reform legislation puts the Postal Service another step closer to collapse, and unfortunately it appears that House Leaders are prepared to let that happen.”

The Senate needs to pass a budget (pick a year) before they can comment on how the House is failing to do its job. We have allowed our government to become an absolute mess. Who’s ready to take our country back?

DJStrata

Well, a bombshell dropped in the George Zimmerman trial for Murder 2 for the killing of young Trayvon Martin:

A relative of George Zimmerman claims she was molested by him when they were both children, the latest allegation in the case against the former neighborhood watch volunteer charged in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin.

The interview with police, done nearly a month after the February shooting, was made public Monday after local media fought to have it released, over objections from prosecutors and the defense.

You can get all the evidence regarding Witness 9 here. Witness 9 was the anonymous caller who told police there was a sinister, hidden side to the soft-spoken, policeman-wannabe George Zimmerman. I actually don’t see much impact on the trial except to once more destroy GZ’s credibility (which is already shot to pieces). Even her claims of racism are not against GZ, but against his estranged mother. Clearly this woman has some legitimate beef with GZ, but very little is applicable to the TM case. The only connection that might be made is how well GZ can hide brutal behavior, and how little he cares about his victims (his apology to Witness 9 and her parents was a sad joke).

To be honest, not much more is needed in the case against GZ. As you sift through the evidence, more and more problems become clear. One thing I was thinking of doing was listing how GZ’s story changes over time to deal with serious flaws in his original telling. Something like this [click to enlarge]:

The data comes from this impressive analysis (not all of which I agree with BTW).  I still may do one because a few key items are missing from this table – specifically the CVSA interview which has some real damning statements from GZ. For example, at around the 28 minute mark in the interview, GZ drops this whopper on why he got out of the car (may not be 100% accurate transcription):

GZ: All the houses I was next to were the back of the houses, they are town houses so I did not know the address. They [dispatch] said we need to know what street you’re on, what address. …[GZ babbles about giving his street address]… and I got out of my car to look for a street sign so I could tell what street I was on, and … there was no street sign, and I couldn’t make out the house in front of me because there was a big pick up truck there…

This is of course a lie – he saw TM run and he jumped out of his car to follow, without any prompting from the dispatcher. All the mythical interchanges with dispatch on addresses and such never happened. But the dumb part was the reason for not using an address right in front of him. It seems this ginormous pick up truck was blocking the address number of the first house (now known to be the house of Witnesses 11 and 20) at the end of the building TM ran behind. This is why GZ has to run across the top of the T to the other side of the next building over to find any house numbers.

…. yeah, right. Check out where the house numbers are:

I mean – really? A truck totally blocked this from any view? GZ had to walk over 200 feet away, crossing two sets of buildings instead, just to find a house number (instead of maybe looking at the next house to the right)? Prosecutors are going to have a field day with this BS. BTW, recall we have two witnesses who testified GZ told them he got out of the car to find TM. And GZ admitted he was chasing TM to the police dispatcher.

Of course, the fact TM ran from GZ, who then follows TM when he runs away, is proof enough this was not a self defense or stand your ground case for GZ. When one party tries to avoid the conflict (like running away) then the person who continues the confrontation is the criminal, and the other is the victim.

In this case a dead victim.

So I don’t see how Witness 9 does anything for or against GZ. His troubles are monumental already. His story is impossible on numerous levels, with witnesses and evidence poking holes into his claims. They will not need to use witness 9 in court.

But I bet some of those standing by Zimmerman now (like is Air Marshall buddy) will be rethinking which side they want to be on….

Good lord, we never knew how ignorant our current President was until this weekend. That is when he went into full panic mode and started just babbling leftist BS. In Virginia over the weekend the President pulled the dumbest political move I have seen ever. He just pissed off a huge majority of the voters by claiming they did never really earned the fruits of their hard work.

If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.

Talk about pulling an O-Dumba!

There is a reason the economic engine in the US is the small business. That is because the vast majority of companies in the US are single small business. The largest number of businesses are sole proprietor (77% in 2008), with most of the remaining businesses under 100 employees.

77% of companies in America are single proprietor firms without payrolls. They represent 21.7 million individuals. That is a lot of voters Obama just lost.

Of the remaining 23% of businesses, 21% have fewer than 100 employees. They represent another 42.2 million workers. Only 2% of business in the country are medium to large in size.

These small companies take pride in what they do, and they earned their hard-won success. Who is Obama to say otherwise?

There were around 120.9 million workers in America in 2008. 63.9 million  of these workers (42.2 + 21.7) work for small companies with between 1-100 employees/proprietors. That is 53% if the work force (and I would wager a much higher percentage of the likely voter pool).

President Obama really and truly lost his mind with this silly statement, and lost the election. As everyone knows, we all succeeded thanks to those who came before us. But what we accomplished is a credit to us as individuals, and it is not something the government can belittle and to take away. This asinine comment comes from someone who never created a single job, and yet is obsessed with what ‘he’ has accomplished in office (there is no ‘we’ in Obamaland).

It was a truly jaw dropping misstep.

If the government ‘elites’ had any common sense (or an ounce of humility) they would see the coming storm rising out of Main Street USA.  They would understand they had overstepped their boundaries (and in too many cases their abilities) and reign  in the meddling of government (at all levels) in the lives of the American people. Their ‘elite’ status is a myth they use to propup tei mad schemes. The government is now nearly guaranteed to screw things up beyond all recognition (yes FUBAR it) while trying to fix something. From top to bottom, the government is not listening to the voters – who have been sending a clear message calling for minimal government (cost, screw ups, arrogance, etc).

Today’s news contains a disturbing series of stories exposing our government madly out of control. Government working at odds with its citizens, hiding from its citizens, lying to its citizens and punishing any citizens (inside and out of government) who cross it. It is more disturbing thand Orwell’s 1984. And it is pernicious. The cancer now spreading out from bureaucrats run amok (with the support and help of legislators) will force upon this nation a second revolution. It will bring to a head the question of whether this country truly stands for the individual and THEIR right to pursue life, liberty and happiness, or whether we go with government doling out life, liberty and happiness to those government prefers at the time. Our time for choosing is coming.

Let’s begin with the obvious example in the news – Obamacare. Obamacare is a government take-over of a huge chunk of the private sector. A concoction of lies that at their heart mean to drive private sector health care into bankruptcy so government cronies can pick up the pieces and earn all the profits. We will replace the consumer driven market with nameless boards that ration health care (as oppose to the individual pursuing the care they want). The recent US SC decision making Obamacare a tax against those who defy the will of government has been an eye opener to many who did see the truth through the media PR storm. But now even the President has come clean on his desire to use Obamacare to rule us all:

“By the way, if you’ve got health insurance, you’re not getting hit by a tax,” President Obama said.

So its his way, or you pay. Sounds like extortion to me. Don’t think this is an isolated example – it is not. It is how the government enforces its will on We The People all the time.

This next story comes from the most bankrupt state in the union – California. Ignorant to the last decade of global climate cooling, and to the fact all the IPCC’s claims about Earth’s Climate, what we know about its historic trends and forces, and where we are heading (answer is – no one knows), California voted in a Snake Oil Salesman’s dream. California’s legislature voted to increase CA energy costs (passed onto consumers and businesses both directly and indirectly) by the creation of a carbon trading scheme. First (and last) in the nation.

What happened next is criminal:

CARB [California Air Resources Board] formed a company called Western Climate Initiative Inc. (WCI), to manage its upcoming cap and trade auction.  This shadowy corporation, registered in Delaware, will be responsible for imposing billions in hidden energy taxes on California ratepayers and small businesses without public scrutiny or accountability.

SB 1018 was a “gut and amend” bill, with over 100 pages inserted the day before the bill was signed into law along with the state budget.  This legislation did not go through one committee hearing and most legislators probably never had a chance to read it.  But buried in this bill in Section 12894(b)(2) is a line exempting WCI from a critical provision of the California Constitution, known as the Bagley-Keene Act, which provides meetings be open to public scrutiny.

Read the whole story to understand the depth of this mess. To go to such lengths to hide the activities of this company run by political cronies (a.k.a., political appointees) is a blaring red warning signal someone is up to no good. Why is the entire energy costs for California not being managed by a government entity in the open? It is a government tax being levied and managed by a private company – is that even legal? Sure smells funny to me.

The fact this happened is a sign of how far the ‘elite’ will go to steal the taxes of hard working Americans and line their own pockets. The truth is no CO2 levels will be impacted by these paper money trades. The Earth’s climate will not be adjusted. But billions of dollars could be stolen from the middle class to fund pretend work and make more politically connected rich people. The energy required to power any pursuit to happiness in CA is now in the hands of some unknown, out of state, political cronies all under the umbrella of an exemption to standard practices.

Finally, we see what happens when the few honorable people in government try to stop the madness. This story is particularly troublesome because the liberal elites who are doing the dirty work here probably railed against the same tactics applied to terrorism. This story uncovers illegal monitoring of US citizens just doing their jobs, something the NSA, CIA and FBI are forbidden to do. But some very bold idiots decided the FDA did have the authority (madness):

A wide-ranging surveillance operation by the Food and Drug Administration against a group of its own scientists used an enemies list of sorts as it secretly captured thousands of e-mails that the disgruntled scientists sent privately to members of Congress, lawyers, labor officials, journalists and even President Obama, previously undisclosed records show.

…

Moving to quell what one memorandum called the “collaboration” of the F.D.A.’s opponents, the surveillance operation identified 21 agency employees, Congressional officials, outside medical researchers and journalists thought to be working together to put out negative and “defamatory” information about the agency.

…

The extraordinary surveillance effort grew out of a bitter dispute lasting years between the scientists and their bosses at the F.D.A. over the scientists’ claims that faulty review procedures at the agency had led to the approval of medical imaging devices for mammograms and colonoscopies that exposed patients to dangerous levels of radiation.

This is extraordinary. The FDA spied on its own scientists, all those they communicated with, journalists and members of congress. All of whom where concerned with the safety of the American People. And to this day the perps don’t even see an problem with what they did!

This is a great example of what will happen with Obamacare. When those death panels start rationing health care dollars and deciding who is worthy of which medical procedure, there will be no real checks and balances. Why would Obamacare be different from the FDA, or CA, or DMV?

These three stories are three stunning examples of why the Tea Party libertarian view of government is spreading like wild fire. Just like the body deploys a wave of anti-bodies to ward of sickness, the body politic is beginning to target the core sickness now infecting this once great nation.

Which side will prevail? Will America return to  the very same Constitutional tenants that made it the world’s beacon for freedom and success? Or will it be dragged down into the sewer of cronyism, greed and propaganda for the benefit of just a few? It seems the time to pick a path is rapidly coming upon us, and we will have to not only take a leap of faith, but deal with the upheaval a significant change in directions will entail. Time to stop being complacent and accept the coming storm.

Update II: George Zimmerman’s friend, who relays details to police regarding events of that night portrayed to him by Zimmerman which I discuss below, is not only one time Seminole County Deputy, but also a Federal Air Marshall.  This should be interesting…

Major Update: And this is why one needs to read things for themselves.  Apparently reports claiming TM”s gunshot wound was not a contact wound (i.e., the gun was not pressed to the chest or shirt) were wrong. On page 205 of the latest document dump the forensic results indicate a contact shot. So my comments below regarding the muzzle of the gun being away from the body are inaccurate (since I based on them on inaccurate reports).  Anyway, this does not help GZ. If (and now I have to question the conclusions of other reporting on the autopsy) the bullet’s trajectory is straight front to back and not at an upward angle, then GZ’s statements on when/how the gun was fired are still in doubt. Of course, if the bullet path does reflect a gun pointed upward from the waist into the chest, I will be back here eating a mighty pile of crow….

end update

It is sad to say this, but the concept of ‘critical thinking’ is now a rare talent in America. Too many accept information unconditionally, and then deny all clear evidence to the contrary once they are emotionally committed.

Critical thinking requires an individual to assess information in a manner that challenges all associated assumptions and conclusions. Believe nothing – challenge it all. It means you dig down on your own to determine the truthfulness of claims, instead of taking propaganda and PR at face value.

For example, when the New York Times runs a story claiming George Bush “bypassed FISA” to snoop on Americans, a critical thinking person looks at the details in the story and challenges the hidden assumptions and conclusions being spoon fed to the mindless masses to digest. In this manner, the critical thinker discovers that the entire New York Times story is a crock. A fiction crafted to hide reality: a liberal judge bent out of shape over actions taken post 9-11 to make sure no more Americans died horrible deaths here in the US because of out-dated, ill-conceived POLICIES that provided terrorists more protections within our borders than without. And thus the critical thinkers expose lies and deceptions being hoisted on the public.

And so it is with the George Zimmerman shooting of Trayvon Martin. So many people jumped to conclusions before the details were known, and now actively avoid critical assessment of the information just now coming out. Especially if it upends their initial conclusions.

My engineering/science background – acquired over 3 decades now – does not allow me to avoid the hard truths, or to ignore false claims. It is just not something I can (or will) change. So when you ask why I keep looking at this case, it is because I am a critical thinker who is challenging all the unfounded assumptions and conclusions.

So while the non-critical thinkers claim there is nothing new in each release of evidence in the Trayvon Martin case (as if closing one eyes really does make the world go away), the critical thinker spends time reviewing and assessing the information. If nothing more to cross check his conclusions to date to make sure they still hold, but also to see if there is additional  corroborating information that strengthens those earlier conclusions.

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More evidence was released yesterday, and it is quite extensive and damning. Zimmerman’s defense team was given first shot to cherry pick the evidence made public. It turns out this was a subset of all the evidence collected, evidence that shed the best light on what transpired. But now with more information available it is clear George Zimmerman concocted his testimony (since the evidence and witnesses discredit it) and it is highly likely he will be found guilty of Murder 2.

I don’t have time to do an extensive post, but I can present some key points. First, the depraved mind aspect of Murder 2.

It seems George Zimmerman has had a history of calling the police on African American males in the neighborhood who are guilty of ‘looking suspicious’. All his ‘evidence’ of ‘suspicion’ is pure nonsense. As it was the night GZ gunned down young Trayvon Martin. He thinks he can see into the soul of people, but in reality all we get from him are people walking and looking around. To George’s depraved mind, this is suspicious.

That night he literally profiled Trayvon Martin like he had other black males before. Zimmerman is the poster child for racial profiling, turning a person simply walking into some nefarious character without a single iota of real evidence. It is why any pro-gun, pro-law enforcement, stand-your-ground conservative is making an huge mistake defending this guy.

Not only does Zimmerman profile Martin, but then he follows him – admitting to the police dispatcher he has convicted this kid in his mind of being a criminal before he even says one word to the kid. Then the depraved mind of George Zimmerman, wannabe cop who now has numerous failed attempts to bag the bad guys, goes stalking Trayvon against the direction of the dispatcher. That is depraved. He is now hunting the person he has convicted in his head of being the culprit in all these break ins.

What happens next is NOTHING like that portrayed by ZImmerman in his own testimony. Crime scene drawings in the report (page 145 in the link above) are proof positive events did not unfold the way GZ claims. The crime scene actually supports many witness accounts, who tell a very different story of what happened.

As GZ  sat in custody and realized his actions were not defensible, he realized he needed to adjust events so he was not seen as the true criminal. If that is not depraved, I don’t know what is. GZ thinks of TM as ‘the suspect’ all night in his testimony to police – trying to prove to police he is one of them and he acted righteously. He did no wrong, so he must change events to prove it. Talk about twisted.

Here is the crime scene drawing with some of my augmentations (click all pictures to enlarge).

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