NERDIST NEWS: JULY 22, 2015

AFTERBURNER: LIGHTS OUT!

THREE MARTINI LUNCH: NOVEMBER 25, 2014

National Review's Jim Geraghty joins host Greg Corombos. Today's topics: Rioting in Ferguson and Obama's ill-timed comments, the Ferguson D.A. slams cable news and social media coverage of the investigation, and critics of Chuck Hagel have their say.



Obama and the Roots of the Ferguson Rage

One is left to marvel at one of two realities. Either we have a president so utterly naive he believes a hoax-perpetrating, riot-inciting Al Sharpton, who denigrated the grand jury process, pre-organized protest rallies in 25 American cities, and uses his MSNBC platform to fire up racial unrest, is a man of peace. Or the president, who once urged his Latino followers to "punish our enemies," remains as wedded to the same racial "us against them" mentality as America's foremost racial arsonist. Is it really possible to believe the former?

Despite Obama's superficial condemnations of violence, at least 25 businesses were set ablaze, many of which are total losses - and most of which were minority owned.  Ten cars were burned at a dealership, and a "lot of gunfire," as Ferguson Asst. Fire Chief Steve Fair put it, made maintaining control of the streets highly problematic, if not impossible. Reporters were assaulted, the store Michael Brown robbed prior to his confrontation with Wilson was looted, and at least 61 people have been arrested.

"What I've seen tonight is probably much worse than the worst night we ever had in August, and that's truly unfortunate," said St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar Monday at a 1:30 a.m press conference. Belmar further noted that there was "nothing left" along West Florissant between Solway Avenue and Chambers Road, that he heard at least 150 gun shots, and that he was surprised he and Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson, who "got lit up," as they drove through the area, weren't hit by that gunfire...

Also read:

Incitement: New York Times Publishes Darren Wilson's Address

The indomitable spirit of one Ferguson small business owner

HALLOWEEN: THINGS AREN'T WHAT THEY SEEM

RED EYE - JUNE 3, 2014 FULL EPISODE

Greg welcomes guests Gavin McInnes and Ambassador John Bolton.

Superstitions Collide: Full Moon Rises on Friday the 13th

The June full moon is nicknamed the "Strawberry Moon," a moniker that goes back to the Algonquin Native American tribe, according to the Farmer's Almanac. June is strawberry season, and the full moon would have traditionally coincided with the harvest.

The June full moon is frequently the one nearest to the summer solstice, which falls on June 21 this year. Because of a neat bit of galactic geometry, this means the full moon on Friday will be the lowest in the sky of any in 2014.

Here's how it works: The Earth rotates on a tilted axis; in June — summer in the Northern Hemisphere — the North Pole is tilted about 23.5 degrees toward the sun, while the South Pole is tilted 23.5 degrees away from the sun. On the solstice, the sun reaches its farthest point north of the equator.

Full moons happen when Earth's satellite is opposite the sun; that's why viewers on Earth see the entire face of the moon illuminated. Thus, when the full moon is directly opposite the sun when our host star appears at its highest point, the moon is at its lowest point with respect to the equator. That's why winter full moons rise higher above the horizon than summer full moons.

Also read: The Dutch Destroy Spain 5-1 In Grudge Match

TYPICAL: PROGGIES COMPARE BLACKS TO CHIMPS

Is it 2013 or 1913?  When it comes to progressives, does it really matter?  Now, as then, they are still comparing black people with chimpanzees:

Chimpanzees should be freed from zoos for the same reason that African Americans were freed from slavery, a group of progressive legal entrepreneurs working to level the courtroom rights of humans and animals claimed in a recent lawsuit.

The offensive comparison is a dangerous and self-serving effort by progressives to win legal rights for animals via courtroom decisions, said a fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Wash., Wesley J. Smith, an author and a critic of the claim that legal rights should be shared with animals.

The claim also makes a mockery of slavery's real impact on people, Smith said.  The comparison "is completely outrageous," he added.

Apparently, these progressives argue that if black people can have their freedom then why not apes?  Woodrow Wilson probably would have disagreed with the proposition that blacks should have freedom but no doubt he would have appreciated the "logic" of his fellow progressives.

"We're not saying blacks and chimpanzees are alike, except in their legal status," said Steven Wise, the president of the Nonhuman Rights Project, which filed three cases in New York seeking the forced release of animals, including 'Tommy," a chimpanzee.

"We are arguing that an entity that is autonomous, that chooses how to live its life, that is self aware, that is self-directing, has the qualities that the American courts...hold sacred" enough to deserve legal rights, he said.

Got that?  Blacks, like apes, are autonomous and self-aware...even self-directing.  Obviously apes deserve the same legal rights as black folks.  Because equality.

In reality, we human beings are exceptional and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  For the record, being "autonomous" has got absolutely nothing do with it.  If rights are derived from a creature's autonomy and intelligence, not from the basic fact that he or she is human, then people who lack autonomy also lack those rights:

All humans start their lives as developing babies without those capacities, and many humans are temporarily incapacitated during their lives.

If "people can lose those rights by losing their capacities, then no one is safe," Smith said.

In Europe, sick and morose people are already being killed under "assisted suicide" laws, and there's growing pressure in the United States to cut healthcare costs by truncating treatment for old or sick people, he said.

The point to be understood is that any effort to place lesser animals on the same level as humans is to fundamentally devalue human life.  And once human life becomes devalued - based on "science" - it's inevitable that horrors like the Nazi Action T4 program will occur.  As it is, we already have a killing industry in this country, founded by this monster.  

Please be sure and read the full Daily Caller article (and do check out all the links).  And, below, watch the clip of an elderly Margaret Sanger aka "Mrs. Slee" (Sanger's second husband was James Slee) and her chilling statement in 1947. 

HALLOWEEN HORROR 2013: GET THE DOOR, CHAD

The desperate attempt to bamboozle Millennials into the ObamaCare scam has been going on for years.  And why?  Because, as Bill Clinton recently stated: "This only works if young people show up."  But the truth has been known for almost as long.  ObamaCare is actually a wealth-redistribution system in the most regressive manner possible.

Young workers, who find it increasingly more difficult to find jobs, will end up subsidizing the health care of older workers, who are hanging onto jobs longer and longer.  Walter Russell Mead and the folks at the American Interest have been hammering this point home for most of the year. And so has Nick Gillespie at Reason. The politics of this wealth transfer is nothing short of perverse. Rates will increase by an average of 169% for the young while older people will pay about 22% less.

ObamaCare turns the concept of health insurance on its head by forcing the young to subsidize the old, rather than calculating for the risk a young person actually poses. Young people won't benefit from purchasing a policy through the ObamaCare exchanges that will cost more with no return on their investment.

Not only is ObamaCare generational theft in the immediate sense, young people who buy a plan through its exchange now won't even benefit in the long-run. A healthy 18-year-old who purchases an ObamaCare plan now is essentially paying an 18% excise tax over his or her entire lifetime. That's intolerable. 

ObamaCare contributes to both generational and income inequality by forcing businesses to shift hourly workers to part-time positions and to drop their employer coverage. The economic realities created by ObamaCare disproportionately impact those just entering the workforce and low-income earners.

A serious wealth gap between young and old Americans already exists in this country, and ObamaCare exacerbates it at a time when the unemployment rate for 18 to 29-year-olds is over 60% higher than the national average.

ObamaCare is full of exceptions for those connected enough to get special favors, mostly corporate cronies, congress and their special friends. These inconsistencies contribute to businesses avoiding ObamaCare by shifting to more part-time positions - hurting those looking for jobs after graduation.

Members of Congress and their staff were exempted by the White House from a provision in ObamaCare that stated they must join the exchanges. Additionally, last year the department of Health and Human Services granted waivers to over 543,812 workers represented by labor unions, while 69,813 people employed by private companies received the same special treatment.

Uncertainty surrounding ObamaCare has slowed new business investments. Not knowing what to expect has caused employers - especially small businesses - to halt growth. A recent Chamber of Commerce survey found that 71% of small business owners are finding it harder to make new hires because of ObamaCare.

The implementation of ObamaCare has been riddled with delays and special carve-outs for Democrat Party constituencies and other well-connected groups. Data from the the non-partisan Congressional Research Service shows that ObamaCare has been delayed or amended 19 times - five of which were undertaken by the White House unilaterally.

In order to avoid the economically damaging mandates contained within ObamaCare, businesses are cutting worker hours and dropping health care coverage. This forces people with lower incomes into expensive ObamaCare exchanges in order to access health insurance.

There is also a security issue that should make Millennials think twice about signing up. Now that we know the government has been systematically collecting the phone records and online communications of millions of American citizens, do you want to further compromise your privacy? If you sign up for ObamaCare, your sensitive information will go into a new central data hub - an identity thief's wet dream.

ObamaCare utilizes a data hub to process individual's purchase of health insurance. This data hub will provide unprecedented access of sensitive data to multiple government departments.

The data hub is extremely susceptible to hackers and phishing scams.  Also, the "Navigators" hired to secure the private data have not been properly (if at all) trained and vetted.

Furthermore, in light of the recent scandalous revelations about the NSA, the FBI, and the IRS we should strive to protect our privacy, not just from criminals but from bureaucrats who feel empowered to target citizens for their political or religious beliefs.

Scared yet? You should be. Stay safe and watch out for those Navigators...

THE TWO HEROES WHO MAY HAVE SAVED A LIFE

Personally, I have no doubt that the victim was on a one-way ride to her own rape and murder.  Obviously the man who was arrested is technically innocent until proven guilty but it seems pretty clear what happened.  It's a story that is both horrifying and inspiring at the same time. 

It's terrifying to think about this kind of thing happening to me or somebody I know.  It's something that happens all too frequently these days.  I like to think that I'd do whatever I had to in order to escape or survive.

But I would also hope to be blessed enough to have a couple of people in another car who were paying attention and also willing to risk possible embarrassment (if it turned out to be a false alarm) in order to make sure that nothing bad happened to a fellow human being.  It's the second time in the last two months that alert good samaritans have helped stop a kidnapping like this.  Thank God for happy endings!  As somebody wise once said:

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Dashcam Shows Deputy Rescuing Alleged Kidnapping Victim

HORRIFYING STORY: "WAKE UP, YOU LITTLE SLUT..."

There is a new trend in technology called "the Internet of things."

All of your household electronics and appliances are getting connected to the Internet, everything from your lights to your thermostats.  In the long-run, connecting these things to the Internet will provide all sorts of conveniences and efficiencies.

But there is a dark side to the Internet of Things.  Powerful, cutting-edge technologies created in the name of "efficiency" have been known to result in horrifying consequences.  Forbes has one such story:

Marc Gilbert got a horrible surprise from a stranger on his 34th birthday in August. After the celebration had died down, the Houston resident heard an unfamiliar voice coming from his daughter’s room; the person was telling his sleeping 2-year-old, "Wake up, you little slut." When Gilbert rushed in, he discovered the voice was coming from his baby monitor and that whoever had taken control of it was also able to manipulate the camera. Gilbert immediately unplugged the monitor but not before the hacker had a chance to call him a moron.

The monitor, made by Foscam of Shenzhen, China, lets users monitor audio and video over the Internet from anywhere in the world. Months earlier security researchers had discovered software flaws in the product that allowed attackers to take control of the monitor remotely or to sign into its stream if they used the user name "admin." Foscam had quietly come up with a fix the month before but had not pushed it out to its users. When Gilbert checked his Foscam account, he discovered that the hacker had added his own user name - "Root" - so he could sign in whenever he wanted. Gilbert is now considering a class action against Foscam. He could find other plaintiffs using a search engine called Shodan. It's likely the tool the pervy hacker used to find him.

Shodan crawls the Internet looking for devices, many of which are programmed to answer. It has found cars, fetal heart monitors, office building heating-control systems, water treatment facilities, power plant controls, traffic lights and glucose meters. A search for the type of baby monitor used by the Gilberts reveals that more than 40,000 other people are using the IP cam - and may be sitting ducks for creepy hackers.

Please be sure to read the entire article to learn more about the problem and who created the program.  Shodan can find all kinds of stuff: webcams, traffic lights...glucose meters.  Think about all the scary possibilities.

The article suggests the key to protecting yourself against invasions like the one Gilbert went through is to never buy an Internet-connected gadget that is not password protected. Also, if you buy one that comes with a default password and user name, change it immediately.  Stay safe, people!