THINK PROGRESS – It’s a great story: the virtually unknown, 15th seeded Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU), has made it to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament. But there’s something you might not know about FGCU: its economics department is, as a consequence of grants from Randian businessman John Allison and the Charles G. Koch Foundation, a haven for Ayn-Rand Style thinking:

At Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, every student who majors in economics and finance gets a copy of Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged…FGCU now has a core group of a half dozen economists whose research supports the ideas of free-market capitalism, still an unpopular subject in most faculty lounges. They teach this material to more than 250 economics and finance students (one class is titled “The Moral Foundations of Capitalism”), organize lectures by leading thinkers, publish their research in well-respected journals and hold influential positions in groups that promote free markets.

[ROFLMAO ..they say this like it’s a bad thing… /SD]

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HatTip Tara – This is an update to the Detroit Protest that Jesse Jackson had called for.  Original story here

DETROIT – Detroiters are the victims of Jesse Jackson’s last – and worst – shakedown.  Unlike his past antics – allegedly designed to help the little guy in his struggle against The Man – this one is about Jackson trying to prove his relevance at a time when he has become irrelevant. Many people – OK, me – believe the tears Jackson shed in Chicago when Barack Obama won the presidency were not tears of joy – but rather tears of jealousy that the first black president was not him. Obama’s elevation rendered Jesse irrelevant.  The Reverend Un-necessary.

Money for the con game was gone. Al Sharpton knew it – and quickly got a gig on MSNBC (hosting a pathetic show -but it paid the bills). But Jackson was stuck.

Reverend Jackson needed a new shakedown.  […]   Now along comes the opportunity of a lifetime: a broken Detroit! A white, millionaire governor stealing Detroit from its people!  He swept into the city and promised mass civil disobedience.  It was like old times again!

But just 35 people showed up to protest Monday, the first day of the Emergency Manager. (continue reading)

(CNN) – If you think Paris is expensive, the City of Light costs a lot more when you’re traveling with the vice president.  Recent documents posted to a government website give a rare glimpse of Vice President Joe Biden’s overseas travel expenses.

Official business took him last month to Europe, a trip that included a bill of $585,000 for his one-night stay in Paris.

Also on the receipt was $321,665 for a limousine company and $459,338.65 for a hotel stay in London.

And while Biden was only in each town for one night, the London hotel bill, for example, included 136 rooms for multiple nights for his advance team, according to the documents posted on the website for Federal Business Opportunities and unearthed by the conservative magazine, The Weekly Standard. (more…)

CYPRUS – Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades has struck a deal with the European Union and International Monetary Fund that will seize up to 40% of uninsured funds from wealthier depositors with over 100,000 euros and will not siphon funds from those below that amount.

The 10 billion euros ($13 billion) bailout plan calls for the Cyprus Popular Bank to be dissolved and all its viable assets transferred to the country’s biggest bank, Bank of Cyprus.

Presently, Cypriot banks have imposed a 100 euros ATM withdraw limit, and Cyprus border officials at air and sea ports have been ordered to confiscate the funds of any traveler attempting to leave with over 10,000 euros. (more…)

Most articles discussing “Prepper Motivation” focus on simplistic words like ‘Apocalypse’, and ‘The End of Civilization’ when they highlight information. In general the media portray ‘those who prepare’ as some kind of goof or wing-nut; That is profoundly unfair.

Think of those people in Long Island after Hurricane Sandy, do you think their lives would have been better if they were prepared to be totally self-sufficent for a month or more.

The example of anarchy in New Orleans should still be fresh on the minds of those who would ridicule or diminish such prudence, yet they do it anyway.

Having had personal experience in dealing with the total fracturing of societal rules of governance, along with the collapse of civil and moral rules on self-controlling behavior, I can tell you it ain’t pretty…. and most people have no idea how bad it can get – QUICKLY.

(Daily Mail Article)  Imagine if suddenly, and completely without warning, the world experienced a total blackout – no electricity, no mobile phones, no banks, no internet, no TV, no emergency services. Nothing.

Highways quickly become jammed with cars that have ground to a halt; an aeroplane falls from the sky; a satellite view of the planet shows it rapidly plunging into darkness.

As it becomes apparent that the lights are never coming back on, nations are plunged into chaos, mass riots break out in major cities and, without electricity, governments are toppled. Into the vacuum step ad-hoc militias, armed and ready to enforce their own rule of law. (more…)

A hilarious attempt by Mayor McCheese to discuss logic and avoid unintended consequences.   Hilarious, because that would actually require progs to think about legislative constructs without emotional attachment – they are constitutionally incapable of such thinking.   Everything is about emotion for a progressive.

NEW YORK – When Governor Andrew Cuomo quickly passed tough new gun control measures in January, he faced a raft of criticism for skipping the standard deliberative period and allegedly ignoring the more minute legislative details. The criticism recently found new substance with the bill’s apparently unworkable 7-bullet magazine requirement, which Albany is now working to reverse. And, on his weekly radio show with John Gambling, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that “one criticism” may indeed have merit.

“This is true of a lot of things,” Mr. Bloomberg said after accusing an unrelated City Council bill of having unintended side-effects. “You asked before about the magazines in Albany. We just got to start to thinking a little bit more about the implications of things before we rush to legislate and rush to legislate everything.” (more…)

Progs are the most insufferable whiners when it comes to spending YOUR money.  DWS proclaims that budget cuts are forcing her staff to starve or something….. 

WASHINGTON DC – On Tuesday, FL Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her colleague VA Rep. Jim Moran openly whined about the impacts of spending cuts on their personal office budgets. Moran fretted that, with the looming sequester cuts, he may have to cut one staffer from his office. Wasserman Schultz upped his ante, however. She, almost literally, suggested that her staff were on the brink of starvation, due to the cuts. (more…)

If you are thinking about taking a casual stroll to the grocery store in Cyprus today you might need to stop by the local ATM machine to get some euros.   Considering the banks have been closed since last Friday, more than likely you, along with everyone else, are out of cash.

However, you might want to consider taking along a helmet, gloves, body armor and perhaps a gas mask, as getting to the ATM machine might be a little more troublesome than one might initially presume. (more…)

Numerous people are only just now becoming aware of the lucrative industry of “grievance”.  Despite the growth of income potential from grievance industrialists over the course of many years, most people never really paid attention to it.   The Zimmerman case brings an opportunity to deliver sunlight to the scheme(s).

George Zimmerman is, on paper, being prosecuted by the State of Florida, but the state is not really his prosecution – The State is merely facilitating a process created by, structured by, and afforded by the Grievance Industry.

As we have previously outlined Angela Corey was chosen by Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi because Corey needed some quick credibility with the African-American constituency.   Corey was one of the Campaign Managers for Bondi – so the relationship is quite sympatico.

Bondi was the prosecutor in another previously successful Grievance Campaign against the State, “The Martin Lee Anderson case“.   In the Anderson case, Trayvon Martin family attorney, Benjamin Crump, was also the lead civil representative for wrongful death claims by Anderson’s family.   In that case Pam Bondi and Benjamin Crump also cemented their friendship and quid-pro-quo arrangements.    Crump was out for money, Bondi needed political clout. (more…)

Quick..,  look…, over there… shiny things.

Obama looks like the Devil…. Some crazy Arias stalker chick on the stand in Arizona admits to killing her boyfriend, well, maybe… or something.  Apparently the President is blackmailing the Easter Bunny about paying for his own White House eggs this year…. Ohmygosh, WMD used in Syria – hey, wait ain’t that a border nation to Iraq where we couldn’t find WMD, well, til, after that Satan guy used them on Kurdish somethingorothers……

…..The GOP is still racist, promise….. but the dems being nasty at that Doc Carson is all patriotic n’ stuff…. Senator Rand Paul supports amnesty, then he doesn’t, til, well, maybe…  and a bunch of Marines in Nevada were killed because of sequestery stuff.

Shiny things, all Shiny Things. (more…)