Archive of entries posted on May 2024

Yay! No More Debt! Boo Contracts!

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Biden Cancels More than $7 Billion in Student Debt for 160,000 People
Breitbart | 05/22/2024 | Elizabeth Weibel

President Joe Biden revealed that his administration will be canceling more than $7 billion in student debt for 160,000 people.

The White House issued a statement Wednesday [5/22/24] announcing that 160,000 people in the United States would have their student loans canceled, erasing a total of $7.7 billion in student debt for those people.

In June 2023, the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision to block Biden’s plan to cancel $430 billion in student loan debt for almost 40 million people.

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The Penn Wharton Budget Model last year calculated that the loan forgiveness based on the Biden administration’s income-driven repayment plan will cost US taxpayers $475 billion over 10 years.

Almost $50 billion more than what the USSC struck down.

— NY Post

Cool.
Stroke of a pen.

Try This One Weird Experiment!

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“The other night, I did an experiment. I started talking out loud in my own home about a pool monitoring system. Shortly thereafter, Facebook sent me one ad after another about, yup, you guessed it, pool monitoring systems.
Who was listening to me? Was it you, Siri? How about you, Alexa? Google Mini, could you REALLY hear me all the way from the kitchen?”

I propose that everyone in America suddenly start talking about Adirondack chairs:

“A similar thing happened to me a few years ago. My wife and I were driving somewhere and I happened to mention that Adirondack chairs were more comfortable than they looked. Hadn’t mentioned or even thought of Adirondack chairs in years, never owned any, never shopped for any. Her phone was on but in her purse. Mine was turned off in the desk drawer at home where it spends 99% of its time.

Within a few hours we were getting ads on our home computer for, yup, you guessed it, Adirondack chairs.”

Worse has happened to me. I was conversing with my brother, when his phone on the kitchen counter activated for no reason and started playing a time-delayed recording of our conversation. True story.

I have not met anyone yet that this advertising phenomenon has not happened to.

Pharmacy Corner

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Ran across this in a news chat:

“I work in a pharmacy, and had to recently pass an exam which contained compounding techniques and how to clean compounding areas. It is really involved, and depends on the way air flows over the work surface. It either comes down and towards the compounder or laterally across the work surface from the compounder’s left to right. You have to be careful about how you place items on the surface as well, so air flow isn’t blocked.”

Any way the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me. To me.

Always ask your pharmacist how your medication was aerated during compounding — vertically or laterally? They appreciate the interest.

Murder trial set for man accused of causing national fungal meningitis outbreak that killed 11 in Michigan
Michigan Live | May. 22, 2024 | Nathan Clark

A Massachusetts pharmacist accused of causing a fungal meningitis outbreak that caused the deaths of 11 Michigan residents is set to go on trial for murder.

Livingston County Circuit Judge Matthew McGivney set a trial date for Nov. 4 for Glenn Chin who faces 11 counts of second-degree murder for his alleged involvement in the deadly 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Monday, May 20.

“Eleven Michiganders tragically lost their lives as a result of a lack of concern for patient safety,” Nessel said. “My department looks forward to finally seeking justice for the victims and their families in court.”

Chin, 56, of Canton, Massachusetts, was the supervising pharmacist at the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Massachusetts, where the nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak resulted in 64 deaths, 11 of which occurred at the Michigan Pain Specialists Clinic in Livingston County.

The Attorney General’s Office alleges that Chin disregarded sterility procedures, created fraudulent cleaning records and falsified scientific testing results.

Although testing repeatedly revealed the presence of mold or bacteria in the sterilized rooms used to mix the drugs to create the steroids the company sold, the company misrepresented the safety of its product, according to previous reporting.

Also ask your pharmacist about presence of mold or bacteria in the sterilized rooms. They appreciate the interest.

Straight Line of the Day: If We Can’t Drive on Weekends…

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No Driving on the Weekends?
American Thinker | 19 May, 2024 | Eric Utter

A bad move from a totalitarian-minded leftist leader in Germany is sure to give Joe Biden ideas.

Germany’s transport minister (and progressive politician), Volker Wissing, last month vowed to ban driving on weekends to meet Germany’s climate-related goals. It’s either do that or else he wants the ruling coalition to pass more restrictions within the Climate Protection Act come July.

According to the German newspaper BILD, as cited by Politico, Wissing penned a letter to the coalition’s parliamentary group leaders, in which he bemoaned the fact that the reforms haven’t yet been approved.

Wissing, whose initials are ironically those of Germany’s most famous auto maker told BILD, according to the Politico report that: “This serves neither the climate nor the reputation of the federal government.”

He added that reducing traffic to achieve climate goals would mandate measures such as “comprehensive and indefinite driving bans on Saturdays and Sundays.”

A government telling its citizens that they can’t drive on weekends would seem like a hard sell at best, but then again we obeyed similar — and even more intrusive — measures during the COVID pandemic lockdowns.

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None of it was pretty. Mass propaganda disguised as medical expertise (remember when Joe Biden and his CDC army of Goebbels clones demanded that we wear three or more masks outside?) and mass censorship of social media conversations (because, we were frequently told, disinformation kills!) proved that — when push comes to shove — Western governments will quickly dispense with protections for free speech. Wannabe dictators (intent on protecting “democracy” by being authoritarian) embraced their true “Do as we say!” dispositions and branded the public’s rights and liberties as “enemies of the State.”

Officials summarily punished anyone who resisted COVID’s descending Iron Curtain. Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau seized the bank accounts and property titles of Freedom Convoy protesters. Videos from Australia and New Zealand showing police forces blocking roads, securing quarantine camps, and pushing citizens back into their homes looked like scenes from a Mad Max movie. California Democrats buried skateparks in sand, cordoned off jungle-gyms with yellow crime tape, and arrested lone surfers paddling in the ocean. Abandoning moderation and constitutional constraints, Western totalitarians embraced intimidation, coercion, and surveillance on a wide scale.

Throughout the West, governments prohibited places of worship from conducting religious services, recorded license plate numbers of congregants, and issued excessive fines to clergy.

— “Lessons from COVID Totalitarianism”
American Thinker | 19 May, 2024 | J.B. Shurk

Babesleaga Group Z : Week 7 : Rhianna vs Jennifer Lopez

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Good night.

Rhianna vs Jennifer Lopez

Rhianna (0-6-0 Pts. 100 Avg. 16.67)

  • Lost to Katy Perry 14-104
  • Lost to Britney Spears 11-114
  • Lost to Mariah Carey 20-67
  • Lost to Natasha Bedingfield 19-88
  • Lost to Olivia Rodrigo 21-90
  • Lost to Fergie 15-98

VS

Jennifer Lopez (2-4-0 Pts. 298 Avg. 49.67)

  • Defeated Olivia Rodrigo 67-45
  • Lost to Fergie 54-58
  • Lost to Natasha Bedingield 48-57
  • Lost to Britney Spears 24-87
  • Defeated Mariah Carey 63-48
  • Lost to Katy Perry 45-72

This poll is no longer accepting votes

Who do you prefer?
105 votes · 105 answers
Vote

Babesleaga Group Z : Week 7 : Natasha Bedingfield vs Katy Perry

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Good evening.

Natasha Bedingfield vs Katy Perry

Natasha Bedingfield (5-1-0 Pts. 376 Avg. 62.67)

  • Defeated Mariah Carey 62-40
  • Defeated Olivia Rodrigo 75-31
  • Defeated Jennifer Lopez 57-48
  • Defeated Rhianna 88-19
  • Defeated Fergie 58-45
  • Lost to Britney Spears 36-77

VS

Katy Perry (5-1-0 Pts. 469 Avg. 78.17)

  • Defeated Rhianna 104-14
  • Defeated Mariah Carey 86-33
  • Defeated Fergie 64-37
  • Defeated Olivia Rodrigo 83-26
  • Lost to Britney Spears 60-62
  • Defeated Jennifer Lopez 72-45

This poll is no longer accepting votes

Who do you prefer?
110 votes · 110 answers
Vote

What’s Your Take on Sports Betting?

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1. None of your business.

2. None of my business.

Gambling Is Ruining Sports
The Free Press | April 4, 2024 | Joe Nocera

For decades, Las Vegas was the only place in the country where sports betting was legal. And once upon a time, the men who ran the major sports leagues were terrified of betting. The great fear was that it would corrupt the players, who would be tempted to fix games.

Turns out, those fears were valid. In the last year, there’s been a spate of gambling-related controversies. The NBA is investigating Toronto’s Jontay Porter for taking himself out of two games to boost gamblers betting against his performance. Major League Baseball’s best player, Shohei Ohtani, is under a cloud after his Japanese translator used $4.5 million of Ohtani’s money to pay off gambling debts. (For the moment, at least, the translator is believed to have stolen the money from Ohtani, and he says he never bet on baseball.) And in 2023, the NFL suspended five players for betting on games in their own league.

Perhaps these controversies were inevitable. Because these days, professional sports have a lot to do with Vegas.

The dam broke in 2017, when the National Hockey League put a franchise in Las Vegas, and when the Oakland Raiders relocated to the city—where they play in a stadium where gambling takes place. The following year, a Supreme Court decision opened the doors to sports betting across the country; 38 states have since legalized it. Since then, online sports betting behemoths FanDuel and DraftKing have plastered their logos on the floors of basketball arenas and become major advertisers for televised pro sports events. And this year’s Super Bowl actually took place in the Raiders stadium—yes, the one where gambling takes place.

Did the Founding Fathers concern themselves with what a person did with his own money?

Of course I recognize there’s a problem when players, owners, managers, and the mob get involved.

I don’t think I’ve thought this through, which is why I’m going to you guys.