Reverie

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.--deTocqueville

FICA money taken from your paycheck was not saved for you in a "trust fund." Politicians spent every penny the moment it came in. They assumed that FICA payments from young workers would cover the cost of sending checks to older people. This year, the program went into the red for the first time.

Medicare will run out of money in just eight years. At that point, benefits will automatically be cut. Social Security runs out of money in 15 years.

OOOOmmmmmmmmm.

What is...EternalBlue?

A key point about general incorporation laws was that they were egalitarian: you could launch an incorporated venture even if you were obscure, new in town, or out of favor with political influentials. Supporters of plans like [Elizabeth] Warren’s should be asked whether they really want some combination of political actors – very possibly appointees of Donald Trump or another President like him – to gain power to revoke Google’s or Amazon’s or Facebook’s charter to continue doing business unless the management agrees to cut a deal, perhaps involving private understandings with officialdom, to stave off such a penalty. --Olson

She did not think beyond the sound bite.

Molotov Cocktail:  A crude bomb made of a bottle filled with a liquid fuel and fitted with a rag wick that is lighted just before the bottle is hurled. After Soviet foreign minister, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (1890-1986). Earliest documented use: 1940.

Molotov was born as Vyacheslav Skryabin, but he took the name Molotov (from Russian molot: hammer). During the Winter War between the USSR and Finland (1939-1940), when the Soviets received international criticism for the bombing of Helsinki, Molotov claimed they were delivering humanitarian aid. In response, the Finns sarcastically called those cluster bombs Molotov bread baskets.
If the Soviets were bringing bread to the party, the least the Finns could do was bring drinks. They called their makeshift incendiary devices Molotov cocktail and used them to destroy Soviet tanks.

These revolutionary maniacs all take these funny, gangster-like names.

The seizure of largely white-owned farmland  has begun in South Africa. Government leaders say is necessary to correct decades-old wrongs of apartheid that left deep, systemic wealth inequalities and land ownership disparities along racial lines. Markets reacted negatively. South African economic analysts and U.S. observers say the country risks inviting the kind of devastation that left neighboring Zimbabwe’s economy in ruins after a similar forced expropriation scheme targeting some of the country’s most productive farmland.

It's not that these leaders don't know the truth, they don't care. Only Sean Penn was surprised at the deterioration of Venezuela.

Golden oldie:

http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2017/02/wall.html

Wall steeleydock.blogspot.com On walls, barriers and neighbors: Mending Wall SOMETHING there is that doesn't love a wall,   That sends the frozen-ground-swell u...

A penetration tool known as EternalBlue, created by the US National Security Agency, was leaked in a disastrous breach of the agency’s ultrasecret files earlier in 2017.

EternalBlue, sometimes stylized as ETERNALBLUE, is an exploit developed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) according to testimony by former NSA employees. It was leaked by the Shadow Brokers hacker group on April 14, 2017, and was used as part of the worldwide WannaCry ransomware attack on May 12, 2017.

So we are sort of arming our enemies with ultimate weapons.

The University of Chicago has dropped an admission requirement for students to submit either SAT or ACT test scores, becoming the most prestigious university to join the test-optional movement. 

Now that will improve diversity.

A Washington Post analysis says that according to data released by CMS, in 2017, 46.3 million children in the United States were enrolled at one point in either Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, “a number that totals more than 60 percent of the more than 74 million children in the United States.”

If you tax something, you get less of it. Seattle recently put a head tax on...jobs!

While I am staying away from national politics--more for my own sanity than good taste--I just can not resist telling you this: Trump speaking to Voice of America’s Greta Van Susteren on Kim: “He’s got a great personality. He’s a funny guy, he’s very smart, he’s a great negotiator. He loves his people, not that I’m surprised by that.”

That's the President of the United States talking about a Fourth World Dictator. And, unlike Idi Amin, he doesn't eat people.

Nobody goes there anymore - it's too crowded.

~Yogi Berra

From the increasingly angry Charen:  As a matter of substance, the Singapore summit achieved less than nothing. It was a profound defeat for U.S. world influence and for democratic decency, arguably the worst summit outcome since Yalta. Kim promised to consider "denuclearization," exactly as his father and grandfather had done repeatedly over the past several decades — breaking their promises each and every time. For this puff of cotton candy, Trump agreed to halt "U.S. war games" (using the North Korean term for joint military exercises with South Korea), which Trump himself called provocative! He invited Kim to the White House. He also issued the risible tweet announcing, ahem, peace in our time: "There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea."

A report on the FBI’s handling of the 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server found missteps by then-Director James Comey but no evidence of bias affecting the conclusions. (wsj)

Many of the largest US-based multinational corporations have close to (or more than) two-thirds of their total sales outside the US, e.g., Intel (80%), Mondelez (76%), Coca-Cola (70%), ExxonMobil (65.4%), Apple (63.2%), and GE (62.1%). Other large American MNCs generate more than 50% of their sales overseas, e.g. Procter and Gamble (58%), Chevron (57%), Oracle (53%), Alphabet (52.7%), IBM (52%) and Pfizer (50.5%).

From a sports article on the Steelers: "Okorafor is listed at 6-foot-6, 320 pounds. That's a little smaller than the two starting tackles."

Smaller.

In 2014, 47 of the nation's 73 inspectors general signed a letter alleging that Obama had stonewalled their "ability to conduct our work thoroughly, independently, and in a timely manner."

Huh.

A total of 4,262 applicants entered the urology match between 2006 and 2016. The number of applicants increased by 19.1% yearly and the number of positions increased by 25.1% yearly during the study period. Of the applicants 2,934 (68.8%) successfully matched, with an annual match rate ranging from 60.9% to 79.1%.

AAAaaaaannnnnndddddd.......a pie chart: