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Breakup, NORK Style

Last week brought high entertainment in North Korea, provided by various members of the Unhasu Orchestra as well as singers, musicians and dancers with the Wangjaesan Light Music Band. No, they weren't performing, at least not in the usual sense; they were publicly executed by firing squad.

Kim Jong-un's ex-girlfriend was among a dozen well-known North Korean performers who were executed by firing squad on Aug. 20, reports said Wednesday.

The source added that all of the families of the executed appear to have been sent to prison camps under North Korea's barbaric principle of guilt by association.

They say that breaking up is

Hard to do...

But Kim Jong shows, it isn't true...

BTW: in the photo above, Kim's ex-girlfriend performs at a concert in Pyongyang on August 8, less than two weeks before execution.

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It Seems That People Are Really Stupid

But of course, we knew that - after all, OBumbler's been elected twice. Nonetheless, marking perhaps a new low in intellectual capacity, people now need to be told how to eat food. North Koreans, it seems must be smarter than Americans; they don't seem to have this problem.

Uh-Oh. Them Harvard Folks Are At It Again

But just how likely do you think that Harvard-vegetated Barky OBummer is to pay attention? Two words: not very.

A Harvard study released in the spring – to virtually no media attention – focused on the prevalence of gun ownership in the United States versus those strict gun-control countries in Europe the left is so fond of talking about.

It was called, with disarming bluntness, “Would banning firearms reduce murder and suicide?”

Its answer was: “No.”

Communities where gun-ownership rates are highest are where the homicide rates are lowest, Kates and Mauser wrote:

“Where firearms are most dense violent crime rates are lowest, and where guns are least dense violent crime rates are highest.”

Paging Oregon state senator Ginny Burdick.

Oh, nevermind; she's not going to let a few facts get in the way of her agenda. Not that it especially matters, as the name "Burdick" is rapidly gaining acceptance as a synonym for "Liar".

As for OBummer - can anybody expect him to take the results of a study from his alleged alma mater seriously? He's demonstrated a willingness to run weapons to Mexican cartels and Syrian Muslims, but he's argued vehemently and repeatedly in favor of restrictions on the Second Amendment rights of American citizens; claiming that it's time for a "common-sense approach" to disarming Americans.

And he's an eloquent speaker, when his teleprompters are working. He's no Martin Luther King, but he spoke today on the 50th anniversary of the March On Washington, where Dr. King delivered his famous and stirring "I Have A Dream" speech from the Lincoln Memorial.

Not to be outdone, OBummer's "I Have A Drone" speech was delivered today from the exact spot where Dr. King once stood.

Union Thugs Begin To Catch On

They got what they wanted: OBummer was reelected, and OBummercare is the law of the land. And all of a sudden, the union thugs who supported both are none too happy:

The Oregon economic numbers show that Oregon’s tepid growth is being led by temporary employees.

Joseph Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union told NBC News, “It IS happening. Wait a year. You’ll see tremendous impact as workers have their hours reduced and their incomes reduced. The facts are already starting to show up. Their statistics, I think, are a little behind the time.”

They can't say they weren't warned. As a result of their poor decisions ("representing the workers", my rosy red patootie), they're taking the only option left to them: pushing for a massive increase in the minimum wage - which will only put more people on unemployment while inflicting even more damage to the overall economy.

Thanks to OBummercare, "full time work" has been redefined downward from 40 hours per week to 30. And in order to protect their bottom lines, businesses across the country are doing a couple of things; neither of which should be surprising to anyone other than Leftists: they're cutting off employee work hours at 29 per week in order to avoid the impacts of OBummercare, and they're relying upon temp agencies to supply workers.

The latter is especially significant, as the OBummer administration has aggressively ramped up employment regulations, inflicting massive burdens upon employers. And the employers have found that using temp agencies to acquire workers affords significant relief:

As employers know, the paperwork associated with even one employee can be formidable. Employment laws are confusing at best, and compliance can be difficult. In many cities and states, it is incredibly difficult to fire an employee without becoming a target for civil penalties or a lawsuit. The beauty of temporary employees, from a business standpoint, is that they work for the temp agency. The temp agency handles all the regulatory paperwork. If a business wants to “fire” a worker provided by a temp agency, they just call the temp agency and the worker is gone, with no exposure for the business.

In an old Dilbert cartoon strip, the pointy-haired manager encounters Dilbert in a hallway, as the manager, carrying a temp worker, heads for the dumpster. 

Clickabiggn.

Mooch's Skulze Lunch Program Fails

Some of the schools, citing losses of as much as $30,000 in the first quarter, are dropping out of Mooch's revamped "healthy" program, but that doesn't really bother the bureaucrats:

Dr. Janey Thornton, deputy undersecretary for USDA's Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, which oversees the program, said she is aware of reports of districts quitting but is still optimistic about the program's long-term prospects.

"Many of these children have never seen or tasted some of the fruits and vegetables that are being served before, and it takes a while to adapt and learn," she said.

So, there you have it: many of these children have never seen or tasted an apple or a pear. Right. The doctor apparently needs to lay off the self-medication.

Near Albany, Voorheesville Superintendent Teresa Thayer Snyder said her district lost $30,000 in the first three months. The program didn't even make it through the school year after students repeatedly complained about the small portions and apples and pears went from the tray to the trash untouched.

And "Doctor Janey" claims that these kids have never seen or tasted apples and pears, but she's confident that they can be forced to adjust. It's "for their own good".

The mantra of every dictatorship ever known.

Flashback: Dumb Terminals And Robotic Farms

Computer terminals were used for time sharing access to central computers, before the advent of the personal computer. 

1981. Most people were unfamiliar with the concept of personal computers, though they were well acquainted with terminals tied to big ol' mainframes - and many had more than a passing familiarity with the old warnings on punchcards: "Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate". Today, it's likely that a majority of folks don't even know what the heck a "spindle" was. But there were romantics who believed that a new era was about to dawn; an era in which farmers would relax on the sundeck as the robotic butler brought them a cold drink.

Farming would consist of monitoring the fields on a big-screen television and periodically tapping in commands to be transmitted to the robotic field workers. Some things just aren't meant to be, it appears; while many things that were science fiction a few decades ago are reality today, it hasn't quite trickled down to the food production level as yet. Bummer; you'd love to farm like that.

Charge!

Detroit Electric car charging 

Porkland mayor Charlie Hales wants to add a "carbon tax" to residents' fuel and utility bills, and at first he claimed that the money would go toward repaving and repairing city streets. But in the last couple of weeks, he's been muttering about maybe adding more electric car charging stations around the city. Yep, there's a winner!

A nearby CostCo had a couple of them for several years, but removed them after finding that they received about one use per month. Freddy's, over in Tigard, installed a few as part of last years' renovation, and they're not exactly hot tickets over there, either. Halfway across the country, in Des Moines, Iowa, taxpayers paid $16,000 to install three of them at the public library. They've been operational for a year and a half now:

Since the charging units became fully operational in the spring of 2012, they have been plugged into electric cars only 13 times — generating a dollar of revenue with each use.

This is the sort of thing that happens when politicians decide they want to jump onto the "green&sustainable" bandwagon; they use tax dollars to fund projects that make them feel good, while most people would look at a $13 return on a $16,000 "investment" over the course of a year and a half and figure that maybe they could do better by just stuffing their cash under the mattress and going out on a can and bottle collecting run.

 

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Few electric cars pulling up to state's chargers

KaBoom

Oregon Economic and Community Development Department 

Unlike Porkland, Seattle's undergoing a resurgence in jobs; Oregon Business Report notes an unemployment rate of 5.9% there, with increases of nearly 10% in cunstruction, some 8.5% in hospitality and retail, respectively, and a solid 7.7% boost in manufacturing. Of course, Porkland's emphasis has been focused upon burnishing its "green&sustainable" cred; jobs - particularly in icky manufacturing - aren't really all that important. But hey, there's a new exhibit about bicycle design in town, so there's that.

And the state's "economic and community development" logo says it all: GO.

Ecoloons Irked

The latest "concern" of the professional advocates is the possibility that the old O&C lands in SW Oregon, having been logged, then closed by professional advocates, might be re-opened to logging again; in all probability, this would provide jobs and taxes to support the economies of those counties who've been most severely impacted by loss of the forest products industries. This, it seems, is simply unconscionable. If there's one thing they can't abide, it's the idea of money flowing into anybody's pockets (apart from their own, of course).

If you've ever visited the areas, then you know that a lot of them can do with some thinning - and even, where appropriate, some clear-cutting. Selective harvesting doesn't work all that well for Douglas Fir, as they pretty much need sun (unlike, say, cedars).

Imagine if these professional advocates had been around back in the day, before the Spanish brought smallpox to the Inca. You can darn well bet that they'd have been raising holy hell about the defiling of Mother Earth, and How Dare They, and yadda yadda...right up until the Incas had about enough of their crapola and put 'em to work as slaves on the labor crews building the terraces and pyramids and stuff.

Fact is, the Incas wouldn't have likely put up with them, and we really ought to consider putting the brakes on these folks as well. It's overdue. It'd be one thing if they didn't depend on agitating and advocating to pay their rent, but that's what they're about. And the parasitism gets old.

The Vision Within Reach

Transcription-activator-like effectors (TALEs) have been used to edit DNA sequences for some time, but have been limited in large part to sequences beginning with thymidine; latching a TALE in there is comparatively easy, and allows for activation/deactivation of the sequence, or even rewiting of the sequence. Until now, its utility has been limited due to the reliance of TALEs upon the thymidine latch structure, but a new approach allows TALEs to be modified so that they can easily bind to the other DNA bases as well, rendering genetic coding much easier while increasing reliability.

"Essentially we abolished the T requirement.

That means that the number of DNA sites we can target with TALE-based proteins, and the precision with which we can target within any given gene, have gone up dramatically," Barbas said.

While it's unclear whether or not blonde hair and piercing blue eyes will now become the new Aryan model for world domination, it's one step closer to possibility. One hopes that the main efforts will be directed toward the targeting of trisomy 21, Huntington's, and other life-limiting issues. On the other hand, we are dealing with human nature, here.