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Best Half-Hour You'll Spend All Week

HBO has launched a new commercial-free "newscast" called Last Week Tonight, and it's surprisingly informative - and often hilarious. Worth watching just for the coverage of the "Cover Oregon" disaster.

 

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NY vs. Airbnb: Fargin' War

New York's Attorney General has dragged the "sharing economy" startup into court for disrupting hotel businesses, among other things. As far as he's concerned, much of what Airbnb's doing is illegal, and things are turning ugly. While he says he's cracking down on tax evasion and illegal hotels, the company maintains that the a.g.'s "determined to fight innovation and attack regular people."

An individual tenant who leases out an apartment for a weekend might be breaking the law but is probably not the focus of the state’s action. Instead, the state is targeting hosts who have dozens of listings or use Airbnb for illicit activities.

Airbnb has been subject to some high-profile disasters such as the “XXX Freak Fest”and the trashing of an apartment, but the company claims these are aberrations among its 500,000 hosts across the world.

With over 19,500 listings for New York City as of the end of January, the company's taking a big bite out of revenue and disrupting the housing markets as well; as noted here previously, some folks are buying apartments simply to rent them out through Airbnb, which has the effect of pricing others out of the housing market. Those are one of the state's top priorities, as they effectively fall into the "illegal hotel" category while failing, in many cases, to acquire a commercial business license, pay lodging taxes, and - in some cases - fail to provide required safety features.

Then there's the hookers, who love Airbnb because it's cheaper than a hotel room and offers more anonymity.

“Hotels have doormen and cameras. They ask questions. Apartments are usually buzz-in.”

If you're thinking of renting your place out via Airbnb, you might want to consider bed-replacement insurance, as it's quite possible that your matteress and box springs will get one heck of a workout.

Stay Classy, Chicago

It's finally come to this: the Sun-Times has an interactive Weekend Shooting Tracker so that you can just click on a location to get the time, address, and other details for each shooting. And it automatically updates as additional shootings are confirmed! Between Friday night and Sunday night, the tally was an even three dozen.

"Our Flippered Friends"

That's how a whack-job who fattens his wallet shilling for animal "rights" as head of the local HSUS band describes California sea lions in an opinion piece in yesterday's Oregonian, decrying the practice of killing some of the worst offenders mangling fish at Bonneville Dam and Willamette Falls. Claiming that they eat only a few salmon, he completely ignores the fact that in most cases the sea lions take large bites out of salmon and sturgeon and then move to the next fish, leaving a trail of often mortally wounded fish in their wake.

Most Oregonians, and certainly those who come to visit our state as tourists, view sea lions as a welcome member of the wild marine environment. We enjoy watching their antics in our bays and on our piers and docks. As global awareness of the plight of marine mammals grows, we must be concerned about Oregon’s image, especially when we learn that our state wildlife managers have now, in recent days, trapped and killed nine of these amazing creatures for doing what comes naturally to them – eating fish.

While he may "enjoy watching their antics...on our piers and docks", the folks who use those piers and docks, to say nothing of those charged with maintaining them, see things entirely differently. At Astoria, for example, the animals trash electrical supplies, overload the floatation tanks, and crap all over the surface - when they're not simply charging at people. It takes more than a bit of arrogance to assert that "most Oregonians" share his view, but then, arrogance is never in short supply amongst those who make their living pushing animal "rights" at others.

Moreover, there is no "plight of marine mammals" where this particular species is concerned; their numbers are now at record - and unsustainable - highs. And this guy's not "concerned about Oregon's image"; he's concerned about his bank account. Moreover, the "strong spring salmon runs" that he describes happen to be species that are on the Endangered Species List, and these are precisely the fish targeted by the early-arriving bull sea lions. While recreational fishermen are prohibited by law from retaining these wild fish (the 9,358 fish that he cites as "caught and kept" are fin-clipped hatchery fish), the sea lions aren't at all selective. He also ignores the fact that unlike the fish they maim and mutilate, California sea lions aren't on the ESL.

But facts aren't important here; his objective is merely to entice more rubes into donating to HSUS. It's how he rolls.

 

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Serious As A D-PDMP

A new study published in the journal Circulation shows that a synthesized drug reduces, and may even eradicate, the effects of high-fat and high-cholesterol diets. And though the drug is prosperous for the heart and brain most specifically, the entire body may benefit from this development.  

“It’s the entire cardiovascular system that’s affected,” Ekaterina Pesheva, a representative for Johns Hopkins, told The Daily Beast. “The reason we’re worried about the heart and the brain is because those are the centers that end up being the most debilitating to human life when affected by fatty buildups.”

The drug, D-PDMP, actually eliminates heart attacks and other issues that arise from clogged pipes - and it's easy to acquire. One researcher likens it to the use of Drano to clear out plumbing in your home. Given that circulatory issues are now the top cause of death in humans, this is kind of a big deal. It's expected to be available for you to use in about five years.

In other big medical news, researchers have developed a method for growing human skin - complete with epidermis - in the lab. This holds great potential for testing of new drugs and skin treatments without the need for an animal testing phase.

This Isn't the '60s

"People really can't protest like that anymore," said the University of Hawaii administrator, advising two students who were handing out copies of the U.S. Constitution to get their butts over to the University's "Free Speech Zone" if they want to do stuff like that.

Not only is it not the 1960s anymore, it's not even America anymore. The Leftists have taken it over after years of infiltration.

Obamacare Cheerleaders Not So Cheery

Unite Here, the union representing many hotel and restaurant workers, ethusiastically backed Obamacare. Now that it's here, they're upset; they've suddenly realized that it's going to cost them dearly, and they're warning that their "brothers and sisters" will lose both hours and money. They project that when it fully kicks in, workers stand to lose as much as $5 per hour. That's a big hit for almost anybody, but it'll be especially painful for service industry workers.

Well, it's not as though we didn't try to warn them. They were just so busy cheering that they couldn't hear us when we said that it's not like the free Obamaphones - this isn't "free", and it's not even better (unless you happen to want a breast pump). As a matter of fact, what with all of the "grants" to the states and to Washington D.C. itself, we the taxpayers shelled out some $6 billion during the first open enrollment period. And yes, Oregon's nearly $300 million failure is spectacular, but we got shown up by D.C.:

The District of Columbia was given $134 million in grants from the federal government to build its exchange and subsequently signed up a whopping 10,630 people. That gives D.C. an acquisition cost of $12,605 per person. They spent more money to sign people up than will be spent to subsidize their health care for at least two years.

By contrast, Oregon only spent $4750 per enrollee, making us comparative pikers when it comes to throwing tax dollars around.

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And Like A Good Neighbor...

State Farm ain't there, as a Southeast Florida woman discovered after insuring her condo through the company. Her next-door neighbor died, and the death went unnoticed until bodily fluids leached through the wall and floor into her unit. She called State Farm, and they sent an adjuster out who presented her with an offer of partial reimbursement which she found unsatisfactory. She sued - and lost. She appealed, claiming that she'd been told that the corpse had "exploded", so the company should have reimbursed her under the explosion clause in her policy.

She lost again, although the judges did acknowledge that the case was unusual. However, they noted, the term "explosion" as applied in general parlance refers to gas lines or similar causes - not to rapid decomposition of human corpses.

And in other Florida news:

A soldier from New Port Richey, Florida says that squatters took over his house while he was stationed in Hawaii for two years, and when it came time to move back into his home with his wife, the squatters refused to leave.

Police considered the matter a squabble between landlord and tenants, and told him there was nothing they could do. Assistance, however, came from an unexpected source in the form of a motorcycle gang composed of veterans, who decided to pay the squatters a little visit. For some reason, the squatters packed up and left. They didn't say why.

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Incoming!

Obama's new White House Counsel will be W. Neil Eggleston. The name may not ring a bell, but he's got a lot of experience as a criminal defense attorney:

He defended Bill Clinton in the Whitewater and Monica Lewinski scandals.  He defended Rahm Emanuel...during the trial of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.

He's not a contract law specialist, as most WH Counsels are. Far from it. But Barry's going to need him, as his legal issues mount.

Last Monday, a federal appeals court ruled that Obama must release documents pertaining to his policy of killing Americans overseas suspected of terrorism without a trial.  Obama is going to need someone who can defend him against charges that he has committed crimes in carrying out these assassinations.

And of course, there's his buddy, Eric Holder - still struggling against his contempt of Congress issue - and the upcoming (and likely) contempt of Congress charge against former IRS big-shot, Lois Lerner. It looks like Eggleston's going to be awfully busy in the coming year.

What? Why, now that you mention it, no...I didn't see this on MSNBC or ABC or....

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Oregon's Gov. Retread: No Coal Exports

As elections draw nigh, Retread's finally taking a stance on Ambre Energy's proposed coal export facilities. As expected, he now claims to be firmly opposed to them, stating:

“The future for Oregon and the West Coast does not lie in 19th century energy sources.”

But 19th century transportation, like streetcars and two-car "trains" are just way cool.

Glad that's settled.

Trains carrying Powder River Basin coal have been feeding PGE's Boardman facility for years without issues; the very plant that provides much of the electricity that powers the streetcars and toy "trains" of which he's so enamored. Undoubtedly he's been under the impression that the power all comes from windmill, solar panels, and unicorn farts.

The Ambre proposal involves running trainloads of PRB coal - the cleanest coal on the planet - to the Port of Morrow, where it would be offloaded into covered barges (built locally) and pushed downriver to the Port of St. Helens, at which point the barge cargo would be offloaded into oceangoing ships. It's an ambitious project that would result in a large number of Oregon jobs, which explains why Retread's decided he doesn't like it. Most of those jobs, after all, would likely be non-union.

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