FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) ‐ As Hurricane Irma bears down on Florida, an Associated Press analysis shows a steep drop in flood insurance across the state, including the areas most endangered by what could be a devastating storm surge.
In just five years, the state’s total number of federal flood insurance policies has fallen by 15 percent, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency data.
Florida’s property owners still buy far more federal flood insurance than any other state ‐ 1.7 million policies, covering about $42 billion in assets ‐ but most residents in hazard zones are badly exposed.
#5
Flood insurance is expensive in hurricane'y Florida. And just in case you didn't know, it's the FEDS that underwrite flood insurance (most - all? - private insurance companies won't even issue it because it's too risky). I've always wondered if it's priced high enough to accomplish two things: 1.) actually cover the true monetary risks when there are claims writ large (or whether, as I suspect, there are built-in subsidies from the Feds to keep premiums lowers); 2.) discourage people from living in high-risk areas. Don't know about #1, but my guess is that #2 is around the corner for some of the folks who decided to take their chances without insurance.
Is it really the federal government's (read: taxpayer's) job to backstop your decision to live in a high-risk spot, whether by the sea, by a river or in the heart of New Orleans? Like so many government programs, it actually encourages bad behavior that we all get to pay for over and over again.
#6
...oh, come, on, this is the government that shoved Obamacare down everyone's throats based upon spacious calculations. Math be hard for the government. When was the last time they balanced a budget without creative bookkeeping? Has to be back in the pre-Fed old gold standard days.
From TFA:
[TakiMag] Kirchner’s email reminds me of when a Mob enforcer would pay a “friendly visit” to a local business to intimidate it. “Nice publishing company you got here, Weber. It would be a shame if something was to, you know, ‘happen’ to it.”
Other organizations received similar emails from Kirchner, but for the sake of this piece, I want to focus on the IHR alone. The IHR has been around for talmost forty years. It’s an educational nonprofit publishing house. Do I agree with every book the IHR has published? Of course not. And so what? My own publisher, Feral House, puts out books in which authors express points of view that run contrary to my own. Good. I’m against censorship across the board, even when it comes to actual hate sites like the Daily Stormer. But anyone who actively tries to shut down a place where books are printed has no business identifying as a journalist.
Kirchner’s article (co-written with fellow “journalists” Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, and Madeleine Varner) was posted on Aug. 19. On the 21st, TransFirst/TSYS, the IHR’s credit-card processing company, sent a letter to Weber informing him that the IHR was being dropped and its merchant account closed. The reason? “The review of your website revealed that your business is excluded per our credit policy, materials promoting hate, etc.”
For the record, several years ago it was TransFirst that actively sought the IHR’s business.
So just what is ProPublica? ProPublica is the malformed child of Herb and Marion Sandler, the infamous and corrupt left-wing billionaire Democrat donors. Even liberal press outlets admit that they were among the most prominent driving forces behind the Great Recession of the late 2000s (Time magazine included them on its list of the “25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis”). The Sandlers started ProPublica with an initial welfare check of $10 million, and a promise of another $10 million annually. At the time, Slate.com speculated that ProPublica would likely serve as a mouthpiece for the Sandlers’ left-wing views.
The Sandlers are also the farbissiners who used their influence to force NBC to censor a sketch on Saturday Night Live, after they were described on the show as being “people who should be shot” (yes, the Sandlers are so vile that even the leftists at SNL hate them). Marion Sandler died in 2012, and Herbie continues to serve as ProPublica’s founding chairman. Read the rest at the link
See, they’re left-of-center, so they can get away with invoking “moral force.” If they were conservatives, they’d be attacked because, like, don’t try to force your morality on me, man!
And
Regarding what happened to the [Institute for Historical Review], what we have is a faux-journalism institute funded by left-wing billionaires deciding to engage in 21st-century book-burning by putting a publishing company out of business.
For the last few years, the American ruling class has been obsessed with Russia. The Bear Scare in DC over Trump’s alleged ties to Putin is just one ridiculous element to the obsession. At some level, even the dullards in the media know it is nonsense, but the Cloud People are convinced that the public shares their hatred of the Russians. China and Israel are much more involved in our elections, but they are not suitable bogeymen, in the minds of our betters. To them, the Russians are the scariest of scary monsters.
The Russia-Trump story is just a sideshow, of course. The neocon insistence that we start World War 3 over Ukraine is much more representative of the ruling elite’s hatred for the Russians. Steve Sailer has done yeoman’s work documenting the neocon warmonger’s efforts to stoke the fires of Russophobia. It’s not just the neocons. The Left has gone down a similar path, accusing Putin of being the new Hitler and claiming he has plans to invade Europe. The public face of the ruling elite is sure that Putin is very bad.
Of course, this enmity toward Putin has had the strange effect of endearing him to many nationalists in America, especially the younger ones. Their minds are not tainted by memories of the Cold War and the Soviet Union. Putin just looks like a strong leader, who embodies many of the qualities the alt-right types admire. Then you have old paleocons like Pat Buchanan defending Putin, mostly because of old scars from warring with the neocons in the olden thymes. This just encourages the neocons to hate Putin even more.
Continued on Page 49
[US Defense Watch] The US Navy, the mighty and heroic service that beat the tar out of America’s enemies for 240 years; the force that won brilliant victories at Midway, Manila Bay, Leyte Gulf, Lake Erie and a thousand other places is no more.
The US Navy that refused to surrender and ’had not begun to fight’ under the leadership of John Paul Jones, is now too incompetent to fight anyone; and every American should be seriously concerned.
To paraphrase Oliver Perry, "We have met the enemy and it is cultural Marxism and social engineering."
The latest debacle to engulf the Navy was reported yesterday in a myriad of media outlets, including US Defense Watch.
#1
I spent 10.5 years in U. Sam's Navy. I exited because I wanted a stable family. When my sub went into upkeep, 5% of the crew were married. The number increased to 95% after refueling and returned to 5% after first deployment. 3months in and 3m out. The surface Navy is even worse. God bless our sailors and I hope the brass get their heads out of their sanitary tank.
Posted by: CC READER ||
09/08/2017 13:27 Comments ||
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#2
no major collisions between naval air assets lately
so at least the air side may be maintaining competence
Posted by: lord garth ||
09/08/2017 15:59 Comments ||
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#3
#2 no major collisions between naval air assets lately
so at least the air side may be maintaining competence
Posted by: lord garth 2017-09-08 15:59
Sadly, that's because flying hours have been cut back because of budget and maintenance cuts.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/08/2017 18:33 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.