The founder of Blackwater and former Navy SEAL Erik Prince offers this startling assessment, Mr. Prince explains that the Pentagon budgets $2.1 million for every active duty soldier. Blackwater, by comparison, could put a highly trained operator on the field of action for just $400,000/yr.

Regarding Benghazi, Mr. Prince believes that had Blackwater been on the job, our American ambassador would not have been killed. Knowing what I do about Blackwater, I believe Eric Prince’s view is correct. Prince supports his position by reminding National Review readers that Blackwater ran over 100,000 runs in Iraq and Afghanistan and not a single Blackwater-assigned diplomat was ever killed.

The government’s witch-hunt of a suit against Blackwater over the Nisour Square incident has been dismissed. Erik Prince, who now lives in Abu Dhabi, sets the record straight in Civilian Warriors.

Related video:

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Lucky you. I get to speak with successful businessmen on a regular basis. Their greatest investment tends to be in their business not the stock market. It’s never too late to invest in yourself.

I speak regularly with Paul Ewing. He could easily be retired and then some, but instead he and friend David Halley, M.D., have created a business around their X10 Therapy knee rehabilitation machine.

Last week, Crain’s Detroit Business published an  article on it. If you or someone you care about wants to learn the keys to a successful knee replacement then read this article. Post-surgery, “What they’re achieving in week three they’re usually not achieving until week 12. It’s anecdotal and not controlled, but I’m encouraged,” said James Verner, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon at Beaumont Health System and associate professor of orthopedics at Oakland University. It’s never too late to invest in yourself.

Two old friends, each of whom would be justified in retiring to Florida, are trying something else instead: restoring flexibility to knees via a Franklin-based orthopedics company.

It’s not as odd as it might seem. One of the two, David Halley, M.D., age 72, is a Columbus, Ohio-based orthopedic surgeon who’s been in the business 35 years and has done 8,000 knee replacements. The other, Paul Ewing, 70, is an industrial engineer who sold the specialty cold-forming steel business he built from the ground up, Plymouth-based NSS Technologies Inc., in 2000.

In 2009, they launched Halley Orthopedic Products LLC based on their invention, a machine called the X10 (a play on the word “extend”) that is used to restore and maintain knee flexibility and strength after a total knee replacement. The machine uses pressure to flex the knee to the point where fluid in the knee is released, thereby avoiding the buildup of scar tissue that causes knees to deteriorate after surgery.

A computer screen displays biofeedback information, mainly angle and pressure readings, so patients can monitor their improvement and adjust the settings. The machine is rented for however many weeks necessary to restore the knee to an acceptable level of motion, or better, and is used in the home, saving money for patients by avoiding nursing homes and reducing physical therapy visits.

Halley and Ewing in fact did meet in Florida, but it was in 1978 when both of them had condos there, right across the hall from each other. Many years — and discussions on Ohio State University/University of Michigan football — later, the two got talking about the problems faced by people who’ve had their knees replaced. The engineer in Ewing had grown restless and soon things started moving.

“Paul had sold his business. He made a lot of money with it, and he was going nuts. There was nothing for him to do. We started talking about it and, oh my God, did he get involved. He picked up the jargon and it’s amazing how quickly he caught on,” Halley said.

To read more click here.

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Thirteen people shot and wounded in 30 minutes, cries the media. Turns out eight were shot on one street. Probably in front of Nordstrom, right? Nope! Chicago has three problems that require resolution: Rahm Emanuel, lack of Ray Kelly-like law enforcement, and lack of a “concealed carry law”. Most states allow citizens to carry handguns for self-defense. Illinois and of course Chicago do not. Read Chicago: The Poster Child for Failed Gun Control.

It’s as if they live in some alternate universe – apparently, none of the city’s politicians have ever watched the History Channel’s illuminating series, “Gangland,” which makes it abundantly clear that inner city gangs are as heavily armed as ever. These brazen street thugs (including Chicago’s) merely laugh at gun laws, even boldly showing their guns to the interviewer, right on camera!

In stark contrast to Illinois and Chicago is the remarkable success of so-called “concealed carry laws” that are now the rule in 49 states. Most states have now implemented “shall-issue” laws that allow residents to carry handguns for self-defense. And contrary to the dire predictions of the anti-gun hysterics, the experience of these states has been uniformly, and overwhelmingly, positive – permit holders turn out to be MORE law-abiding than the average citizen, not less.  It is a testament to their effectiveness that not a single state has ever repealed its carry law.

Yet time and again, whenever the citizens of Illinois, especially those in Chicago, even attempt to make it easier for the innocent residents to be able to defend themselves, the knee-jerk reaction from the political class is the same. They hysterically proclaim that letting the “good guys” carry guns will only result in “more blood in the streets” or similar irrational nonsense – seemingly ignoring the almost daily carnage that is the result of gangs who have absolutely no respect for any laws.

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This budget is a mistake as Cato’s Chris Edwards points out here:

Republican and Democratic negotiators are expected to agree to a budget deal this week setting spending levels for 2014. The Washington Post says that the deal will amount to “little more than a cease-fire.”

However, the deal being described in media reports would be much worse than a cease-fire for Republicans, at least for fiscally conservative Republicans. That’s because the Budget Control Act of 2011 and related sequester have started bearing fruit and are currently providing substantial discretionary spending control. Yet Republican leaders are apparently planning to throw it away in return for revenue increases and paltry spending trims.

In theory, Republicans have the upper hand in budget talks because current law specifies that discretionary spending will be modestly reduced in 2014 to $967 billion. Republicans always claim that they are for spending restraint, and here they just need to hold firm on current-law budget caps to save serious money over time.

However, the Post story indicates that the GOP may agree to scrap the budget cap for 2014 and spend up to $1.015 billion in return for a tiny cut to federal pensions and a revenue increase, possibly from auctioning radio spectrum.

That would be a giant cave-in because a precedent will have been set. The next decade of savings from current-law budget caps would be in jeopardy. If Republican leaders up-end the budget caps this year, they will empower big-spending Democrats, liberal Republicans, and appropriators to completely blow up the caps in later years.

A $48 billion cap overrun this year could set the stage for spending hundreds of billions of dollars more over the coming decade. That would be snatching defeat from the jaws of 2011’s modest budget victory.

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Americans are but a whisper of taking a Sebelius/Obama Medicare hosing. Did you know that doctors receive Medicare compensation based on volume not quality of care? Well the Obama/Sebelius tag team is at it again, and both Republicans and Democrats have now ganged up to insure that Obama and Sebelius will actually be able to dictate your treatment by doctors. And with the insurance plans these folk are now offering, many of you will not be able to choose your own doctor, will have to wait and wait some more, and will not find coverage for vital prescription drugs.

Obamacare was jammed down the throats of Americans with a package of unconstitutional boldface lies orchestrated by the Obama team and spoon fed to glassy eyed Americans by the unapologetic and stupefying Nancy Pelosi.  Our medical system is being wrecked based on lies and Marxist thought. When are the politicians in Washington going to wake up and call for an immediate emergency vote for the full repeal of O’Care? Americans must call for such a vote now! Scott Gottlieb has the details in The Wall Street Journal:

Imagine if a provision in ObamaCare allowed Health and Human Services SecretaryKathleen Sebelius to dictate directly to doctors which services they could and could not provide their patients—what individual tests they could conduct, which treatments they could offer, and medicines they could prescribe.

Americans would be outraged.

Yet some Republicans on Capitol Hill are about to help Democrats pass such a provision for Medicare patients. The Senate Finance Committee is set to vote on permanent “doc-fix” legislation Thursday that grants the federal government broad new authority to determine “applicable appropriate use criteria” for the full range of outpatient medical services delivered to seniors. Similar legislative language is included in bipartisan draft legislation that is being marked up Thursday in the HouseWays and Means Committee.

The bill is part of a larger effort to change the way Medicare pays doctors. Each year since 2002, Congress has passed temporary “doc-fix” legislation to cover billions of dollars of shortfalls in Medicare payments. The provisions in the bill apply to advanced radiology imaging tools like CT scans and MRIs. But language tucked into the legislation enables “the Secretary” of HHS to exert the same controls over the vast array of outpatient medical care for seniors.

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As Rolling Stones legend Mr. Richards nears 70, he remembers the minimalist sound and overdubbing that helped make “Street Fighting Man” such a huge hit for The Stones.

Keith Richards: “Street Fighting Man” is one of my favorite Rolling Stones songs—probably because the music came together through a series of accidents and experimentation. We recorded it in a totally different way than anything we had done up until that point and the results were pretty exciting and unexpected.

The music came first—before Mick [Jagger] wrote the lyrics. I had written most of the melody to “Street Fighting Man” sometime in late 1966 or early ’67—before “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”—but I couldn’t figure out how to get the sound I wanted. It’s hard to explain. If you think of a melody as a song’s shape, then the sound is its texture. The two were inseparable in my mind. I tried recording the melody in the studio in ’67 but nothing happened. So I took the concept home to my Redlands farmhouse in Sussex, England, to work on it.

Around this time, I became fascinated by one of the early cassette tape recorders made by Philips. The machine was compact, so it was portable, and it had this little stick microphone, which would allow me to capture song ideas on the fly. So I bought one, but as I watched the small tape-cartridge reels turn, I began to think of the machine not as a dictation device but as a mini recording studio. The problem is I couldn’t use an electric guitar to record on it. The sound just overwhelmed the mike and speaker. I tried an acoustic guitar instead and got this dry, crisp guitar sound on the tape—the exact sound I had been looking for on the song.

At the time, I was experimenting with open tunings on the guitar—you know, tuning the strings to form specific chords so I could bang out the broadest possible sound. That’s how I came up with “Street Fighting Man’s” opening riff—even before I bought the Philips. I based the rest of the song’s melody on the tone pattern of those odd sirens French police cars use [sings the siren and lyrics to illustrate].

Original Title: “Pay Your Dues” Stereo Edit:

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This mouth-watering, recent fact-finding trip from chef David is unique. David has always had a knack for finding off-the-beaten track winners that we all crave, but somehow can never find. Debbie and I were in San Francisco on our way to a Cato conclave last fall and wish we had this posting from David before we hit town. Bon appétit.

The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market is a true “farmer’s market”, where farmers, cheesemakers, bread bakers, and others bring their wares. It’s become quite the attraction and is extremely busy on weekends, and during the week, the restaurants are full at lunchtime with people eating grilled cheese sandwiches from Cowgirl Creamery, sandwiches on locally made charcuterie, and burgers made from sustainable, grass-fed beef. And when you’re done eating, anything left over can go right into the compost bucket.

It’s quite a sight/thrill to be surrounded by tangles of broccolini, bunches of spiky mizuna, lush bundles of dark mustard greens, kale in a rainbow of colors, and a bounty of fruits that even the most jaded Californian (and Parisian) can appreciate.

Read more here.

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