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UK Cities Roll Out More DIVERSITY BARRIERS; Vehicle-Ramming Threat Now The Norm

All family events must now be protected from a three-and-a-half-tonne truck travelling at 30 mph

A family summer beach event in the UK city of Nottingham now sits behind portable anti-ram steel barrier, the latest admission that open borders have turned public spaces into soft targets.

Local authorities across Britain are quietly installing more of what critics now call “diversity barriers” — heavy portable steel devices designed to stop vehicles being driven into crowds.

The annual artificial “Nottingham Beach” event opened this week behind a line of bright red Husson H-Stop units.

??? Meanwhile in the UK

Local authorities are installing more and more ‘Diversity Barriers’.

Why?

Because as regularly seen throughout Europe – Radical Islamist Terrorists like to murder innocent people by driving their vehicles into crowds of people. pic.twitter.com/hq7tRKYcbW

Higgenbotham wrote: Sat Jul 25, 2026 3:28 pm The population is getting sicker and one reason it's gotten sicker is due to Stacking in other fields. A recent example I'm aware of. A woman who worked at a high tech company notorious for Stacking had a stroke. She is somewhere in her 50s. Weighed over 200 pounds. Doctors were unable to find an obvious cause of the stroke. I would speculate the cause is stress from Stacking. It takes decades sometimes for things to catch up. She will be one of the 23 million disabled. Moving home with her parents who are in their 80s and still healthy. Four months (my best guess) after the stroke she still can't climb the stairs in her condo and will have to sell it.

Why Your Workplace Might Be Killing You
Stanford scholars identify 10 work stressors that are destroying your health.

Workplace stress — such as long hours, job insecurity and lack of work-life balance — contributes to at least 120,000 deaths each year and accounts for up to $190 billion in health care costs, according to new research by two Stanford professors and a former Stanford doctoral student now at Harvard Business School.

“If employers are serious about managing the health of their workforce and controlling their health care costs, they ought to be worried about the environments their workers are in,” says Jeffrey Pfeffer, a Stanford professor of organizational behavior. Pfeffer, with colleagues Stefanos A. Zenios of Stanford GSB and Joel Goh of Harvard Business School, conducted a meta-analysis of 228 studies, examining how 10 common workplace stressors affect a person’s health.

They found that overall, these stressors increase the nation’s health care costs by 5% to 8%. Job insecurity increased the odds of reporting poor health by 50%, while long work hours increased mortality by almost 20%. Additionally, highly demanding jobs raised the odds of a physician-diagnosed illness by 35%.

“The deaths are comparable to the fourth- and fifth-largest causes of death in the country — heart disease and accidents,” says Zenios, a professor of operations, information, and technology. “It’s more than deaths from diabetes, Alzheimer’s, or influenza.”

Higgenbotham wrote: Wed Jul 15, 2026 4:24 pm Here's an extreme example of Stacking. The word Stacking is even used in the article.

Before reading the comments, I predicted the comments would congratulate the boy for Stacking. I wasn't disappointed.

Vaibhav Bhaskar, 17, recently graduated from Steinbrenner High School with an 11.99 weighted GPA.

To achieve his 11.99 GPA, Bhaskar took 44 Advanced Placement and dual college enrollment classes.

Now, some schools are relying on the Honors Point Average system, averaging grades instead of stacking them. The change is also aimed at curbing student burnout.

https://www.aol.com/articles/high-schoo ... 57000.html

Higgenbotham wrote: Wed Jul 08, 2026 2:20 pm Prior to last week, I've never discussed Stacking specifically here, but there's hardly a week that goes by where I don't read or hear about an example.

Last weekend, I was having a conversation with a man who is a Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) in what is supposed to be a post-acute rehab facility. This type of facility is where people with brain injuries from mishaps like accidents and strokes are rehabilitated. Basically the idea is for them to come in in wheelchairs and walk out some months later.

So what he was telling me in the big picture is the client base entering this facility is getting sicker. He gave 2 reasons for that. The first is that the typical patient who is post-acute is sicker than even 2 years ago, with more chronic conditions. So someone in their 50s might come into the facility with a brain injury due to stroke, but at the same time, has severe gout, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes (an actual example he gave). The second is that insurance companies want to discharge sub-acute patients into post-acute facilities before they are ready in order to save money. They would then just sit in the post-acute facility for awhile without doing any rehab until they are ready for rehab even though the post-acute facility doesn't specialize in their care. He said a skilled nursing facility would be more appropriate for those patients. I hope I got all of that straight because I know nothing about it.

Anyway, the bottom line is that his responsibilities and risks have increased due to Stacking.

Economist warns of 'flight from work' crisis
Story by Nicole Weatherholtz • 3d
Newsmax

A record 105.8 million Americans were outside the labor force in June, as workforce participation slipped to its lowest level in nearly four years, according to The Kobeissi Letter, which cited new data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The June report showed 832,000 people left the labor force in a single month, pushing the total above levels seen during both the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. The category includes Americans age 16 and older who are neither working nor actively seeking employment, including retirees, students and others.

Labor economist Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute said the figures point to a growing problem among working-age Americans, particularly men.

"We've got a big problem … with the flight from work of prime-age men. And what's been carrying the overall prime-age labor force participation has been the strong involvement of women, not men," Eberstadt, who holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute, told the New York Post.

Federal data show about 5.3 million Americans are discouraged workers or have stopped looking for jobs altogether. Another 23.3 million receive long-term illness, disability or similar benefits, while retirees account for roughly half of all Americans outside the workforce.

Higgenbotham wrote: Thu Jun 18, 2020 7:48 pm I've run into similar problems when I've estimated projects. One time, I estimated something like 2100 hours to complete a project and the client informed our management that they agreed with my estimate and had come up with something just a little higher themselves. My management said, well, we allot 250 hours for each project and some will take a little more and some a little less. If another engineer were to agree to do the project in 250 hours and it ends up taking 3200, that engineer would be looked upon more favorably by management as being a team player and not a naysayer like me, but had just run into an unexpected snag or two that nobody could anticipate.

I'll break this out as a separate paragraph to explain how incredibly bizarre this was. A project with 4 basic boilers to characterize was allotted the same amount of time as a project with 35 complex processes that nobody had characterized before. That's how lazy and corrupt that management was.

Recent media reports claim that the strait isn’t open because the memorandum of understanding (MOU) is ambiguously worded on this issue. Iran reads it one way and the United States another. No way, says Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff. “The discussions with the Iranians were always the strait would open in the same way that it had been managed prior to the conflict,” he said last week in yet another background briefing to the press with Vance and Jared Kushner. “The Pakistanis were there when the Iranians agreed to that. The Qataris were there when the Iranians agreed to that. So we’re not dreaming those conversations up.”

The Iranian officials who have so far survived Operation Epic Fury are likely to be more certain of victory now than before, since the regime has already absorbed very serious blows. It is difficult to see how hitting them more and hitting them harder will make any difference.

The greatest chess match of all time

In today's encore selection -- the Soviet Union's masterful Boris Spassky versus America's unpredictable Bobby Fischer was the greatest chess match of all time. At the time, it was a proxy for the cold war between the U.S. and Russia -- fought without nuclear weapons. It was Ali versus Frazier, the Yankees versus the Red Sox, and the Superbowl all rolled into one. Spassky was the reigning champion and the USSR was dominant in chess:

"In May of 1972, chess champion Boris Spassky anxiously awaited his rival Bobby Fischer in Reykjavik, Iceland. The two men had been scheduled to meet for the World Championship of Chess, but Fischer had not arrived on time and the match was on hold. Fischer had problems with the size of the prize money, problems with the way the money was to be distributed, problems with the logistics of holding the match in Iceland. He might back out at any moment.

"Spassky tried to be patient. His Russian bosses felt that Fischer was hu­miliating him and told him to walk away, but Spassky wanted this match. He knew he could destroy Fischer, and nothing was going to spoil the greatest victory of his career. ...

"Fischer finally arrived in Reykjavik, but the problems, and the threat of cancellation, continued. He disliked the hall where the match was to be fought, he criticized the lighting, he complained about the noise of the cameras, he even hated the chairs in which he and Spassky were to sit. Now the Soviet Union took the initiative and threatened to withdraw their man.

"The bluff apparently worked: After all the weeks of waiting, the end­less and infuriating negotiations, Fischer agreed to play. Everyone was re­lieved, no one more than Spassky. But on the day of the official introductions, Fischer arrived very late, and on the day when the 'Match of the Century' was to begin, he was late again. This time, however, the consequences would be dire: If he showed up too late he would forfeit the first game. What was going on? Was he playing some sort of mind game? Or was Bobby Fischer perhaps afraid of Boris Spassky? It seemed to the as­sembled grand masters, and to Spassky, that this young kid from Brooklyn had a terrible case of the jitters. At 5:09 Fischer showed up, exactly one minute before the match was to be canceled.

"The first game of a chess tournament is critical, since it sets the tone for the months to come. It is often a slow and quiet struggle, with the two play­ers preparing themselves for the war and trying to read each other's strate­gies. This game was different. Fischer made a terrible move early on, perhaps the worst of his career, and when Spassky had him on the ropes, he seemed to give up. Yet Spassky knew that Fischer never gave up. Even when facing checkmate, he fought to the bitter end, wearing the opponent down. This time, though, he seemed resigned. Then suddenly he broke out a bold move that put the room in a buzz. The move shocked Spassky, but he recovered and managed to win the game. But no one could figure out what Fischer was up to. Had he lost deliberately? Or was he rattled? Unset­tled? Even, as some thought, insane?

"After his defeat in the first game, Fischer complained all the more loudly about the room, the cameras, and everything else. He also failed to show up on time for the second game. This time the organizers had had enough: He was given a forfeit. Now he was down two games to none, a position from which no one had ever come back to win a chess champi­onship. Fischer was clearly unhinged. Yet in the third game, as all those who witnessed it remember, he had a ferocious look in his eye, a look that clearly bothered Spassky. And despite the hole he had dug for himself, he seemed supremely confident. He did make what appeared to be another blunder, as he had in the first game -- but his cocky air made Spassky smell a trap. Yet despite the Russian's suspicions, he could not figure out the trap, and before he knew it Fischer had checkmated him. In fact Fischer's un­orthodox tactics had completely unnerved his opponent. At the end of the game, Fischer leaped up and rushed out, yelling to his confederates as he smashed a fist into his palm, 'I'm crushing him with brute force!'

"In the next games Fischer pulled moves that no one had seen from him before, moves that were not his style. Now Spassky started to make blunders. After losing the sixth game, he started to cry.

Report: Fraud, Waste Plague California’s $220 Billion Medi-Cal Program
Angelina Delfin
July 24, 2026

California’s Medi-Cal crisis has left taxpayers paying for fraud, waste, and abuse.

The Pacific Research Institute released a study this week breaking down how taxpayers are paying for “a program that has grown beyond the state’s ability to effectively manage it.”

The findings come as the Trump administration announced on July 21 that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is pausing over $860 million in funding to California after federal officials discovered in-home supportive services claims that significantly exceeded national trends.

Sally Pipes, the institute’s president, told the Daily Signal that rooting out fraud should be lawmakers’ top priority.

“If lawmakers could make only one thing happen this year, it should be eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse from Medi-Cal, which now covers 15 million Californians at a cost of $220 billion. The entire state budget for fiscal 2026-27 is $351.7 billion,” she said.

The report, titled “Too Big, Too Broken: Restoring Integrity to Medi-Cal,” states that the program has expanded far beyond its original mission.

Medicaid was created in 1965 as a safety-net program for low-income Americans, seniors, and people with disabilities.

Over the decades, eligibility expanded, including to pregnant women in the 1980s, and to able-bodied adults under the Affordable Care Act. California has since gone further, extending state-funded Medi-Cal coverage to low-income immigrants regardless of immigration status.

Higgenbotham wrote: Fri Jul 24, 2026 7:46 pm In 2006, the US was at Great Depression era levels of corruption. Now the US is at civilization ending levels of corruption.

Higgenbotham wrote: Sat Jun 06, 2026 3:32 pm A few days ago I overheard a conversation between 2 women where one said, "Joe is going to get his 100% soon" and the other one replied that some relative of hers was going to "get his 100% soon" also. Then the first went on to say that once Joe gets his 100% they will no longer have to pay property tax. That seemed a little farfetched to me until I read this:

Do veterans that are 100% disabled pay property taxes?

AI Overview

In many states across the U.S., veterans who are rated 100% permanently and totally disabled by the VA are completely exempt from paying property taxes on their primary residence. Because it is a state-level policy, the exact eligibility rules, surviving spouse benefits, and application requirements vary.

The Exemption: In Texas, veterans with a 100% disability rating (or a determination of individual unemployability) from the VA are completely exempt from paying property taxes on their residence homestead.

Primary Residence Only: This exemption can only be applied to a single residence homestead that the veteran owns.

Surviving Spouses: The exemption can transfer to an unremarried surviving spouse if they continue to live in the home.

Disabilities are now where the money is at in the United States.

Cradle to grave and beyond for the surviving spouse.

Joe has a severe case of gout which has nothing to do with his military service. He was bowling at his wife's Christmas party. Quite well in fact.

Have another beer.

INGERSOLL: We Badly Need To Address The 100% Disabled Veteran Bullsh*tters

100% DISABLED VETERAN BULLSHITTERS

A few things are true: VA disability is rife with bullshitters. There’s almost nothing that can be done about it. Not necessarily for the reason you think either. At the same time, reform for the process is absolutely necessary or the VA will bankrupt itself.

Veterans' Benefits now a record 27% of DoD spend (and ~8% of total US Federal receipts), rising far faster than both DoD spend & Federal receipts.

The issue has become more pronounced in recent years because of center-right personal finance podcaster Caleb Hammer.

He has dozens, probably hundreds of clips at this point.

He once talked to two veterans, one who apparently never left the states, and one who flew into an Arab base, worked, and flew out. They were both at 100% and receiving around $10,000 a month. He had one guy who was a cook receiving $4,000 a month for hearing loss. The guy wanted $8,000 and was working toward that goal, Hammer later said. Another guy studied cyber security as a civilian and seems to have spent most of his time on base. He said he had disability to the tune of $4k a month.

That’s all … eye popping. I deployed three times and spent significant time outside the wire. I’m not even close to that. I’m sure I have friends who did 4x what I did who are not even close to that.

Along with Hammer, you now have allegedly rape-tastic Graham Platner. He has a 100% rating. He was infantry. He might deserve it, who knows, I haven’t really looked into his case (not sure I legally even can, given privacy laws).

Not exactly the poster child you want for VA disability.

—

The general consensus is VA disability will not get cut because it’s a third rail. Nobody wants to cut benefits for veterans.

That’s an issue, but it’s not the real issue.

The real issue is that unfucking the ratings of 19 million veterans is a massive clusterfuck. It’s an administrative and bureaucratic nightmare. I’m not a mathematician or a risk analyst, but you don’t need to be one to know that over/under on the cost of doing that versus just paying out the benefits is an easy hedge to make.

You just pay out what you’ve already promised and avoid the cost of rerating everyone plus dealing with the wave of legal challenges.

But you don’t move on that easily.

The rubberstamp that worked for actually damaged veterans caught in the forever waiting loop is now getting abused. There are dozens of companies out there offering services to veterans and guaranteeing 100% rating. The yearly cost is over $200 billion and skyrocketing. That’s insane. It’s unsustainable.

As usual, a system devised for people who genuinely deserve help is getting abused by a vast swath of liars, cheats and fraudsters.

The VA needs to close the door. Now. It’s shameful. We need to return to doing it the hard way and actually rating veterans fairly and comprehensively.

Otherwise, the whole system will implode. It’ll take some of my closest friends with it.

Higgenbotham wrote: Sun Feb 01, 2026 6:18 pm Manipulation and fraud are the biggest businesses in America today, and waddling up to the window for a bailout is the most in-demand job skill in America today.