WeinerGate: Weiner's Story Is Straining Against The Seams Of Disbelief

I use to listen to the Bob and Tom Show years ago and one of their co-hosts had this mantra whenever a cheating story came up: "No pictures, no videos, don't write anything down. Deny, deny, deny."

Weiner would have done himself a favor by taking a page from that.



"Yes, I was hacked.

No, that was not my bulge.

Yes, I am in contact with authorities.

That is all I can say about this matter without compromising this investigation."

And move on.

He seems rather agitated in the clip for an innocent man.

For just a. . . Prank.

Video: Our Heros

Not to get too sappy but this did make it a little difficult to see my monitor.



Remember to thank those that served.

Breaking Video: Pretty Girls Get Things For Free

Story of the year via Insty.

One woman's story of dressing down then going glam and the contrasts between the two. She found out the day she sexed it up, guys gave her free things. Who knew?

Documentary : Sexy Girls Have It Easy from Bright Hand Pictures on Vimeo.

Expect DNC chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz to start an investigation into this right away.

Anthony Weiner: Exposed!

All it takes is one bored evening and a misplaced text and the next thing you know, you're broadcasting your junk to all the world.

But that's not Congressman Anthony Weiner's (NY- D[insert your own joke here]) excuse.

He claimed he was "hacked" when a picture of someone's bulging underwear went out under his account.

Video: Bill Whittle And The 1967 Borders

Bill Whittle expounds upon the Lecturer in Chief's reasoning (or lack thereof?) to go back to the indefensible borders that Israel had in 1967.



Thanks to David J.

Video: Rand Paul On The Patriot Act

Rhetoric: It's the Democrat's best friend.



The president didn't even sign it into law in person.

President Obama, currently on an overseas trip doing a European pub crawl, is not at the White House to sign the bill, a requirement for the measure to become law.

So the White House will use an autopen –- a machine that replicates Obama’s signature -– to sign the extension, according to White House spokesman Nick Shapiro.

I retreat to my mantra on issues where I'm of two minds. Where the bill has its good uses but yet it can be twisted ever so slightly for bad uses as well. It's time to treat it like potato salad that has been sitting in the hot sun. When in doubt, throw it out.

Two part exit question: Is the autopen even Constitutional? And what's to stop us from voting in Zombie Reagan and using the autopen then?

Video: Day Of The Zombies

Thankfully, this one was calling on the phone rather in studio. And Rush does have half his brain tied behind his back but that's just teasing the zombie at this point.



It will be a tough election if this is the mindset of many Democrat voters.

*Sigh* If? Because.

Herman Cain Leads In New Poll

Via Zogby.

Republican Primary Voters
If the Republican primary for President were held today, for whom would you vote?

Candidate	GOP Primary Voters
Herman Cain	19%
Chris Christie	16%
Mitt Romney	11%
Ron Paul	9%
Sarah Palin	6%
Michele Bachman	5%
Tim Pawlenty	4%
Mitch Daniels	4%
Newt Gingrich	3%
Rick Santorum	3%
Fred Karger	1%
Jon Huntsman Jr.	1%
Gary Johnson	<1%
None of these	6%
Not sure	12%

Totals may not add up to 100% due to rounding

The biggest shock of all is Newt is at 3%. 3%? Seriously?

It's the duty of every conservative blogger to treat Newt as the non-candidate as he is. Such as Michelle Malkin is doing.

Have you joined Team Cain yet?

It's Too Bad There Is Nothing Funny About This President

Nope. Nothing funny at all.



And if you laughed at that, you might be a RAAAAAcist!

If only there was some sort of guide, some sort of professional advice he could seek out when interacting with foreign dignitaries. A sort of. . . Protocol that takes place that he could follow and he wouldn't mess up a simple toast.

That he needed to read off of a frakking index card.

If this was anymore related, they would be kissing cousins: President Obama’s top ten insults against Britain.

1. Siding with Argentina over the Falklands

Among other things the "Obama administration has insisted on using the Argentine term 'Malvinas' to describe the Islands

2. Calling France America’s strongest ally
[. . .]
7. Throwing Churchill out of the Oval Office

8. DVDs for the Prime Minister

Just a few choice selections from our sooper smert presnit.

Video: Steven Crowder On Net Neutrality

Via Hot Air which has more background on Crowder's visit.



Sort of related in a very technospeak sort of way: Congress seeking to regulate the Ham radio band of the spectrum. If in doubt, vote it out (which is to say, I have no idea what is in this bill and too tired to study it in depth but I'm playing it safe). I've forgotten much about Ham radio other than you still need to get a permit to operate one and the signals can go a very long way.

And a two meter antenna beats out the rubber ducky antenna any day of the week.

Some Long Running TV Show Will Come To An End Tomorrow

I remember that fateful night. When Jack battled it out with the Man in Black. And how even though Jack was mortally wounded, he still saved the island and the others were able to finally leave. I will always remember where I was for that last episode of Lost.

And the hour will be seared, seared into my memory when I saw Spike Spiegel stumble down the stairs after his final fight with Vicious. . . And fall-- only to have the credits start to roll and you can't help but ask yourself, "Did Spike live or did he die?" But when you saw the bright star fading at the end, you know. You know.

Oh yeah. Oprah's last show is on Wednesday. Tom Cruise's penchant for jumping on couches hardest hit.

Video: LA Teacher Unions Playing It Fast And Loose With The Facts During Protest

Via Prof. Reynolds.

Quite a few hippies-- not the traditional type that was explored earlier-- present, selling out for 'The Man' (and by extension, themselves) and not the other way around.

Teachers frequently claim, for example, that California is in either 49th or 50th place among the 50 states in per-pupil spending. In fact, the Golden State is 31st in per-pupil spending.

Teachers also say the Golden State could solve its chronic budget shortfalls by raising tax rates on the rich. But California is already unusually dependent on taxes collected from high earners. This is why revenue collections can drop sharply during recession, while spending -- which has increased 37 percent since 2001 -- continues to grow at rates exceeding inflation and population growth.

Who Knew This About The Hippies?

I guess anti-establishmentism never went away, only cut it's hair.

If you, as a hippie, think the thesis of this essay couldn’t possibly be true, you’ve been paying too much attention to the mainstream media. The Tea Party has been intentionally misrepresented, villainized and smeared by the powers-that-be. But this too is a feature that the Tea Party shares with hippies — the hippie movement was itself misrepresented and smeared by a different mainstream media over 40 years ago.
This essay will elucidate in a fresh way how Tea Partiers are the true heirs to the hippie ethos. When you’ve finished reading, you’ll see the Tea Party in a new light and (hopefully) understand that you may have been on the wrong side of the fence until now.
In short, the Tea Party and the hippie movement share four fundamental core values:

• A craving for independence;
• A celebration of individualism;
• Joy in the freedom offered by self-sufficiency;
• And an acceptance of the natural order of things.

It's worth the read.

Video: Andrew Klavan And How Liberals Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love The War On Terror

Via Instypundit.



And speaking of Steven Colbert:

To make his case that the ruling invites "unlimited corporate money" to dominate politics, Mr. Colbert decided to set up a political action committee (PAC) of his own. So far, though, the joke's been on him.

The hilarity began last month, when Mr. Colbert began to have difficulty setting up his PAC, which is a group that can raise money to run political ads or make contributions to candidates. So he called in Trevor Potter, a former Federal Elections Commission (FEC) chairman who is now a high-powered Washington lawyer.

Mr. Potter delivered some unfunny news: Mr. Colbert couldn't set up his PAC because his show airs on Comedy Central, which is owned by Viacom, and corporations like Viacom cannot make contributions to PACs that give money to candidates. As Mr. Potter pointed out, Mr. Colbert's on-air discussions of the candidates he supports might count as an illegal "in-kind" contribution from Viacom to Mr. Colbert's PAC.

All was not lost, however. As Mr. Potter explained, the comedian might still be able to set up a "Super PAC," a group that can raise unlimited sums of money as long as it spends it only on independent ads, without donating at all to candidates. Super PACs exist because of another case that proponents of campaign-finance law despise, SpeechNow.org v. FEC.

So the newly dubbed "Colbert Super PAC" was off to the races. Mr. Colbert could finally show us how amusing it is to raise unlimited corporate dollars and spend them on political ads.

Or so it seemed. . .

Newt, We Barely Knew You

Which is to say, we knew you all too well:

“Any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood, because I have said publicly those words were inaccurate and unfortunate.”

Of course, you know benefits from Newt flaming out? Herman Cain.

Newt, pictured at right. Would you trust a man willing to agree with Nancy Pelosi?

Tabitha Hale has more about Newt:

Let’s start things off with his support for Medicare Part D. At the time, it was the biggest expansion of entitlements since the LBJ era (has since eclipsed by ObamaCare), and remains one of the largest Republican travesties in recent memory
[. . .]
he’s long been a proponent, like Obama, of forcing us to buy health insurance with an unconstitutional individual mandate.
[. . .]
Next, there was TARP, which motivated many Tea Party activists to take to the streets in the first place. The bailouts were the inspiration for Rick Santelli’s famous rant, and inspired the movement that became the political force it is today.

You really should read the entire thing.

Newt has spent the last decade eschewing pretty much any conservative principals he had in order to stay in the media spotlight. His positions on issues spins faster than a hummingbird in a hurricane. And as Bob Belvedere is found of saying, "Tt's dog track time" for Newt.

This guy said it best:

The Kennedy's Become Him

Arnold Schwarzenegger has a love child?

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, separated after she learned he had fathered a child more than a decade ago — before his first run for office — with a longtime member of their household staff.

Obviously some sort of osmosis effect from marrying the Kennedy clan.

Cythia Tucker Uses Over 600 Words When She Could Have Used Two

It would have been easier to say, "Death Panels" but that would be expecting a liberal to be honest and straightforward with an issue.

President Barack Obama started the adult conversation over debt and taxes last week — if only barely. In a forthright and feisty speech, Obama defended the traditional social safety net while also acknowledging the need to curb the growth of spending, especially on health care.

But he riled many Republicans by re-introducing an inconvenient truth: Taxes must be raised. The nation simply cannot pay its debts and sustain worthwhile federal programs without more revenue.

She conveniently lets the point slide by that Obama also increased spending exponentially.

It's funny how people who claim the mantel of 'adult conversations' were the ones who were suckered into voting for someone who ran as a cipher using obscure terms such as 'Hope' and 'Change' as a selling point.

By the way, the "adult conversation" bit is worn out. Both sides are adults. And Cynthia Tucker in a ninny.

While that’s a generally accepted bit of grade-school math in much of the political realm, it has become heresy in the GOP, which has taken up residence in a parallel universe of fairy godmothers, unicorns and Easter bunnies. In that universe, lowering taxes for the rich magically creates jobs, fills government coffers and spreads prosperity for all.

That’s bunk, of course. George H.W. Bush famously called it “voodoo economics.” Still, that notion — proved wrong as recently as the presidency of George W. Bush — has gained a certain power through frequent repetition.

Because when Pres. Bush(43) lowered tax rates, tax revenues rose. But that doesn't fit her narrative so it's ignored.

So it fell to Obama to remind Americans of the Clinton years — when taxes were higher, the budget was balanced, the deficit falling and prosperity widespread. The balanced federal budget was squandered by Obama’s predecessor, who slashed taxes, spent recklessly and presided over a period of tepid economic growth.

Obama will need to repeat the facts that link higher taxes with increased prosperity time and again. And even he didn’t go far enough; the president ought propose raising taxes on the merely affluent, not just the rich.

Again, more glossing over history. In 94, Republicans took over Congress and forced Clinton to work within a budget. It's a sad fact that they lost their way when a Republican was in the White House.

Anyway, that's another posting for later.

Moreover, Obama has only started to nibble at health care spending in Medicare, a voracious federal program. He ought to be frank with the nation’s elderly: they are draining an exorbitant amount of the national treasury, taking up resources that ought to be going to the young.

Somehow, we’ve managed to create an upside-down social safety net that maroons far too many children while swaddling the elderly in a cocoon. How can the nation “Win the Future”[WTF, heh] if we spend 2.5 times as much on its old as the young? (If you count federal spending alone, the ratio is more like 7 to 1.)

At last, she needed 6 paragraphs of justification and strawmen to get to her point.

I don’t mean to sound cavalier about the needs of the elderly, who tend to be sicker and have higher medical expenses. Obama was right to pledge to protect Medicare against the predations of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-), who wants to end it.

There's a 'But' coming. And anything that was before the 'But' is complete bullcrap.

But [See] an adult conversation — a truly adult conversation — would engage seniors and help them to understand the consequences of our current spending curve. In nations that suffer famine, we hear wrenching stories of starving parents who give the last scraps of food to their children. We’ve taken a starve-the-kids, feed-the-old approach, instead.

Sounds something eerily like. . . Rationing of care for the elderly in order to save money.

While too many children are stuck in bad schools and poor housing, while community clinics that deliver vaccinations and asthma medicine beg for money, while young adults skip college because they can’t afford it, the elderly were given a budget-busting prescription drug plan during the Bush administration. That makes little sense.

If kids are stuck in bad schools, provide vouchers. Let them have school choice rather than forcing them to attend whatever failing school that happens to be in their neighborhood.

I'm not going to defend Medicare Part D. But this is interesting. A liberal is criticizing a government entitlement? Did hell freeze over? Oh yeah, "Bush's fault!"

By the way, there is no truth to the rumor that the Obama administration is training a parrot to squawk, "Bush's Fault" to replace Jay Carney as Press Secretary.

If resources are limited (and they are), the nation needs to make choices – some more painful than others. My brother, Kevin, a Boston physician who treats kidney disease, talks about the Medicare program that pays for dialysis for anyone with failing kidneys — including the terminally ill. Started in the 1970s to help adults still in the workforce, its fastest-growing population is now over 65, he said. And it costs tens of billions a year.

“It may not be the best use of resources for the frail and infirm elderly, and it also forces many elderly patients to spend their last days in the hospital, rather than at home,” a more comfortable setting, Kevin told me.

Here she all but declares rationing and denying of care in order to save money.

I almost missed this part. "The nation needs to make choices. . ." Not the patient, the one. But the nation, the collective needs to make the choice. Not the nation itself but the decision making will be done by a governing board of directors who will look at the variables of the patient (age, sex, general health, estimated life span) and the variables of the procedure (cost of drugs, cost of time, pay of staff involved) and compare the two.

Should A < B then the operation can happen. Should A > B, well, there's this very nice room we have prepared for you to spend the last few days in.

Yet, many patients, even octogenarians who don’t expect to recover, find it difficult to turn down the treatment. “And physicians resist having a conversation with patients that recommends they forego dialysis because it’s an uncomfortable conversation to have. It’s easier just to recommend the treatment,” he said.

But those are exactly the adult conversations we ought to be having.

She wants old people to hurry up and die in order to save money. Let's face it. If a dialysis treatment is denied, death or a transplant are the only option. And if dialysis is too expensive, a kidney transplant is out of the question.

Shorter Tucker: Kill the senior citizens! It's for the children!

Shorter still: Death Panels!

At least shriveled garden gnome Robert Reich was honest when he said this:

Video: Obama Official Declares Transparancy Then Stonewalls

Transparency, the new opaque.

Feel Good Story Of The Week: Wannabe Flag Burner Chased Off By Peaceful Protest

Benjamin Haas was counting on his freedom of speech when he was planning on making his protest speech but he forgot one thing. That everyone else had freedom of speech too.

LSU graduate student Benjamin Haas had originally planned to burn an American flag Wednesday to promote his First Amendment rights and to support an LSU student arrested last week for stealing and burning a flag.

When Haas finally arrived to a chaotic scene, he was surrounded by a large crowd yelling obscenities and chanting, "U-S-A" and "Go to hell hippie, go to hell."

Water balloons and bottles were thrown at him and, before Haas could speak, horse-mounted police escorted him out for his own safety to a police car on Highland Road as the crowd followed and he was driven off.
[. . .]
Haas' plans developed after LSU student Isaac Eslava was arrested last week for cutting down and burning the American flag at the LSU War Memorial on the Parade Ground.

Eslava, a native of Colombia, allegedly burned the flag early May 2 just hours after the death of Osama bin Laden.

Got that? Haas was protesting the arrest of Isaac Eslava who vandalized and destroyed public property because Osama bin Laden was killed.

Perspective.

Video: Andrew Klaven And Bill Whittle, Together

Talking about Ayn Rand.

A little palate cleanser after the Blogger issues that happened last night.

Via Insty.

Video: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) Wants To Control Your Smart Phone

Via Ed Driscoll who is sitting in for Insty.

Many top ranking democrats want to control what you can and can't put on your smart phone. Why not, they seem to want to control everything else under the sun.

Word Policeman Passes Away

The woman behind the movement to turn 'fireman' to 'fireman and firewoman' has shuffled off this mortal coil.

The stated goal of the manual was to encourage mutual respect and equality between boys and girls, but Ms. Swift and Ms. Miller, who died in 1997, concluded that the author’s intent was being undermined by the English language.

“We suddenly realized what was keeping his message — his good message — from getting across, and it hit us like a bombshell,” Ms. Swift said in a 1994 interview for the National Council of Teachers of English. “It was the pronouns! They were overwhelmingly masculine gendered.”

Those pesky words!

The obituary closes with this:

“We just wanted to give people the background, to make them aware of what was happening right underneath their noses,” she said of the handbook. “We didn’t want to tell people, Do This or Don’t Do That!” [emphasis mine]

But that's just what she did.

The gender equalizing of words always struck me the Political Correct thing to do rather than actual equalizing of words.

The Long National Nightmare Is Over

There is a version of Van Gogh's Starry Night done with bacon.

Thanks to Hans.

Video: Time Lapse Photography Of City Landmarks

More details about how The City Limits was done here.

Timelapse - The City Limits from Dominic on Vimeo.

Very cool looking. Even if he did use mostly Canadian cities.

Thanks to Hans.

They Told Me That If I Voted Republican For President That We Would Have An Idiot For A Vice President. And They Were Right.

Sure dodged a bullet with that Palin Chick, amiright?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Hey, it’s good to be back with you all. I’ll tell you what. I want to thank General Colt for accompanying me up here. I get the honor of introducing the General.

I was back here on February 11th, to welcome home members of the 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team in Afghanistan — 155 of you got off that plane in the middle of the night, and the only thing that was more exciting than seeing you getting off is watching your families watch you all get off. So it’s an honor to be back here so soon.

Video of Biden's desire of voyeurism is found here. The clip is twelve minutes long and all that's needed was the first minute or so.

Video: Why Is It Legal To Shoot Unarmed Bin Laden In The Face, Yet We Cannot Waterboard?

Fair Question.

Especially considering the fact that waterboarding the few terrorists did pave the way to finding Bin Laden's location.



Too bad White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon couldn't provide a fair answer to it.

Sunday Night Video Dump: The Salacious Strumpets Of The "Slutwalk"

I can guarantee you that 80% of the guys who witness a 'slutwalk' won't be thinking about how this empowers women.

Robert Stacy has this and more at his site:

You’ll excuse my factual description of the event, but I haven’t seen so many dogs in one place since the AKC grand championship show.

Sunday Night Video Dump: The Uncanny Andrew Klaven And The Unfunny Issue Of Abortion

Sunday Night Video Dump: The Serious Situation Of How ObamaCare Will Really Effect The Economy

How obvious is it that a part time blogger in his PJs could see that ObamaCare was a scam that the MFM can't?

Myth 1: Health care reform will reduce the deficit.

Fact 1: Health care reform will increase the deficit.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act includes many provisions that have nothing to do with health care: the CLASS act, a student loan overhaul, and many new taxes. These provisions don't change the health care system. They just raise money to pay for the new law. Strip them away and the law’s actual health care provisions don't lower the deficit—they increase it!

Be sure to read the rest.

Sunday Night Video Dump: The Curious Case Of The Pigford Farmers

Part of the bane of being a part time blogger is that there are some stories that you happen upon after they have broken and you are catching up on the aftermath. The Pigford farmers is such a case. That link goes to Big Government which has been on the story since the beginning.

The story has been getting traction and John Stossel gave it some air time.
Andrew Breitbart and the douchbag looking lawyer duke it out towards the end. The lawyer leaves when questioned about how much he's making. Must have hit a sore spot.

Happy Mother's Day

I may have missed the point of Mother's Day with this selection.

Closing Out National Offend A Feminist Week With Tina Fey

Update: Linked in the sidebar at The Other McCain. And after a long and arduous search, I did find the demographic that does find Tina Fey hysterical.

Update II: Josh Painter at Texan's 4 Palin links as well as Mr. Belvedere over at the Camp of the Saints.

The original posting below:

The soft bigotry of low expectations. The new sexism. And what better time to do so than during National Offend A Feminist Week.

I'm sure Tina Fey is funny in person. But not the laugh out loud funny that people strive to credit her for. Should she tell a joke, it's more of a "Hmmm, that's funny" rather than the "Haha" funny. And she did make some success in the male dominated world of comedy writing. But most of that was because she is a funnyish woman. Not in spite of it. Succeeding up the ladder of success the Politically Correct way.

She's also fallen prey to what I call the "Martin Short Effect". At one time, early in his career, Martin Short was funny. As his success grew, he went from Martin Short the man to Martin Short the image. Where no matter what he did, it was supposed to be funny because he is Martin Short. Jiminy Glick is the best example of that.

But like any good liberal, nothing is ever her fault. If people don't care for her, it's because of sexism. Not because of the way she polarized 50% of the population.

The former “Saturday Night Live” performer and head writer became a household name during the 2008 election, when she returned to the show as a guest with a pitch-perfect impersonation of Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Week after week, she poked fun at the Alaska governor for everything from her family foibles to her lightweight answers to reporters’ questions. “I believe marriage is meant to be a sacred institution between two unwilling teenagers,” Fey-as-Palin deadpanned during a spoof of the vice-presidential debate
[. . .]
“No one ever said it was ‘mean’ when Chevy Chase played Gerald Ford falling down all the time. No one ever accused Dana Carvey or Darrell Hammond or Dan Aykroyd of ‘going too far’ in their political impressions. You see what I’m getting at here,” Ms. Fey writes.

She spent her tour of duty on SNL making fun of the Right to a canned, liberal audience. And those who weren't liberal were being polite in laughing with the crowd so the tires on their car wouldn't be slashed later.

Not just Sarah Palin but Republicans in general. That's not really being funny as much as it is pandering. Edgy, edgy stuff for a mainstream show.

With 30 Rock, she is in essence a newsreader who passes the broadcast off to the Sports, Weather, Traffic and whatever Special Reports are going on.

Tracy Morgan, Alec Baldwin, the blond chick, the actors who play the writers and the dude who plays Kenneth the Page are the ones who bring the funny to that show. And mostly because they pretty much play themselves.

Morgan plays someone who has a tenuous grip on reality and sanity. Baldwin plays a megalomaniac. As I said, not much of a stretch.

Anything really gut busting funny that ever came from Fey on 30 Rock, I chalk it up to coincidence.

But it's not her fault people on the right don't get her ironic jokes. You sexists.

To File Under, "If It Walks Like A Duck, , , "

This is something that always puzzled me. If I can see it. If countless others of other bloggers and members of the Tea Party can see it, why can't pundits like Charles Krauthammer and Rick Moran see what's should be as plain as day?

I guess it's an elitist thing:

Unless and until those who people the contemporary socialist movement revert to donning berets and going full-on khaki, or carrying little red books in their tiny utilitarian shirt pockets, or referring to themselves as numbers like a cadre of high-ranking SPECTRE villains, the nuanced pragmatic conservatives of the stripe who backed McCain and mocked the TEA Party at its birth wouldn’t recognize a Marxist if several of them clenched themselves into a giant worker’s fist and went totally Caligula on our dear intellectual betters.

This Is Disturbing On So Many Levels

Update: Linked by P & P in the sidebar as Today's recommended reads.

I get the playing with Legos-- because, well, Legos rock-- but the rest is. . .

Like any other baby, Stanley sleeps in a crib, wears diapers, and loves nothing better than being comforted by his mother as she bottle feeds him.

Except Stanley Thornton is 30-years-old - and his 'mother' is really his room-mate.

Mr Thornton seeks comfort in being treated like a baby, a condition known as paraphilic infantilism.

The 'adult baby' lives out his fantasies at his California apartment, where he has built himself a giant crib, play pen and even a man-sized high chair.

Wait, it gets better.

In 2000, he started website for other 'adult babies', where members can find 'mothers or 'babies', and tips on where to buy diapers.

According to his website, he used to work as a security guard, but had an accident and now claims disability benefit for a heart condition.

He first began his return to childhood when he was 14, as a way of coping when he started wetting the bed after being abused as a boy.

He was abused as a boy so to retreat, he pretends to be a baby again? I think he's past therapy at this point. On one hand, I feel a little bit sorry for him because abuse can mess someone up in the head. Obviously. But on the other. He didn't confront what happened to him, he ran and hide from it. And is still running.

Nothing Politicizes A War Like Having GutsyCall.Com Redirects You To A Campaign Site

Guess whose site Gutsycall.com points too?

Remember when Bush was being criticized for 'politicizing' 9/11? Good times, good times.

Yes, Bin Laden Is Dead

Release the kill video.

Stop dithering around.

But it's easy to see why people are so fast to assume he wasn't really killed but living with Elvis now in an Oregon retirement home.

Especially considering the comedy of errors that is being leaked out by the White House.

Okay, what do we have here:

1) There was a firefight.
2) There was no firefight.
3) Bin Laden was “resisting.”
4) Bin Laden wasn’t armed. (Makes the concept of “resisting” interesting.)
[4.a) And the newest one: the SEALS thought bin Laden was reaching for a weapon.]
5) He used his wife as a shield.
6) His wife was killed too.
7) He didn’t use his wife as a shield. She ran at a SEAL who shot her in the leg, but she’s fine.
8 ) Some other woman — the maid? — was used as a shield. By somebody. Downstairs.
9) That other woman — downstairs — was killed.
10) Maybe not. She was killed unless she wasn’t — and who was she, anyway?
11) Bin Laden’s son was killed.
12) Unless it was some other guy.
13) Bin Laden’s daughter saw him get killed. She’s undoubtedly traumatized, poor dear.
14) They were going to capture Bin Laden until the problem with the helicopter, which was:

A) It had mechanical trouble
B) It did a hard landing
C) It crashed
D) It clipped a wall with a tail rotor, effectively a crash

15.) They were never going to try to capture him; it was always a kill mission.
16.) No, it wasn’t.
17) The chopper blew up.
18) The SEALs blew it up.
19.) Panetta said yesterday the world needed proof and the photo would be released.
20.) Obama said today in an interview he taped with Steve Kroft for “60 Minutes” to be broadcast Sunday that it won’t be released. It’s too gruesome, would offend Muslim sensibilities (something he worries about a lot — I personally do not give a warm fart on a wet Wednesday about Muslim sensibilities), and how would Americans feel if Muslims released pictures of dead Americans?
21.) Kroft — who’s not a total idiot — pointed out that ever since “Black Hawk Down” days, Muslims have been doing precisely that, filming American bodies being dragged through the streets, filming Daniel Pearl’s head being cut off, filming any and everything.

Please read the entire thing. I think I snipped more than my fair share.

But this does give you something to ponder over. If something that should be straight forward as killing Bin Laden, why is there this flow of-- hell, I'll say it-- misinformation being told from the Jay Carny? Or is it more of a personality trait? That being so pathological in everyday life that even telling a simple truth becomes a chore.

"Obama Owes Thanks, And An Apology, To CIA Interrogators"

Marc Thiessen weighs in.

In normal times, the officials who uncovered the intelligence that led us to Osama bin Laden would get a medal. In the Obama administration, they have been given subpoenas.

On his second day in office, Obama shut down the CIA’s high-value interrogation program. His Justice Department then reopened criminal investigations into the conduct of CIA interrogators — inquiries that had been closed years before by career prosecutors who concluded that there were no crimes to prosecute. In a speech at the National Archives, Obama eviscerated the men and women of the CIA, accusing them of “torture” and declaring that their work “did not advance our war and counterterrorism efforts — they undermined them.”

Now, it turns out that the very CIA interrogators whose lives Obama turned upside down played a critical role in what the president rightly calls “the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda.”

It is time for a public apology.

Be sure to read the rest, because Marc gives some valuable insight to how interrogations work.

It's easy for the mind's eye to envision scenes from '24' when someone says 'waterboarding' or 'enhanced interrogations'. There's quite a bit more to it than asking in a loud voice, "Where is the bomb?"

As Marc said:

CIA interrogators would ask detainees questions to which the interrogators already know the answers — allowing them to judge whether the detainees had reached a level of compliance.

Don't ask questions you don't already know the answer too.

When the prisoner is cooperating, they are asked many of the same questions, slightly varied to make sure that the prisoner is still giving consistent answers. Even if the prisoner is willingly to give up answers, I think I'm right in guessing that there is still a small amount of 'Trust but verify' when dealing with the detainees. Little checks along the way in the process of gleaming information just to make sure that the person being interrogating doesn't have a little bit of jihad in him.

Another series of checks is to ask about something small, seemingly trivial. If that answer checks out, move on to ask about more important items. The interrogators don't start right in with the finger removing and bamboo shoots under the toenails. There is a science involved with it. It starts with breaking the will of resistance first, then eliciting cooperation.

Waterboarding was one small step along the pathway of killing Osama Bin Laden.

Pneumonia Is Fun Until Someone Gets Hurt And Loses A Lung

If Robert Stacy thinks Percocet is good stuff, try some Versed.

That really takes the edge off.



And like I said earlier. I'm off my game (I've been sucking at blogging this past week). I missed the kick-off to the National Offend a Feminist Week.

There's a lot of catching up to do.

Bob McDonnell Cuts Like A Knife Through The State Budget

The things that warm the cold, cold cockles of my heart.

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell has used a powerful executive tool to further his goal of phasing out state funding for public broadcasting.

After two efforts to get legislators to cut more funding than they would agree to, the governor moved closer to his objective Tuesday when he signed the amended 2012 budget and included one line-item veto that will result in 25 percent fewer dollars for educational programing for public radio and TV stations.

Given that the cuts make up a very small percentage of the balanced budget legislators had already approved, the governor’s veto is more symbolic of his ideology than of his budget concerns.

“In today’s free market, with hundreds of radio and television programs, government should not be subsidizing one particular group of stations,” Mr. McDonnell said.

Cutting funding for public broadcasting is one of those issues that liberals seem to carry two very different and opposing ideas in their little head at the same time. On one hand, public funding is a small percentage for NPR and PBS so it doesn't make much of a difference. But yet cutting that same funding is akin to burning the first amendment and the death knell for free speech.

Besides, it's only the state budget. Public broadcasting will still go on with help from federal funding and "Viewers like you". They can handle a few extra days of fund-raising to make up the difference.

Again, this is about funding. Which political party will the editors and producers favor in their story? The party who would budget them more money or the party threatening to cut the purse strings?

A Diller, A Dollar, A Ten O'Clock Scholar

Ace had this up yesterday but it was buried due to all the Osama Bin Laden posts. It's worth bringing up again:

There’s a growing amount of evidence that the spending multiplier is much smaller than stimulus advocates have argued. As a reminder, the multiplier effect or spending multiplier refers to the idea that a certain amount of government spending leads to a certain amount of change in the activity of the larger economy. In other words, a change in the total demand for goods and services (what economists term aggregate demand) causes a change in total output for the economy that is a multiple of the initial change. For example, if the government spends one dollar and, as a result of this spending, the economy (as expressed by the gross domestic product, or GDP) grows by $2, the spending multiplier is 2. If the economy grows by $1.50, the spending multiplier is 1.5. However, if the economy only grows by 50 cents (a loss from the original $1 spent), the spending multiplier is 0.5. And if the multiplier is negative, it means that $1 in government spending shrinks the economy.

As I understand it, the Multiplier effect is basically the craftsman fashions a walking cane out of fallen lumber in the forest. The dollar he makes out of selling those canes goes to pay the baker. The baker then pays the butcher and so on. The craftsman created value to the local economy in the form of goods (the canes).

Of course, like all things, the multiplier effect comes to an end. Taxes take away from that circulating dollar bit by bit and eventually, someone will end up saving it or using it to pay off a bill. I should note by now that I'm completely winging it here and if I'm completely off base, I'm hoping someone would say so in a comment.

Being how it was the government supplying the cash for the 'stimulus', certain economists whose name sounds like Kaul Prugman where arguing that there would be a multiplier effect of about 1.4. For ever dollar of the stimulus that was spent, it would generate $1.40 in added value. But that's completely disregarding what needs to happen in order for the government obtain the funds for the stimulus.

There are a few ways for the federal government to get their hands on the cash to do a stimulus.

Borrowing.

Sign Uncle Sam's name to a note and borrow the money from a bank or other lender. In that case, the multiplier effect would really need to outpace the interest rate in order for it to break even.

Also, in the case of borrowing money, it's a finite object. And if customer A (the federal government) borrows all that the back can loan, where does that leave customer B (small business owner looking to expand)?

Should I point out that it's an especially bad idea to borrow even more when heavily in debt? It's compounding stupidity upon stupidity.

And what would be the payment plan? How would the bank want to get back their money and interest?

Printing.

Not to go all Ayn Rand about how money is a merely a tool, an unspoken social contract between men when exchanging goods and services but it is just that. It's a tool used to measure the value of an object. When printed money is dumped straight into the cash flow of the economy of a nation, the value of the money drops while the value of the goods or services stays the same. It may look like the goods and services are going higher-- and from the relative standpoint from the dollar's viewpoint, it is-- but the buying power from the money goes down. Keep in mind that value doesn't mean the same as cost for this example.

To cart out the craftsman again. He takes time and energy to make the walking sticks to sell. And is rewarded monetarily for his effort. If walking sticks magically appeared on every street corner, it wouldn't be worth his time and effort to make anymore. And the value for the walking sticks goes down because there is a flood of them on the market. Same thing with printing money.

Taxation.

Yes, take away portions of people's paychecks in order to give it back to them. Wait, let me refine that. Take away large portions of the wealthier, producing people's paychecks in order to give a portion of that back to everyone else. Then this begs the question, if government spending supposedly has a multiplier effect of 1.4%, then what is the multiplier effect of the private consumer?

Again, most of this is from what I've been reading about how the economy works these past few years. Much of this is dramatically over simplified, I'll cop to that.

I did figured out the concept of the multiplier but never knew the name of it until a few months ago. I wish I would have tackled an economics class back in college back in the day. Mainly, I studied electronics. Anyhoo. . .

The stimulus should have been regarded a failure. It was claimed by many in the Congress and the President that it was needed to be passed right away! In order to keep the unemployment below 8%. By that measure alone, it was a miserable failure.

Please don't ask me what a 'Diller' is. I only remember it from the opening nursery rhyme. I was taking a cue from Bob Belvedere and some of the names he gives his posts. He's really quite clever about some of them.

If I Had To Sum Up The Press Coverage For This Past Week

It would be this:

Via Jeff Stahler.

It would have been for the past day but I saw it first in the Richmond Times Dispatch Sunday paper for the first time and was finally was able to track it down. Then Osama Bin Laden had to go and get himself shot and change the lede in all the news.

I've been sucking at this blogging thing for the last few weeks now, what else can I say?

Round Up Of Pictures From Last Week

Either these weren't enough for a post on their own or I couldn't make them fit in with some other posting.

Thanks to Lance at The TrogloPundit.

And this is where I do an impression of Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs:

Open Thread:

Interesting note about that comic. It was written by Batton Lash, who is doing the Obama Nation series of cartoons over at Big Hollywood.

Hayek Vs. Keynes: Round Two

In case you missed the first round, it's here.

Now Hayek and Keynes are back for another throw down.

“Fight of the Century” Lyrics.

Written by John Papola and Russ Roberts

KEYNES

Here we are… peace out! great recession
thanks to me, as you see, we’re not in a depression
Recovery, destiny if you follow my lesson
Lord Keynes, here I come, line up for the procession

HAYEK
We brought out the shovels and we’re still in a ditch…
And still digging. don’t you think that it’s time for a switch…
From that hair of the dog. Friend, the party is over.
The long run is here. It’s time to get sober!

KEYNES
Are you kidding? my cure works perfectly fine…
have a look, the great recession ended back in ’09.
I deserve credit. Things would have been worse
All the estimates prove it—I’ll quote chapter and verse

HAYEK
Econometricians, they’re ever so pious
Are they doing real science or confirming their bias?
Their “Keynesian” models are tidy and neat
But that top down approach is a fatal conceit

REFRAIN
Which way should we choose?
more bottom up or more top down
…the fight continues…
Keynes and Hayek’s second round

it’s time to weigh in…
more from the top or from the ground
…lets listen to the greats
Keynes and Hayek throwing down

KEYNES
We could have done better, had we only spent more
Too bad that only happens when there’s a World War
You can carp all you want about stats and regression
Do you deny World War II cut short the Depression?

HAYEK
Wow. One data point and you’re jumping for joy
the Last time I checked, wars only destroy
There was no multiplier, consumption just shrank
As we used scarce resources for every new tank

Pretty perverse to call that prosperity
Rationed meat, Rationed butter… a life of austerity
When that war spending ended your friends cried disaster
yet the economy thrived and grew faster

KEYNES
You too only see what you want to see
The spending on war clearly goosed GDP
Unemployment was over, almost down to zero
That’s why I’m the master, that’s why I’m the hero

HAYEK
Creating employment’s a straightforward craft
When the nation’s at war, and there’s a draft
If every worker was staffed in the army and fleet
We’d have full employment and nothing to eat

REFRAIN REPEATS

HAYEK
jobs are a means, not the ends in themselves
people work to live better, to put food on the shelves
real growth means production of what people demand
That’s entrepreneurship not your central plan

KEYNES
My solution is simple and easy to handle..
its spending that matters, why’s that such a scandal?
The money sloshes through the pipes and the sluices
revitalizing the economy’s juices

it’s just like an engine that’s stalled and gone dark
To bring it to life, we need a quick spark
Spending’s the life blood that gets the flow going
Where it goes doesn’t matter, just get spending flowing

HAYEK
You see slack in some sectors as a “general glut”
But some sectors are healthy, only some in a rut
So spending’s not free – that’s the heart of the matter
too much is wasted as cronies get fatter.

The economy’s not a car, there’s no engine to stall
no expert can fix it, there’s no “it” at all.
The economy’s us, we don’t need a mechanic
Put away the wrenches, the economy’s organic

REFRAIN REPEATS

KEYNES
so what would you do to help those unemployed?
this is the question you seem to avoid
when we’re in a mess, would you just have us wait?
Doing nothing until markets equilibrate?

HAYEK
I don’t want to do nothing, there’s plenty to do
The question I ponder is who plans for whom?
Do I plan for myself or leave it to you?
I want plans by the many, not by the few.

Let’s not repeat what created our troubles
I want real growth not a series of bubbles
Stop bailing out loser, let prices work
If we don’t try to steer them they won’t go berserk

KEYNES
Come on, Are you kidding? Don’t Wall Street’s gyrations
Challenge your world view of self-regulation?
Even you must admit that the lesson we’ve learned
Is more oversight’s needed or else we’ll get burned

HAYEK
Oversight? The government’s long been in bed
With those Wall Street execs and the firms that they’ve bled
Capitalism’s about profit and loss
you bail out the losers there’s no end to the cost

the lesson I’ve learned? It’s how little we know,
the world is complex, not some circular flow
the economy’s not a class you can master in college
to think otherwise is the pretense of knowledge

REFRAIN REPEATS

KEYNES
You get on your high horse and you’re off to the races
I look at the world on a case by case basis
When people are suffering I roll up my sleeves
And do what I can to cure our disease

The future’s uncertain, our outlooks are frail
Thats why free markets are so prone to fail
In a volatile world we need more discretion
So state intervention can counter depression

HAYEK
People aren’t chessmen you move on a board
at your whim–their dreams and desires ignored
With political incentives, discretion’s a joke
Those dials you’re twisting… just mirrors and smoke

We need stable rules and real market prices
so prosperity emerges and cuts short the crisis
give us a chance so we can discover
the most valuable ways to serve one another

FINAL REFRAIN
Which way should we choose?
more bottom up or more top down
the fight continues…
Keynes and Hayek’s second round

it’s time to weigh in…
more from the top or from the ground
…lets listen to the greats
Keynes and Hayek throwing down