Beers with Demo

Economic illiteracy re-visited

2012-01-27T06:07:00.000-08:00

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Andrew Napolitano and his panel on "Freedom Watch" take on the Davos Dodos of the ski party, one in the same that we did here, and yet another round of Keynesian gimmickry to keep people who are underwater in their homes still further forestalling a true housing recovery.

"It's kind of grotesque that the government is coming in and abrogating privity of contract."

And even more grotesque when you can say it with an indignant British accent.

If compelling banks to write down home loans sounds familiar, it should, as we have been down this road before back at the beginning of the Obama administation in January of 2009.

With the help of Martin Scorcese, no less, here is what we wrote about it at the time which illustrated not only the non-sensicalness of it but more importantly, the moral hazards inherent to the cozy private-public relationships in Bailout Nation:

From the Wall St. Journal:

A Senate bill aimed at giving strapped homeowners more leverage in renegotiating their mortgages cleared a hurdle Thursday when Citigroup Inc. dropped its opposition.

The legislation, which is being advanced by top Senate Democrats, would let judges set new repayment terms for mortgage holders in bankruptcy court. Lawmakers say the measure is aimed at jump-starting broader efforts to renegotiate millions of underwater mortgages now weighing down the housing market.

To better help illustrate what you just read, we call in Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorcese and his outstanding movie Good Fellas. In this scene, a restaurant owner needs some financial help and needs some protection from the cops, other wise guys, people who don’t pay their bills, etc., so he goes to the local crime boss and talks him into going in as partners. Great. The restaurant owner is now partnering up with the local muscle. Good times, right? What could possibly go wrong?

In this clip, Citigroup is the restaurant owner and “Paulie” is the Federal Government.

Wow. That didn’t end too well, now did it?

Maybe now, you are beginning to get an idea of why this bailout business was such a bad idea from the get-go. We’re not Wall St. experts but perhaps the reason why Citigroup dropped its opposition to this legislation is because “Paulie” is into them for $45 billion.

Until recently, Citigroup had fiercely opposed proposals to give bankruptcy judges latitude to change the terms of mortgages. Its about-face comes after the federal government has pumped $45 billion into the company since last fall. The government is now keeping the company on a tight leash.

Just. like. that.

Let that last line linger for a moment. Taste it again. Let it roll over your palate like vinegar.

Citigroup danced with the devil and lost. They never had a chance. Now that they are the Feds’ lap dog and a newly-minted GSE, any hopes they had of exercising any independent decision-making pretty much just blew right out the window.

And that money that the lenders will be losing with the “restructured” loans will have to made up from somewhere, right? But, where? The first logical place would be to charge higher interest rates for new home loans… but if those higher interest rates are not competitive then Citigroup cannot offer their money for these loans which could then ultimately lead to… if you were going to complete this sentence with “bankruptcy”, you haven’t been paying attention… even more of your tax dollars going to pay for other people’s home loans.

The lynchpin of free enterprise and capitalism: the contract – a contract between two independent entities spelling out the terms for an exchange of goods, services, money and which is bound by law is about to become a thing of the past.
In its place, a capricious set of variables set forth by some who are on the take from the very people they are overseeing and and who are dispensing this power in an arbitrary fashion as they see fit. (ed. note: remember what the British chap said about grotesquness)

We hope we are being guilty of hyperbole, but of all the ridiculous non-sense we have seen and heard with respect to Bailout Nation, this was the first instance that sent shivers down our spine. We welcome cheerful thoughts and comments.

3 years on and nothing has been learned. 3 years on and it's all still business as usual.

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Your (California) high-speed choo-choo update

2012-01-26T11:42:00.000-08:00

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We had to cut short a post of a couple of days ago regarding California's high-speed rail system and the absurdity of the "alternate" use of the same for fear of sending our readers into a irreversible state of depression.

Having had a couple of days of rest and recovery, let's tread forward together in a slow and orderly fashion and pick up where we left off at the same linked article from the L.A. Times.

Certainly, Jerry Brown is under pressure from Big Labor, Big Green and Big Construction to begin building this monstrosity but what is the form of the pressure he is receiving from Washington D.C. and their partial funding of the project? In response to changing construction plans so that the high-speed rail system could be built first in urban areas* where it might actually be used instead of the Cental Valley:

At a recent hearing by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in Washington, key California legislators asked if the construction plan could be changed. But Joseph Szabo, the Obama administration's chief of the Federal Railroad Administration, said California has no flexibility to rethink the project.

"The ability to shift dollars is not there," he said.

Kind of like interior design decisions that cannot be changed when you made the decision to let the in-laws help out just a little too much with the down payment on the home. That skin in the game that was so welcome at the time has now become a mill stone.

Tax-dodging billionaire, Warren Buffet has been in the news of late for the windfall he stands to gain from shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline project as oil from the North Dakota fields (now the nation's fourth biggest oil producer and climbing) will have to be shipped southward on old slow freight trains. Burlington-Northern trains. Burlington-Northern trains that happen to be owned by Berkshire-Hathaway, Buffet's firm.

Now, back to California:

Roelof van Ark** , the project's chief executive, insists the bullet-train corridor will not become a white elephant.

He has conceded, however, that re-routing Amtrak would be relatively expensive for the benefit.

The federal government has set aside $108 million to link the high-speed segment to the track used by Amtrak, which it shares with freight hauler Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. High-speed rail officials say that's enough for the job.

But a number of rail experts said that more money will be needed to integrate the two systems, and it's unclear how the financially struggling Amtrak system would pay any difference.

(as if you needed the italics)

We almost feel sorry for Jerry Brown. We thought his pragmatist-centrist I'm just too old to give a damn campaign approach was brilliant and would strike a tone with indies and moderates. But here we are: he has allowed himself to be painted into a corner by a progessive coalition of labor unions, greenies, big city mayors and a corrupt adminstration pursuing a two-pronged attack of their unsustainable green agenda and a crony capitalism that is staggering in both its size and sheer audacity to build the greatest boondoggle known to mankind and which will ultimately define his political legacy.

* Also a dubious plan as San Francisco and L.A. both have light rail systems making high-speed choo-choos in those same areas completely redundant.

** Our German scientists are better than their German scientists. Sorry, it was just too easy.

Steyn smack

2012-01-26T08:32:00.000-08:00

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Well, to be more precise, Steyn's readers' smack.

Here's Mark Steyn opining on the general slouch assumed by the West in the years intervening the Titanic and the Costa Concordia:

Sixty years later, the men on the Titanic — liars and thieves, wealthy and powerful, poor and obscure — found themselves called upon to "finish in style," and did so. They had barely an hour to kiss their wives goodbye, watch them clamber into the lifeboats, and sail off without them. They, too, 'ope'd it wouldn't 'appen to them, but, when it did, the social norm of "women and children first" held up under pressure and across all classes.

Today there is no social norm, so it's every man for himself — operative word "man," although not many of the chaps on the Titanic would recognize those on the Costa Concordia as "men." From a grandmother on the latter:

"I was standing by the lifeboats and men, big men, were banging into me and knocking the girls."

Whenever I write about these subjects, I receive a lot of mail from men along the lines of this correspondent:

"The feminists wanted a gender-neutral society. Now they've got it. So what are you complaining about?"

(italics, ours)

Like water seeking it's own level, we get the civilization that we pursue.

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Let's have some fun...

2012-01-25T16:48:00.000-08:00

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by taking a quiz?

Yeah, yeah... but first the set-up: Last week KT linked to an excellent piece by Charles Murray on the changing face of and the increasing isolation of America's elite class.

That article got us to thinking: If we are going to bang on the elites in this country we darn well better make sure we aren't ones ourselves as much as miserable little populist poseurs.

So, take the quiz here to see if you really are a snob or can safely continue railing against snobs as living life outside "the bubble" and firmly entrenched in Main Street.

How did you do?

We're safe.

How Thick Is Your Bubble?

Guest

Score » 15 out of 20 (75% )
Result

On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 13 and 16.

In other words, you don't even have a bubble.

Quiz School

Take this quiz & get your score

How Thick Is Your Bubble? » Quiz Maker

As beer-geeky as we are, we'll cop to having some Coors in the fridge from time to time as that's what were feeling after yardwork or while BBQing in August. And we have several very good friends that are smokers and who also happen to be some of the finest human beings we know.

Here are some questions that we think would fit right in as well:

- In the past year or so, have you shopped at a big box retailer or a Sears-like department store? (how that one was not a question is beyond us)

- In the past year or so have you attended either a college or high school sporting event?

- Do you own a pair of work boots... that you actually work in from time to time?

- Do you have a work bench in your garage?

- Do you own at least 4 power tools?

- Do you fly an American flag outside your house?

Quick story: Every Saturday, the Jehovah's witnesses flood our neighborhood going door to door but luckily, we thought, they never stop at ours. After doing a little research, we found out that Jehovah's Witnesses aren't too big on the patriotic thing nor are they down with military service. Yes, we fly the flag (JH repellent! - they probably figure we're lost causes) and just to make this airtight, we will be flying the Marine Corps flag from now on as well.

- Do you change your own oil?

- Do you put up Christmas lights?

- Have you scratched out personal checks or given cash in $25 amounts or less to two charitable organizations in the past year.

- Have you gone bowling in the past year?

- Have you or a good friend ever been a member of 4H or Future Farmers of America?

- Have you hosted or attended a cook-out that was pretty much just burgers and dogs and... seven layer bean dip?!

OK. That's good for now. Seriously, let us know how you did - we're all friends here and please chime in with some of your own Main Street questions in the comments.

Meanwhile, on the shores of picturesque Lake Davos...

2012-01-25T09:48:00.000-08:00

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This from the annual confab of global redistributionists and social justice types (think U.N. glee squad on Winter break):

Economic and political elites meeting this week at the Swiss resort of Davos will be asked to urgently find ways to reform a capitalist system that has been described as "outdated and crumbling."
"We have a general morality gap, we are over-leveraged, we have neglected to invest in the future, we have undermined social coherence, and we are in danger of completely losing the confidence of future generations," said Klaus Schwab, host and founder of the annual World Economic Forum.

"Solving problems in the context of outdated and crumbling models will only dig us deeper into the hole.

"We are in an era of profound change that urgently requires new ways of thinking instead of more business-as-usual," the 73-year-old said, adding that "capitalism in its current form, has no place in the world around us."

Without us seeming impolite or untoward, allow us to make some slight course and speed corrections to the terminology employed by the gracious host Mr. Schwab: We think what he really meant was that there is no longer a place in the world for the heavily bureaucratized, centralized and cronyist social democracy model that is saddled with unsustainable entitlement obligations which is outdated, crumbling and morally corrupt.

However hopeful we may be and contrary to the evidence before them, why do we get the sneaking suspicion that whenever these well-meaning chin-strokers all get together, simply "business as usual" is all that is on the menu?

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Your (California) high-speed choo-choo update

2012-01-24T20:20:00.000-08:00

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It's almost getting too easy but when you make a committment to cover perhaps the greatest public works boondoggle in history, you soldier on oblivious to the repetitive drumbeat of redundant bad news. Ah, but this is a little different because not only is the primary usage of California's high-speed rail system an all-time bad idea, the alternate plan for the system is an atrociously criminal waste of tax-payer dollars as well. Yes, folks, it's a two-fer.

When the Obama administration gave California $3.4 billion in startup money for a high-speed rail system, it insisted on a guarantee that the project would not become a white elephant -- something critics could brand as a train to nowhere.

The first section of track had to run down the spine of the Central Valley and have another use, should the rest of the bullet train project collapse.

Those requirements are now at the center of an intensifying political battle, waged by critics who say the state's fallback plan to use a 130-mile stretch of track for slower Amtrak service is a sham because there's no guarantee the national rail service will ever use it.

Amtrak said it has no agreement to operate on the track and has not analyzed the possible negative effects on one of its most successful rail lines. Still, the California High Speed Rail Authority has estimated 45 minutes could be shaved off Amtrak's current service between Bakersfield and Merced.

Wait, what?

There is already an existing Amtrak line?

Why, yes there is...

(please click to enlarge in case you can't make out that blue line running through the middle of the state)

So, when the train to nowhere doesn't get up and rolling, using Amtrak choo-choos on the high-speed rail line... when they have existing tracks was the alternative plan? That was the big idea?

And what of this 45 minute time saved? We're not rail engineers
but what of these high-speed rail tracks? Are they magic tracks?

And dig this:

Officials note that the state has invested millions of dollars to improve the San Joaquin Valley line and build ridership (ed. note: read: subsidies) , which now ranks among Amtrak's five most traveled routes.

One would not be mistaken if one felt that this alternate plan was not too well thought out.

If you think we are being a tad too critical, you are probably correct. After all, how much flexibility towards alternatives and other uses can you have when you go all $120 billion in on 19th-century technology. We totally get it.

There's much, much more to this article upon which we want to comment but we think we are all at our digestible limit for the time being.

He can't wait!

2012-01-24T11:43:00.000-08:00

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When the President gives his ~~campaign~~ State of the Union speech this evening, he will, no doubt, make a plea for an end to the divisive, grid-locked and do-nothing behavior of Congress. We say amen to that as today marks the 1000th day since the Democratic-controlled Senate passed a budget* while sitting on between 20-30 jobs-related bills that have passed the House.

So, have at it, Mr. President and let'er rip!

H/T: Hot Air

* Then again, perhaps not having a budget put together and passed by poor ol' Harry Reid and his gang of big spenders really is cause for celebration.

When being pro-choice really isn't about choice (UPDATED)

2012-01-24T05:25:00.000-08:00

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(please scroll down for update)

(This article was originally posted on Saturday. It has been re-posted as we felt it important enough not be relegated to the relative unread back pages of the slower-trafficked weekends.)

But first this, from Cardinal-Designate, Timothy Dolan:

“Never before has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience. This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights.”

This is in reference to the Obama administration's (via the Department of Health and Human Services) gracious decision to allow Catholic organizations that provide health care until August of 2013 to start covering contraceptives.

How exactly is mandating more coverage going to bend the cost curve downward? But more importantly, what about freedom of choice and your individual right of religious and moral conscience?

Here's B-Daddy on the matter:

Even beyond religious conscience, this limits everyone's choice. What if I want a plan that costs a lot less? Cutting back on mandated services like contraception that have no co-pay could reduce the cost of insurance. Why isn't that a consumer choice? The assault on freedom from the health care law is so vast, that it sometimes helps to just think about one assault at a time.

Those who argue otherwise just hate me as an individual and hate the whole concept of consumer choice. They are called leftists or statists and they have decided to regulate everyone lives, individual choice and conscience be damned.

B-Daddy's exactly right. Those who support ObamaCare but were the ones back in the 80s and 90s running around in their "Keep your laws off my body" t-shirts are bald-faced, lying-ass hypocrites.

ObamaCare isn't about bending the cost curve downward. ObamaCare isn't about providing better health care for more Americans. Everything you've heard about this excrable law from its supportes is bunk. ObamaCare is about control- nothing more and nothing less. It's about them getting you to sing their tune and dance their jig by legislative and regulatory fiat whether you like it or not.

It simply gives lie to the whole notion of being "pro-choice". What a sick, sick joke.

(UPDATE #1): KT was kind enough to link to us and we will return the favor as he also provided some trenchant commentary on the subject at hand:

Like I said above, there's no financial reason for it. There's no access reason for it, either. It's not like contraception isn't available down to the point where you can buy it in vending machines in the bathrooms at bars. It's not that there's insufficient education about the topic - they no longer read Charles Dickens, but our kids know all about condoms and the pill.

So what is it?

We don't want to give it away so go to the link to find out but suffice to say the statist-Left's fascination with it we find both troubling and dangerous. It was as if the 20th century never happened.

Project Gunrunner/Operation Fast and Furious update

2012-01-23T17:30:00.000-08:00

This went down on Friday but a busy schedule has kept us from blogging about it until now. Our bad.

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It's his constitutional right but clamming up is certainly not going to make this thing go away any quicker.

The chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona is refusing to testify before Congress regarding Operation Fast and Furious, the federal gun-running scandal that sent U.S. weapons to Mexico.

Patrick J. Cunningham informed the House Oversight Committee late Thursday through his attorney that he will use the Fifth Amendment protection.

Cunningham was ordered Wednesday to appear before Chairman Darrell Issa and the House Oversight Committee regarding his role in the operation that sent more than 2,000 guns to the Sinaloa Cartel. Guns from the failed operation were found at the murder scene of Border Agent Brian Terry.

The letter from Cunningham’s Washington DC attorney stunned congressional staff. Last week, Cunningham, the second highest ranking U.S. Attorney in Arizona, was scheduled to appear before Issa‘s committee voluntarily. Then, he declined and Issa issued a subpoena.

Cunningham is represented by Tobin Romero of Williams and Connolly who is a specialist in white collar crime. In the letter, he suggests witnesses from the Department of Justice in Washington, who have spoken in support of Attorney General Eric Holder, are wrong or lying.

“Department of Justice officials have reported to the Committee that my client relayed inaccurate information to the Department upon which it relied in preparing its initial response to Congress. If, as you claim, Department officials have blamed my client, they have blamed him unfairly,” the letter to Issa says.

Romero claims Cunningham did nothing wrong and acted in good faith, but the Department of Justice in Washington is making him the fall guy, claiming he failed to accurately provide the Oversight Committee with information on the execution of Fast and Furious.

(italics, ours)

Dude.

This represents the first real break-away in what had previously been a unified government front defending the feds' actions in their wildly successful multi-agency gun-running operation.

Look for an immunity deal in exchange for testimony to be coming much, much sooner than later.

And in related news, the state of Arizona wants some answers of its own:

Arizona's state legislature will open its own investigation into the Obama administration's disgraced gun-running program, known as "Fast and Furious," the speaker of the state House said Friday.

Speaker Andy Tobin created the committee, and charged it with looking at whether the program broke any state laws — raising the possibility of state penalties against those responsible for the operation.

It's a turnaround from the rest of the immigration issue, where the federal government has sued to block the state's own set of laws.

Turnaround? We're not politically naive, but isn't it also just prudent governance to want to know the whys and hows of a deadly gun-running operation of and by the federal government within your state lines?

Quickies

2012-01-23T06:05:00.000-08:00

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A round-up of news items, articles, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week or so.

George Will on the importance of the Supreme Court's decision on ObamaCare:

The Obamacare issues of Medicaid coercion and the individual mandate are twins. They confront the court with the same challenge, that of enunciating judicially enforceable limiting principles. If there is no outer limit on Congress’s power to regulate behavior in the name of regulating interstate commerce, then the Framers’ design of a limited federal government is nullified. And if there is no outer limit on the capacity of this government to coerce the states, then federalism, which is integral to the Framers’ design, becomes evanescent.

So, the time the court has allotted for oral argument about Obamacare is proportional to the stakes. This case is the most important in the more than half a century since the Brown v. Board of Education cases because, like those, it concerns the nature of the American regime.

Evanescent. Ahem. vanishing; fading away; fleeting.

Will's right, however, as if the Supremes uphold the mandate, the precedent will have been set that there is effectively nothing Congress cannot compel you to do. Crazy notion but we don't think that's what the Founders had in mind for the federal government.

Sarah over at Lipstick Underground is no fan of Newt Gingrich but appears to dislike his wife even more:

The REAL ick factor in all this is wife #3, Callista Bisek Gingrich, mistress during marriage #2 and potential First Lady of the United States. Just let that sink in for a minute.

I hold women to a higher standard then men. I’m hardly a prude, and stuff happens in marriages that is just between spouses. But the simple truth is, we are the gate keepers to societal standards around here...and I’m not interested in having to call some home wrecking hussy “First Lady.” She’s no lady and I don’t want her in my White House.

We... had not considered that angle before.

Sir Charles at Doo Doo Economics attended the 28th annual San Diego County Economic Roundtable and provides his round-up here ending with this observation:

All the economists and speakers shared one common sentiment. The 2012 election year will decide if small or big government will rule our futures. My take on the situation is that a smaller government role is warranted. Keynesian economics has run its course. Small tweaks to capitalism work but socialist cronyism is not a small tweak. Making poverty and dependence comfortable and allowing the state to pick winners and losers is not wise in any civilization. Only the passion of self interested individuals who believe in their own ideas and benefit from taking risks can create a vibrant economy. No amount of marketing "green" or other state solutions will impassion true believers, investors and customers like an individual with an innovative idea.

Look no further than Europe to see how that statist/entitlement model is working. Yet, the ruling party at the federal level and in many states including our home state of California seem quite content to be just that... content to follow the status quo when the status quo will lead to certain ruin.

So, just how did that "open marriage" request/demand that was to end Newt's candidacy work out?

Gingrich trailed Romney by double digits just days ago. But that changed quickly after Gingrich's performance in Thursday's night CNN Southern Republican debate. The former House speaker was able to turn his biggest liability -- accusations by his second wife, Marianne, that he wanted an "open marriage" -- into an asset, drawing two standing ovations for assailing the media for bringing up the allegations.

If there was going to be a primary out there where allegations of marital infidelity were going to register with the state's social conservative-leaning Republican voters, it would've been South Carolina and yet Newt wins going away. So, what is it?: Newt's skillful debate performance in criticizing the (northeastern) media or a collective electoral shrug of the shoulders seemingly saying, "It's Newt, of course he's going to want to get a little freaky." Next.

Oh, by the way, Newt carried the majority of married women.

Totally related (via Instapundit):

MORE STILL: A female reader writes that Gingrich may not have been so hurt by ex-wife Marianne’s TV interview:

Hate to say this and don’t use my name, but I watched the interview and thought

“You bitch, he cheated on his first wife with you. What the heck did you expect?”

Kinda parallels what Sarah was saying above, don't it?

How's that Arab Spring working out over in Egypt?

Terrific: Egypt Islamists win 70 percent

Islamists won a combined 70 percent of parliamentary seats in the first election after Egypt’s revolution, according to official results Saturday that cemented the victory of rival religious parties belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood and the more fundamentalist Salafists.

More fundamentalist? Again, terrific.

Don't think we're going out on a limb by saying life won't be getting much better for this particular set of protesters.

KT links to a fine piece by Charles Murray on the changing face and increasing isolationism of the elites in our country:

And the isolation is only going to get worse. Increasingly, the people who run the country were born into that world. Unlike the typical member of the elite in 1960, they have never known anything but the new upper-class culture. We are now seeing more and more third-generation members of the elite. Not even their grandparents have been able to give them a window into life in the rest of America.

It's long but worthwhile and caused us to recall Angelo Codevilla's epic manifesto from the summer of 2010 "America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution"

A sampling:

Today's ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters -- speaking the "in" language -- serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector. Some, e.g., Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, never held a non-government job. Hence whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America's ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government.

And dig this from Russell K. Nieli:

Participation in such Red State activities as high school ROTC, 4-H clubs, or the Future Farmers of America was found to reduce very substantially a student's chances of gaining admission to the competitive private colleges in the NSCE database on an all-other-things-considered basis. The admissions disadvantage was greatest for those in leadership positions in these activities or those winning honors and awards. "Being an officer or winning awards" for such career-oriented activities as junior ROTC, 4-H, or Future Farmers of America, say Espenshade and Radford, "has a significantly negative association with admission outcomes at highly selective institutions." Excelling in these activities "is associated with 60 or 65 percent lower odds of admission."

Exit question: Sorry for going all pitchfork-wielding populist but how have all those Ivy League degrees littered about Wall Street and Washington D.C. been working out for this country, lately?

OK, gang. That's it for now. It's a new week so let's get to it.

If it's Sunday, probably a good time for a Tim Tebow post

2012-01-22T17:26:00.000-08:00

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Tim Tebow, Tebowing, Tim Tebow Tebowing, Tim Tebow, Tebowing, Tim Tebowing the Pittsburgh Steelers, Tim Tebow, Tebowing, Tim not-Tebowing the New England Patriots, Tim Tebow, Tebowing, Tim Tebowing and driving all the right people absolutely bonkers, Tim Tebow, Tebowing, Tim Tebowing and John Elway and John Fox have got quite a predicament on their hands, Tim Tebow, Tebowing, Tim Tebowing, Tim Tebow, Tebowing, Tim Tebow continuing to Tebowing.

* For those of you who have stumbled across this site because of a word search or a Google image search, welcome to Beers with Demo! We're huge sports fans but do not blog too much about it concentrating instead, and perhaps, unfortunately, on politics and culture here in America, California and our hometown of San Diego from a conservative/libertarian perspective.

If that sounds like your thing, please feel free to stop by again real soon. Thanks!

** Yes, absolutely shameless self-promotion.

Championship Sunday open thread

2012-01-22T05:51:00.000-08:00

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Strangest doggone thing we've seen this year: A high-powered offense that is centered around not just a tight end but two of them - both second year guys, Rob Gronkowski out of Arizona and Aaron Hernandez of Florida. They combined for 24 TDs, 170 receptions and 2,200 yards receiving. Ridiculous, huh?

Having said that, we like the Ravens getting 7-1/2 against the Pats at home in Foxboro. Call it a hunch but there have basically been 4 teams that have dominated the AFC for the past decade or so (Pats, Steelers, Colts and Ravens) and we just feel that possibly it's the Ravens turn to get back to the Super Bowl for the first time in 11 years.

In the late game, we think the Niners magic carpet ride finally comes to an end. Take the Giants getting 2-1/2 on the road in San Francisco. No one is playing better on both sides of the ball right now so look for the G-men to return to the Super Bowl after a four year absence.

Niner QB, Alex Smith, really came into his own this year under first year coach Jim Harbaugh. It was gratifying to see as we saw Smith play in high school alongside Reggie Bush at Helix High down the road from us here in San Diego.

Income inequality by the numbers

2012-01-21T07:30:00.000-08:00

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Via Rich Lowry:

1.1 : the millions of dollars new White House Chief of Staff, Jacob Lew, made from Citigroup in one year, recently.

8.7 : the millions of dollars former Chief of Staff, William Daley, made in roughly one-year of work for JPMorgan Chase.

5.1 : the millions of dollars former administration economic advisor, Larry Summers made for managing a hedge fund.

16.1 : the millions of dollars Rahm Emanuel made from working for an investment firm.

2-3 : the millions of dollars former budget director Peter Orszag will pull down from Citigroup.

7 : the millions of dollars current national security advisor, Tom Donilon, made for his work at Fannie Mae back in 2000-2003.

Perhaps this class warfare exercised of late by the President is rather of the self-loathing variety.

However, good to know some people are prospering in this sluggish economy. Maybe it really is, who you know.

Lowry's exit question:

Is it too much to ask that one high-profile Obama official leave government and refuse to make more than $70,000 a year out of solidarity with the middle class and commitment to income equality? Of course it is. Just as the definition of a recession is when someone else loses a job, greed is when someone else makes a lot of money. For anyone hoping to get to the top, the collective message of current and former Obama officials should be clear: Do as they do, not as they say.

* Stephanie Cutter: adviser to the Obama reelection campaign who wrote a critique the other day regarding Mitt Romney’s days at Bain Capital, subtitled “Profit at Any Cost" and who herself served as a spokeswoman for J.C. Flowers... a private equity firm.

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Radio KBwD is on the air

2012-01-20T16:59:00.000-08:00

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While growing up, we first became aware of this guy while he was firmly entrenched in his 70s disco Do Ya Think I'm Sexy phase. Shame.

Later on, when we heard the band of which he was previously a member, they very much seemed to us to be a rock band's rock band: A tight, professional outfit with great live energy.

Ladies and Gentlemen, from England and appearing on the BBC in 1971, it's Rod the Mod, Ronnie Wood and the rest of The Faces performing, "(I know) I'm Losing You".

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So, what was all that about, again?

2012-01-20T11:26:00.000-08:00

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In the news today:

Americans are holding onto cars and trucks longer, pushing the average age of a vehicle to a record 10.8 years.

The Polk research firm said Tuesday that the average age of a car last July was 11.1 years, while the truck average was 10.4.

Unemployment and the sour economy have caused people to put off buying cars and trucks.

And $3 billion poured down the drain of Keynesian gimmickry ain't gonna change any of that.

Helpful lessons in news item coverage

2012-01-20T06:22:00.000-08:00

In what is being considered another black eye for the tea party movement and amid stinging criticism from the media, a smoke bomb was thrown over the White House fence during a tea party rally outside the White House on Wednesday. The tea party has been blamed for a coarsening of political discourse in the 3 years since they rose to national prominence and this most recent incident will certainly bolster the notion of increasing extremism arising from within the right.

Eh, actually, we just made that up. Not too shabby, though, huh?

Here's what did happen:

As hundreds of Occupy protesters massed outside the gates of the White House, an apparent smoke bomb was thrown over the fence Tuesday night, forcing authorities to disperse the crowds. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama were not in the White House when it happened — he was taking her out for a night on the town to celebrate her 48th birthday.

There were no arrests in the incident, said George Ogilvie, U.S. Secret Service spokesman.

Nothing to see here, folks. Please move along.

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MAXED OUT: Brewery Tour!

2012-01-19T16:24:00.000-08:00

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Well, well, well. Looky who's back? Max with his first installment of MAXED OUT for 2012...

Well, HEELLLOOOOO there my faithful friends of the froth, how have you all been? I've been great, thanks for asking, and I'm back for more debauchery in this new and fantastic year. This is my first time writing in 2012 for Beers with Demo and I am pleased to bring you a wrap on what was one of the better beer tours that we've taken, which was just this past Saturday.

As some of you know and some have even attended, every six months or so I put together a tour of breweries that starts and ends at my bar, Hoffer's in lovely downtown La Mesa. In the past we have checked out such places as Green Flash, Alesmith, Stone, Ballast Point, and Port/Lost Abbey, which we added to the list again this time around. We also checked out Ironfist and a brand new nano-brewery called Aztec, both of which reside in.... errr... lovely? Vista, California.

So we loaded a 50 person stretch-limo bus complete with two stripper poles and a bathroom (BOOM!) with 45 drunkards and set off at noon this past Saturday. First stop: Ironfist. So, Ironfist has a pretty cool story behind it. When they first opened, some 2 almost 3 years ago, their head brewer was a ripe young 20 years old. Since it is illegal to brew at such an age his older brother took the credit for the beer for the first year that they were open. Kinda funny. Ironfist specializes in Belgian style beers with a West Coast angle. More than the angle, it's the accessibility that makes Ironfist a pretty damn good brewery. By accessibility, I really mean that they aren't crazy, over the top recipes like The Bruery in Orange County and Lost Abbey, who both take a pretty batty take on Belgian style brews. If you haven't had the opportunity to try any Ironfist delights, may I recommend the Velvet Glove Imperial Oatmeal Stout, Spice of Life Belgian Pale, or the Hired H nd Saison.

Somehow we got all 45 people back on the bus and headed to Aztec Brewery. One of the people on the bus, my friend Matt Wilson, is classmates with one of the owners and recommended we try them out. Thanks, Matty, great suggestion. While they are a young brewery that only self-distributes, I was shocked at the size of their brewery (pretty darn big.) Not only were the beers and size a pleasant surprise but they also had a Jamaican dude slingin' Jamaican food in front. They had a few really nice bourbon and tequila (ya, tequila) aged beers that were very interesting and not overly aggressive. But the highlight for myself, and several other people that I talked to, was their Chipotle IPA. Very interesting and like the barrel aged beers, was refreshingly unaggressive. Great job Aztec, keep up the good work. Oh, and if you want to try the Chipotle IPA, Hoffer's will be getting a couple kegs of it by next week. You're welcome in advance.

Our last stop on this here brew tour was the ever reliable Port/Lost Abbey located in... errr... lovely? San Marcos, California. My main man Andy surprised us all and had a tour lined up and waiting for us when we stepped off of the bus. THANKS ANDY!!! So we took a quick 20 minute tour of their facilities, complete with a brief history of the place and a concise yet educational description of how they make their beers, and split time making it between Port and Lost Abbey. Even I learned a thing or 2. I know, and you thought that I knew it all. Port/Lost Abbey is my personal favorite brewery I've ever been to, and if you haven't checked it out, I implore you. As for beers to check out if you get the chance? ALL OF THEM!!!

All in all, I had a great time and I think that most of the other people on the tour did as well. Stay tuned for the date of the next tour, which I'm thinking will be some time in mid-July. If you want a spot let me know in advance and I'll save a seat for ya.

Oh, and since I've already told you all my top 10 favorite beers of all time, a new addition to this new year will be a little segment I call THE BEST BEER I EVER HAD THIS LAST WEEK!!! So...

THE BEST BEER I EVER HAD THIS LAST WEEK: Chipotle IPA from Aztec.

Until next time my beer loving brethren, have a beer for me.

(ed. note: Familial obligations prevented us from attending what was this favorably received brewery tour.... We are not into Belgians but we are way into Iron Fist, if that is any indication regarding the quality of their beers.... If we can make a pairing recommendation: grab some sushi to go along with Spice of Life.... And Max wasn't lying about the brother combo. Our first exposure to Iron Fist was about 2-1/2 years ago and big brother Adrian was indeed passing himself off as the head brewer.... Reason #28 as to why San Diego is the craft beer capitol of the world: cheap real estate in which to set up shop in these charming little industrial parks in places like Vista and San Marcos)

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What you are seeing right now is not happening (UPDATED)

2012-01-19T08:53:00.000-08:00

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(Please scroll down for update)

Apparently, we can wait.

From the National Journal:

In a decision that quickly re-ignited a fierce energy debate, the Obama administration on Wednesday rejected the controversial Keystone XL pipeline because the 60-day deadline imposed by Republicans did not allow adequate time to review an alternate route through an ecologically sensitive area in Nebraska.

Deputy Secretary of State William Burns made the announcement on President Obama's behalf on the project that would carry oil from Canada's carbon-heavy tar sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast. TransCanada, the company seeking to build the $7 billion, 1,700-mile pipeline, will be able to reapply with a new route avoiding an ecologically sensitive area of Nebraska, sources told National Journal.

For those of you scoring at home, our ruling class is perfectly willing to sink $120 billion of tax-payer dollars that we do not have into a transportation system that is slower than the existing transportation system (commuter flights) yet is unwilling to allow a privately funded infrastructure project that will transport a proven energy resource from a friendly neighbor versus paying ass-a-holic regimes like the Saudis or Venezuela for the same thing.

And ecologically sensitive?

Next they'll tell us that State Route 2, US 20 and the cities of Alliance, Valentine and Thedford simply don't exist.

Experiencing the extremes of weather conditions both in the summer and winter (all seasons, as a matter of fact), we find the excuse of "ecologically sensitive" in an area smack dab in the middle of a large continental land mass which has already been trod upon by human existence to be somewhat dubious.

(UPDATE #1): Here's what passes for sound economics for the President:

President Obama said that he will delay his vacation and keep Congress in session until the passage of his desired payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits extension -- two proposals that Obama said would create more jobs than the Keystone XL pipeline that his administration recently delayed.

"I would not ask anyone to do something I'm not willing to do myself," Obama said when asked if he would go on vacation while keeping Congress in Washington D.C. "We are going to stay here as long as it takes [to get unemployment extended and pass the payroll tax cut]."

As Obama called for passage of those bills, he also responded to a recent Republican push to require him to approve the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. "However many jobs might be generated by a Keystone pipeline," he said, "they're going to be a lot fewer than the jobs that are created by extending the payroll tax cut and extending unemployment insurance."

(italics, ours)

The food stamp President and who he has surrounded himself actually believe an indicator of economic success/recovery is how effectively they are able to issue unemployment benefits. This is by no means a gaffe or a one-off as we have run across numerous examples of back-slapping by the administration regarding the job creation and multiplier effect of food stamps and unemployment bennies.

Is it any small wonder then, why it is this recovery has been so sluggish and long in the making?

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Wait, what?

2012-01-18T16:06:00.000-08:00

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One in a series where we take a look at the unexpected and certainly the absurd.

Maybe it's a sign of the times but lately we've been seeing straight news items that qualify for "Nothing better epitomizes.." status and yet we still feel compelled to share another.

Nothing better epitomizes the current state of culture and politics in our country than the following:

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli says he is worried that a new District of Columbia law that governs how pest control operators must handle rats may result in entire rodent “families” being relocated across the Potomac River into Virginia by D.C. pest control personnel.

Lately, there have been reports of growing rat infestations around the Occupy DC protests at Freedom Plaza and McPherson Square.

Cuccinelli said D.C.'s new rat law--the Wildlife Protection Act of 2010 --is “crazier than fiction” because it requires that rats and other vermin not be killed but captured, preferably in families; no glue or snap traps can be utilized; the rodents must be relocated from where they are captured; and some of these animals may need to be transferred to a “wildlife rehabilitator” as part of their relocation process.

Wait, what?

The Wildlife Protection Act of 2010 doesn't allow you to kill rats. Got it.

Awesome: The disease-carrying vermin that have Occupied Occupy, and we're referring only to the rats here, have been afforded some sort of endangered species-like protection.

Good luck with that, Virginia.

Link of the day

2012-01-18T06:21:00.000-08:00

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This helpful graph below, assists KT in explaining that while the ECB (European Central Bank) cannot print money to buy government bonds, it doesn't necessarily mean the ECB can't print money to buy government bonds.

It's all pretty simple...

A central bank acting as lender of last resort is the clearest possible signal that the country is fiscally doomed. In the case of Italy, a fiscal collapse would wreak untold havoc on the European banks who hold hundreds of billions of Euros of increasingly worthless government debt. Run by clever people, the ECB found a (temporary) way around the problem. They printed gobs of Euros and loaned them to banks at 1%. After that, it was up to the banks to do something with the cash...

See..? Who says the world's financial ills cannot be solved by going that extra mile and throwing in some multi-color charts for clarity's sake.

Read more at the link and see where Italian men have most likely gone from sipping espresso in sidewalk cafes...

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... to doing shots of Fernet-Branca.

#OWS update

2012-01-17T16:38:00.000-08:00

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Nothing demonstrates the intellectual incoherency of Occupy more vividly than these port shutdowns, some of which have already been effected and calls for future ones, a shutdown of the Longview marine terminal in the Puget Sound, being the most high-profile.

Never mind the vast majority of the jobs that will be effected by these port shut downs are the very good-paying union jobs Occupy claims to be championing, precisely how is interrupting commerce going to reverse the income inequality gap Occupy rails against? In fact, if anything, it will exacerbate the situation: those 1 percenters have deeper pantries than the rest of us - they can much better ride out the interruption of goods than can the rest of us.

But let's call these protests what they really are: acts of theft. By not allowing goods to freely flow back and forth between markets, Occupy is effectively engaging in the theft of goods and services. Expect no consequences for these thieves, however. Whether it's playing footsie with the ruling class/media establishment of this country or being aided and abetted by big city mayors (New York City has dropped hundreds of arrest charges against the Occupiers there), their lawlessness has actually been encouraged.

And in other news today, that glittering jewel of colossal ignorance is trying to put some distance between her party and Occupy:

This morning, Politico Chief White House Correspondent Mike Allen interviewed House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for Politico's "Playbook Breakfast."

The discussion turned to the topic of Occupy DC and their attempt to disrupt Congress. Pressed on whether she was worried about this and what she thought the message of Occupy was Pelosi distanced herself from the movement stating 'We don't really have much of a connection with the Occupy' and declaring the tea party' as 'wholly owned subsidary of the Republican Party'

She was, of course, singing a different tune this past fall when Occupy first came upon the scene:

During a press conference Thursday afternoon, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi praised those participating in the "Occupy Wall Street" protests. "God bless them," Pelosi said, "for their spontaneity. It's independent ... it's young, it's spontaneous, and it's focused. And it's going to be effective."

"The message of the protesters is a message for the establishment everyplace," said the House Democrats' leader. "No longer will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street."

Pelosi did not comment on--and was not asked about--the law-breaking that occurred during the protest over the weekend. About 700 protesters were arrested by New York City police after the protesters "swarmed the Brooklyn Bridge and shut down a lane of traffic for several hours," according to CBS News.

Own it, Nancy. There may be no official connection but Obama's Whining Squatters are the foot soldiers and are singing the same income inequality tune as their boss that is cover for his efforts to further his statist redistributionist agenda. It's so transparent, there is nothing to try to hide.

H/T: Hot Air

Another great moment in the very brief history of the "new civility"

2012-01-17T06:30:00.000-08:00

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Simultaneously raising the level of discourse, while turning its cover story over to Trig (Palin) Truther, Andrew Sullivan, in a byline which also appears in The Daily Beast... what could possibly go wrong?

Looking on the upside, it did not appear that Sullivan resorted to the race card in critiquing any of the entirely valid and sound reasons for taking exception to the mryiad of the President's policies, so that's a start.

As far as we could tell, this outsmarting the President's adversaries is a combination of bizarro world logic where porkulus and the bailouts are all deemed successes, some odd notion of a "long game" where the President will build upon these alleged successes and, of course, lowering the bar on expectations because it was all really Bush's fault that put him in this near-insurmountable hole.

“Given the enormity of what he inherited, and given what he explicitly promised, it remains simply a fact that Obama has delivered in a way that the unhinged right and purist left have yet to understand or absorb,” Sullivan wrote. “Their short-term outbursts have missed Obama’s long game — and why his reelection remains, in my view, as essential for this country’s future as his original election in 2008.”

We're running short on time this morning but we want to touch on something briefly that has largely been ignored, particularly by the President's supporters and that is this: Process was supposed to matter (this time).

We were under the impression that it was no longer going to be business as usual yet Washingto D.C., under the Obama brand is just as corrupt, cynical and detached as ever. K Street is stuffed more than ever with lobbyists and its a virtual revolving door between his top economic advisory positions and Wall Street. And the cherry on top was his #1 legislative achievement, ObamaCare where terms like Gator Aid, the Louisiana Purchase and the Cornhusker Kickback will live in infamy for a ground-breaking entitlement program that was greased through Congress in a bigger and thicker cloud of back room smoke than we can ever recall.

All the while, folks like Sullivan want to whistle past that graveyard proving that HopenChange had a shelf life not extending much past January 20, 2009 and an extremely selective memory, at that.

When commenting turns into posting

2012-01-16T21:18:00.000-08:00

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Last week, our blog buddy Harrison wondered why some companies were deemed worthy of a bailout, like Chrysler and General Motors, and why others like Kodak were not.

With specific respect to the domestic auto bailout, we left the following comment (somewhat edited):

The bailout and take-over of GM and Chrysler made zero free-market sense.

Fear-mongering by the Regime led people to believe that both auto makers would simply close up shop if not for government intervention which was simply not true.

An orderly court-supervised bankruptcy would have allowed GM and Chrysler to continue to operate while they got their respective houses in order. It wasn’t like people were not going to buy their cars while they were in bankruptcy. GM and Chrysler could've continued to produce cars while receiving a measure of protection from their creditors. That’s how bankruptcies work (How many people realize that the L.A. Times filed for bankruptcy a couple of years back? Last we checked, their product is still on the news stand every day).

The Regime made a cynical political decision to ride in to “rescue” GM and Chrysler to further their statist agenda, shore up union support and push not-market-ready green technology. How has that all been working out?

As you and we, Harrison, have both been reporting out on, we’ll be lucky if the final tab to the American tax-payers is merely in the tens of billions of dollars.

Claiming the bailout and take-overs of GM and Chrysler as some sort of success story is patently absurd.

Your (California) high-speed choo-choo update

2012-01-16T13:20:00.000-08:00

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In the middle of an article comparing Spain's high speed rail system and California's in today's San Diego Union-Tribune was the following paragraph:

It's in dispute whether the rail line even brings in enough money to pay for its operating costs -- as California has promised to do. Still, Spain plans further spending, although the economic downturn and the addition of some unsuccessful lines may slow that down.

Why is it in dispute? Would the question of a private enterprise like Exxon-Mobil or Barnes and Noble being able to cover their operating costs ever be in dispute?

And that's part of the problem with massive public works projects like California's proposed high-speed choo-choos. Whether or not the system will be able to generate the ridership to cover operating costs will always be in dispute as long as the actual operating costs are masked by layers and layers of tax-payer subsidies as will most likely be the case here.

And here's Walter Russell Mead chiming in on high-speed choo-choos:

California’s bullet train is going off the rails, and the overseers are running for cover. The WSJ reports that Roelof van Ark, the chief executive, and Thomas Umberg, the chairman of the High Speed Rail Authority, announced they will step down from their posts as the odds against the project grow longer.

The highly indebted, cash strapped state has commitments of $3.3 billion of federal money in hand against the roughly $100 billion that the train is now estimated to cost (the price will certainly go even higher). Voters authorized almost $10 billion in bonds in a referendum, but that was when the train looked much cheaper and more federal funding was available. Since then the cost estimates more than doubled to $99 billion, ridership estimates have been slashed indicating that the completed system will require unending subsidies, and Congress has stopped voting new funds for high speed rail.

To make matters even worse, the federal funds that are available can only be used for a “spur” out into the Central Valley, rather than the main line from Los Angeles to San Francisco. The “spur” is the least needed, least wanted and least useful part of the system and will never generate significant traffic. There are, in other words, federal funds to help with the part of the system that nobody really wants, and the heavily indebted state must find at least $70 billion to fund the rest.

(Please click to enlarge. Note that cost estimates you hear for the system do not even include the cost of extending the rail past Orange County and down to San Diego.)

Yet against every sober assessment of the high-speed rail system, Governor Jerry Brown has damned the torpedoes and is full-steam ahead towards political suicide and the fiscal ruination of California in order to stay in the good graces of a progressive coalition consisting of the Obama administration, construction labor unions, environmentalists and big city mayors.

We don't want to build a privately-funded pipeline that will bring a proven energy source from a friendly country and which will create thousands of construction jobs but we have a ruling class that is more than willing to sink upwards of $120 billion of tax-payer money on a train to nowhere.

Video clip of the day

2012-01-16T07:43:00.000-08:00

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Morbidly obese 1 percenter Michael Moore tries to explain his way out of his capitalist success and into the "fair share" model in this interview with the Daily Caller's Nicholas Ballasy.

Invoking certain South American or European countries as the preferred socio-economic model probably is not going to gain a whole lot of traction over here at the moment. Just sayin'.

Quickies

2012-01-15T16:38:00.000-08:00

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A round-up of news items, articles, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.

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Is Team O tone-deaf or do they just not care?

President Barack Obama's re-election campaign is considering moving the final day of the Democratic National Convention to Bank of America Stadium to sell more skyboxes to wealthy donors, three Democrats involved in the fundraising told Bloomberg News.

The 74,000-seat home of the Carolina Panthers also would have room for the convention to sell more floor passes close to the stage. Planners are struggling to meet a $36.6 million fundraising goal, according to the Democrats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the matter.

Hey, Occupy, that is your guy, right?

Progressive and very much selective totalitarianism neatly summed up in a smoking ordinance in, where else, Marin County.

Marin's war on smoking was blunted Tuesday as a measure cracking down on tobacco and other "weed" was sent back for revision to make clear the crackdown does not include marijuana.

Although supervisors were in agreement with the policy when county staff last month asserted an ordinance outlawing smoking in unincorporated-area apartments included marijuana and other herbs as well as tobacco, the county board Tuesday abruptly called for revisions making clear tobacco was the only weed at issue.

The move came at the urging of Supervisor Kate Sears, who called for changes in ordinance language defining smoking as puffing "tobacco, weed, spices, herbal or other plant life" to make clear only tobacco products were involved.

Distraction of the week:

A lot has been said over the last two days about the White House’s now-infamous “Alice in Wonderland” Halloween party from 2009. It was an extravagant affair featuring actor Johnny Depp and filmmaker Tim Burton in costume. Conservatives have panned the president for having such a party during economic turmoil, and generally keeping it hush-hush. Liberals (and even some conservatives) have defended the president, either saying the party was mentioned to some degree, or that the president‘s Halloween plans shouldn’t be national news.

Anything, anything to avert eyes from the train wreck.

Business leaders and CEOs Un-Occupy a White House jobs conference presser:

Dozens of journalists packed into the East Room at the White House today for the president's remarks on "in-sourcing," at least 60 of them lining the press risers and walls.

But what many couldn't see in press coverage of the event — held with roughly 120 executives to discuss bringing jobs back to America from overseas — were the dozens of empty seats in the audience.

At one point during Obama's speech, Vice President Joe Biden strolled to the empty section and sat in a row by himself, listening.

A White House spokeswoman, asked about the 49 empty chairs, said some invitees didn't show up.

"Like with many of these events here at the White House, we invited representatives from outside groups, businesses and community leaders involved in this issue to attend, and unfortunately some folks invited were not able to attend at the last minute," spokeswoman Amy Brundage said.

West Wing events typically are carefully planned and staged, and this one seemed more staged for the media than the guests who ostensibly were invited to discuss with the president ways to create more jobs in the United States.

The job creators of this country aren't stupid... nor are they stooges. Who wants to be played as a stage craft prop for an administration that has demonstrated they really don't give a damn what you have to say about job creation?

And you were just waiting for us to get around to the Marines piss on dead Taliban weren't you?

You've seen the video so we are not even going to post it.

Here's B-Daddy on the incident and resulting kerkuffle:

Now I understand that it is not in the political interests of the United States for our Marines to act in this fashion. To some extent, as Clausewitz famously pointed out, war is politics carried out by other means. To the extent that this allows our enemies to frame the conflict as a religious one, these actions are detrimental to the interests of the United States. But we should leave it at that, and reserve our moral outrage for true acts of oppression.

Here's Iraqi war veteran Allen West (R-FL):

"I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah. All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

"The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

We have the most highly-trained, effective and professional fighting force on the planet. We expect better from our soldiers, sailors and Marines. Having said that, putting rifles into the hands of 20-year olds, sending them off to a foreign land and asking them to take out an enemy that they cannot tell from the rest of the civilian population that they are there to protect is going to produce some entirely inevitable results.

No greater gulf exists between the sentiments of the political class and the country class than is demonstrated by incidents like this.

Stay off his ass and pray for his safe return instead.

And they prayed to their secular gods but those gods did not answer...

Via KT on the global progressive crack-up:

Above all, our citizens were betrayed by the sense of security that had been cultivated for decades -- that they need not worry, that when the time came, the state would come to the rescue. Even as we discovered repeatedly that this was an illusion -- that the state was either incompetent or cruel or indifferent -- we maintained the hope that some kind god would protect us. Now we fear everything: that neither our health system, nor our pensions, nor our deposits are safe. The old social contract does not apply. On the issue of pensions alone, we see that those who paid dutifully all their lives are those who are suffering the greatest losses.

It's official: San Diego is recognized as a beer-cation destination. Checking in at No. 14 on The New York Times' top 45 vacation destinations.

Even in times of tight budgets, finely crafted beer remains a relatively approachable luxury, and few American regions have more brewing momentum than San Diego County. Maybe it’s time, then, to think about building a beer safari in the land of sunshine, fish tacos and hopped-up American IPAs. Long established craft breweries like Karl Strauss Brewing Company and the cheeky Stone Brewing Company have mentored brewmasters and created demand for some seriously offbeat ales.

The area has long been a hotbed of garage-based hobbyists, so it’s no surprise that the region also has a tradition of dedicated home brewing. The result is a cluster of small breweries, like the tiny but soon-to-expand Hess Brewing.

And there are numerous opportunities for rigorous but never dour beer tastings, at staggeringly comprehensive shops like Bottlecraft Beer Shop & Tasting Room and Pizza Port Bottle Shop, as well as beer-obsessed taverns like Hamilton’s and O’Brien’s and restaurants like Local Habit. Those looking for full immersion can pack a stein for the fourth annual San Diego Beer Week in November.

We give America's paper of record endless yet much deserved grief but was that not an excellent summation of our scene here in San Diego?

OK, gang. That's a wrap. We'll be back sometime tomorrow to chronicle and help make sense of the days of our lives here in the United States of America.

Pax.

NFL Division Playoff Sunday open thread

2012-01-15T08:10:00.000-08:00

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We like the dogs again...

Take Houston getting the 7-1/2 on the road at the Baltimore Ravens.

And in the night cap, take who has been the sexy pick for the outright upset, the New York Giants and the 7-1/2 against the home favorites, Green Bay Packers.

Next post: Quickies

Still more great moments in the brief, brief history of the "new civility"

2012-01-14T16:44:00.000-08:00

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No set-up necessary. Here's the clip from Jon Stewart's show:

She has to be in on it, right? She has to!

To think that someone this supposedly educated could be so insularly clueless and so utterly un-self aware is a prospect we are having a tough time getting our brain wrapped around.

Just more evidence that "civility" is nothing more than a big fat "STFU" from the political class.

NFL Division Playoff Saturday Open Thread: the if it's good enough for George Washington edition

2012-01-14T08:37:00.000-08:00

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First game: The Saints are just a different team outdoors. Look for the tough-minded Niners not to be rattled in their first playoff appearance in years: Take the Niners getting 3-1/2 at home this afternoon at 1:30 PST.

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And as for this guy...

... don't know what all the fuss is about.

Folks in these here American parts have been doing it for years with some degree of success.

Having said that, Bronco safety Brian Dawkins is out and no one has been able to stop what has been the most productive tight end season in the history of the NFL in the two-headed beast that is the Pats' Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. Still, we like the Broncos getting 13-1/2 points against the Patriots in Foxboro later on this evening.

Radio KBwD is on the air

2012-01-13T16:03:00.000-08:00

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What happens when you take a couple of drunk sailors roaring around the dirt parking lot of the Lakeside Rodeo blasting punk rock at top volume while hurling invectives at the locals? You have yourself a great moment in East County folklorica.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, from Huntington Beach, California, it's The Vandals performing "I Want to Be a Cowboy."

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Syd, Jer... this one's for you!*

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* They were so much older then, they're younger than that now.

More great moments in the brief, brief history of the "new civlity"

2012-01-13T08:23:00.000-08:00

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One year after the tragic shooting in Tucson, Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and DNC Chair proves herself to be nothing if not dogged by bitterly clinging to the tea party did it meme.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., speaking in New Hampshire this morning, reminded her audience of the tragic Tucson shooting last year — and also insinuated that the Tea Party, which she said regards political opponents as “the enemy,” has enhanced divisiveness in Congress and had something to do with the shooting, at least indirectly.

“We need to make sure that we tone things down, particularly in light of the Tucson tragedy from a year ago, where my very good friend, Gabby Giffords — who is doing really well, by the way, — [was shot],” Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee chair said during a “Politics and Eggs” forum this morning. “The discourse in America, the discourse in Congress in particular . . . has really changed, I’ll tell you. I hesitate to place blame, but I have noticed it take a very precipitous turn towards edginess and lack of civility with the growth of the Tea Party movement.”

Having brought up the Giffords attack as a political cudgel, Wasserman Schultz doubled down on that attack. “You had town hall meetings that they tried to take over, and you saw some their conduct at those tea party meetings,” Wasserman Schultz said today. “When they come and disagree with you, you’re not just wrong, you’re the enemy.”

Hesitate? Debbie Downer displayed all the hesitation of Barry Sanders hitting the "A" gap.

But let's take her at her word and see how that new civility she has been wishing for has been working out.

Here's the scene a couple of days ago in Indiana where the contentious "Right o Work" bill passed the House Employment, Labor and Pensions Committee by an 8-5 vote on party lines.

The gavel had barely fell ending the session when the ~~tea partiers~~ union members went full throat on those voting for the bill.

"Tarred and feathered and run out of town"

Remember gang, whether it's invoking a tragedy in the most shameless of manner to score cheap political points or thoughtful chin-stroking to make yourself appear post-partisan, these calls for civility are largely just code-speak for the political class' desire for you to keep your trap shut.

Letters to the editor...

2012-01-12T16:17:00.000-08:00

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... that caught our eye over the past week in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

With respect to the 4 crosses at Camp Pendleton honoring 4 dead Marines, Douglas L. Inman of La Jolla writes:

The crosses were intended as memorials to four fallen Marines but have a special meaning to those who fought in World War II. None of the letters about the crosses published in the U-T on December 31st addressed that meaning.

I am a 91-year old Marine Corps Reserve officer, retired university professor, and survivor of the landing on Peleliu in 1944. The significance of the cross for battlefield casualties has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the press of war. Battlefield casualties often require rapid burial that precludes sorting out religious preferences. At Peleliu, Japanese snipers were still firing from Bloody Nose Ridge while the burial team was placing bodies in the soil. A single stake as marker would soon be lost, but a cross is simpler and easier to find in the flotsam of war. Thus it became the marker of choice for battlefield burials.

In the field, we were all supportive of each other regardless of religion. I can assure you that we did not think of my buddy Kehoe as a Jewish boy from Philadelphia who was buried under a Christian symbol, but rather that he was our comrade in arms and buried under the traditional battlefield symbol of honor, the cross.

That places the cross within an entirely different context: a battlefield symbol of honor. It is unfortunate that it bothers some people, but life is often that way.

We had not heard that specific utilitarian angle before. And thank you for your service to our country, Mr. Inman.

And here's Stephanie Jenkins of San Diego with praise for an Occupy activist:

Thank you for the article about the Occupy activist named Nicole. It is very nice to see that there are people who care about more than their paycheck and want to contribute to society. I’m certain she has taken her fair share of insults but as Mahatma Gandhi said, “First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win.” It seems clear to me that this movement isn’t going anywhere thanks to young women like this.

(italics, ours)

Truer words have never been spoken for the sedentary lot that makes up Obama's Whining Squatters.

And here we provide some running paranthetical commentary to La Mesa resident, Daniel R. Sanley's contention with the U-T's assessment of the Obama presidency:

The Jan. 5 U-T editorial (The beginning of the end”) referred to “a failed Obama presidency.”

Troops home from Iraq (by agreement hammered out between previous administration and Iraqi government), flawed “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy scraped, saved us from a depression (Furious spin. We were promised unemployment would not go above 8% if Porkulus passed), plus job creation during a major recession he didn’t start (Ah, the old job creation myth. If one wants to say that Obama "saved" jobs, at $500,000 a job in many cases, then go right ahead), Social Security tax relief (Dubious achievement considering the teetering finances of Social Security as it is), extended unemployment benefits (Another dubious achievement considering the whole idea of pro-growth economic policies is to effectively get people off unemployment benefits, a concept seeming lost on Team O), aggressive use of drones and special forces to reduce enemy leaders (Re: drone strikes. The One doesn't want to be bothered with the sticky situation of detaining the bad guys - better off just whacking them. And we assume Dan is also referring to our unauthorized overseas military kinetics in Libya. Glad to see all of Bush's transgressions washed away here in his 3rd term), assisting students with higher education cost relief (... that is doing absolutely nothing to actually reduce the cost of higher education), encouraging alternative energy businesses (we're assuming that's a pretty big rock in La Mesa under which Dan is residing if he's managed to be out of ear shot of the President's hopelessy failed crony capitalist loan program run by the Department of Energy), proposed “balanced” method reducing the deficit (say it: "raise taxes". Besides, Obama had both houses of Congress for two whole years and did quite the opposite with respect reducing the deficit), increased health care coverage (via an unconstitutional mandate) and improvements in current plans for millions of Americans (which will most likely cost more than what millions of Americans will be able to afford), and added checks and balances for corporate abuses (the Dodd-Frank fin-reg bill will only preserve the status quo for Wall St. Chris Dodd and Barney Frank co-sponsored the damn thing for crying out loud).

I would call this presidency anything but a failure.

As previously stated, we would beg to differ.

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#OWS update

2012-01-12T10:54:00.000-08:00

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Perhaps Tony V. and the City of Angels' municipal leaders are re-thinking their conciliatory stance toward the Occupy movement. Then again, they're birds of a feather, so probably not.

Less than six months into its fiscal year, the city of Los Angeles faces a $72-million budget shortfall, raising the prospect of new cuts in services in coming weeks, according to a report released Friday.

City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, budget advisor to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council, issued an interim financial status report calling for nearly two dozen city agencies to absorb a combined $21 million in reductions.

Santana warned that the shortfall could grow once city officials calculate the cost of cleanup in the wake of this week's ferocious windstorms and the two-month encampment outside City Hall by Occupy L.A.

Sounds like a perfect opportunity for Occupy. Instead of literally sitting around all day, doing nothing and fouling public spaces, why don't they pick up a broom or a shovel and participate in some volunteerism to take the place of those social services the losses of which they so bemoan?

And Charles C.W. Cooke on what we can expect this coming Monday and beyond:

Given their history of dogmatic insistence that one has a right to squat on private property and ignore city ordinances simply because one doesn’t like them, it should come as no surprise that the Occupy brigade enjoys such a limited understanding of the Constitution. But this is more about the optics. Expect the-authorities-are-trampling-on-our-rights! to be a theme employed widely in 2012. It is no accident that the next major protest planned is on January 16, Martin Luther King Jr. Day; OWS is fully aware that “civil rights” holds a sacred place in the American heart and to appropriate its imagery can be a highly effective, if distastefully misused, political tool.

Yes. Yes. Please remind us again of what constitutionally-protected right is being denied Occupy.

And its a shame that the modern civil rights set (see: current incarnation of the NAACP) has willingly allowed itself to become central to the statist grievance industry or else there might just be some real outrage in the civil rights community with respect to this appropriation.

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When you lose Harry Belafonte

2012-01-11T20:18:00.000-08:00

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Here's Harry Belafonte prattling on with respect to his disillusionment with Barack Obama on a recent radio chat on “Smiley & West,” co-hosted by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West:

“My question is, what legacy will he leave, having the opportunity to serve under such hugely dramatic circumstances and had such a huge impact on the universal state of things … how could he have had such a splendid opportunity to do more than most presidents would have ever been able to do, and he let that opportunity slip away from him.

I’m very cautious of the fact that those who think he has some second agenda and only if he could be given a second term for us to see the new light, new things will be revealed, new efforts will be made to take us to a place other than where we’ve been and where we languish. I just don’t trust that. I don’t believe that’s a safe way and accurate way to look at this scenario. If there was the kind of moral compass serving Barack Obama the way we hoped, the moral force would have helped him make choices, the absence of that force in his equations, that barometer to guide him when he has to make these decisions that are hugely complicated, he should have come to the table with the things that would have helped us in this moment of crisis.”

We're seeing more and more of these lefties-disappointed-in-Obama ramblings and for the life of us, we can't make any sense of them whatsoever. We suppose that shouldn't be surprising as when you project completely vague and nebulous Hopenchange-y expectations upon your hopelessly out-of-his-depth Presidential candidate, then articulating exactly why it is you're disappointed and the specifics of what you would like to see accomplished come across as equally vague and nebulous.

But we're here to help out these despondent liberals by cutting through the haze of their own uncertainty and malaise: Wasn't out-of-control spending, indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without cause, putting us on the road to socialized medicine, the use of signing statements and executive orders, taking over car companies that will cost us tens of billions of dollars, participating in unauthorized wars and whacking U.S. citizens abroad an excellent enough one-term start for any good liberal?

Video clip of the day

2012-01-11T15:42:00.000-08:00

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In about two minutes, Dennis Prager gives about as good a takedown of the dangerous canard of "social justice" that we have ever heard.

"Whenever there was an adjective added to an important value-based noun, there was an agenda."

"They do not even know why they use the term."

"Do not favor the poor in judgement."

Love that last quote from the Book of Exodus. Contrary to the conventional wisdom we've all been exposed to in Western society and particularly with respect to the Occupy movement, there is no nobility in poverty.

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Next post: #OWS update

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Deadspin commenters: they'll be here all week...

2012-01-11T10:01:00.000-08:00

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... well, at least for today.

If you hadn't heard the news, John Parr is re-racking his hit "St. Elmo's Fire" to honor Tim Tebow. Here's the set-up:

The song originally written to honor Canadian Paralympic hero Rick "Man In Motion" Hansen is now paying tribute to another athlete ~~who's on a roll~~ who's inspiring people worldwide. John Parr, who earned a Grammy nom in 1985 for "St. Elmo's Fire," released his updated version yesterday featuring lyrics like:

You know I'm out there
Down on one knee
A prisoner
And I'm tryin' to break free

To which commenter Gamboa Constrictor responded:

That's funny.
"Canadian man in motion" is often projected as Tebow's future position.

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Hey, you all didn't think we were going to leave you hanging, did ya?

Here it is, in all its mid-80s synthetic horn section glory.

Crime, smog, traffic, graffiti and all they have to show for it is their crappy newspaper

2012-01-10T22:41:00.000-08:00

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One in a series that takes a look at what's going on up at the L.A. Times.

The paper of record for Southern California continues to beclown itself: first it was an endorsement of California's high-speed rail program based upon the Egyptian pyramids and now a caricature of Michelle Obama is deemed racist.

The following image appeared on the conservative blog Gateway Pundit last week:

Here's the Times "Culture Monster", Christopher Knight breaking it all down for you in case you didn't notice the obvious racism:

A baldly racist depiction of First Lady Michelle Obama that appeared Tuesday on a right-wing website is based on a 1775 portrait of Marie Antoinette by Jean-Baptiste André Gautier-Dagoty (1740-1786). The full-length painting hangs outside Paris in the Palace of Versailles.

The Internet image grafts Obama's face onto Gautier-Dagoty's lavish depiction of the French queen, dressed in full regalia. It also replaces the draped left arm of the young monarch, then barely 20, with a muscular black arm and shifts the position of the right hand to place it in front of a world globe.

The caricature of Obama as a profligate queen relies on the racist stereotype of an "uppity Negro," which emerged among slave masters in an earlier American era. Obama, born into a working-class Chicago family whose roots are traced to the pre-Civil War South, graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, prior to holding several high-level positions in the academic and private sectors.

Thanks for the mini-bio, Chris. We suppose that was given to someway and somehow prop up your ridiculous racism charge.

Fairly or not and rightly or wrongly, the First Lady has aquired an image of an imperious and priviledged individual. It's no stretch then to caricaturize her as a modern day Marie Antoinette. That's racist? No. It's not.

So, boiling things down to its most elemental, what Knight apparently thinks is racist, then is that a black American woman is caricaturized as a.. black American woman.

Commenter to the article, Isaac Bishop Junior, makes great points regarding projection, intellectual bankruptcy and the identity politics that absolutely consume the liberal-left:

An absolutely ignorant, irresponsible, uninformed piece of yellow journalism, and an example to the rest of the leftist media. Knight, you've outdone yourself, and you stand as an example of why the newspaper is rightfully destined to die out as a media outlet. As both an American that happens to be black, and a Conservative, I find nothing racist about this image. However, I do find plenty of racism in you. Like all leftists, you hide behind skin color as a shield. You make ethnicity and sexual orientation the center of all political conversation, showing that if anyone has an obsession with it, its the left (i.e.: people like you). This hit piece you've scrawled is nothing more than another clear indicator that the liberal tank is on "E", and you've no intellectual ammunition left to fight with, so, as opposed to debating issues, you argue nonsensical BS, like this. I remember the last time this happened, in regards to the "jokerized" Obama picture. The left touted this as an example of 'right-wing hatred' and 'racism', only to have it found out that a leftist "Palestinian" did it. Where were you, then? Hiding under your desks, plotting another outrage to manufacture. It is no wonder California is the cesspool it is, today; with your writings enabling it, they'll never climb out of the sewer they've voluntarily walked themselves into.

Rick Santorum and his false strawman

2012-01-10T15:36:00.000-08:00

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In just over a minute and a half, Rick Santorum pretty much disqualifies himself for consideration for the G.O.P. nomination.

He just doesn't get it with earmarks. It's not that earmarks were a signficant part of spending with respect to the entire budget, it is that they were an integral part of the vote-buying culture of Washington D.C. They were the lube for the whole corrupt machine back there and we don't specifically recall McCain claiming that solving the earmark problem would solve the budget problem.

And if this guy lacks the fortitude to address earmarks, what does that say about his resolve to address the real budget problem: entitlements. We have a sneaking suspicion this "compassionate conservative" has no real desire to tackle this issue.

H/T: Temple of Mut via The Liberator Today

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CNN loves them some parades...

2012-01-10T08:42:00.000-08:00

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... especially as a backdrop for coverage of a brutal communist dictatorship.

It's just so much easier than having to address the more usavory aspects of North Korea.

And towards the end of this 3 minute clip, cue the obligatory useful (Western) idiot.

H/T: Ed Driscoll

Crime, smog, traffic, graffiti and all they have to show for it is their crappy newspaper

2012-01-09T19:39:00.000-08:00

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One in a series that takes a look at what's going on up at the L.A. Times.

Alternate headline: The L.A. Times confronts intellectual bankruptcy

After admitting there is no money to build the high speed choo-choo system here in California and admitting that the initial section of tracks out in the Central Valley would be "costly train to nowhere" while also acknowledging that the section of tracks to be built first was purely a political obligation, the statist cheerleaders at the L.A. Times editorial board insist the project go on because, in their closing argument, the high-speed choo-choo system here in California would be just like the Egyptian pyramids or something:

Worthwhile things seldom come without cost or sacrifice. That was as true in ancient times as it is now; pharaoh Sneferu, builder of Egypt's first pyramids, had to try three times before he got it right, with the first two either collapsing under their own weight or leaning precipitously. But who remembers that now? Not many people have heard of Sneferu, but his pyramids and those of his successors are wonders of the world.

Granted, this was in Saturday's paper but did they think no one was reading?

We're not sure invoking two massive failures because of shoddy engineering is anyway to promote the largest public works project in United States history. The ol' third time was the charm will not inspire tax-payer confidence

And who remebers that now? Hardly not the souls of the slave labor that built the pyramids.

And we missed the ballot language back in 2008 touting the high-speed rail system as any sort of "wonder of the world".

But the L.A. Times does have a point regarding the similar and only utilitarian natures of both the pyramids and California's high-speed rail system: one housed dead pharoahs and the other most likely Jerry Brown's political legacy.

In all our years of reading the Times, we have never seen used such a ridiculous and amaterish analogy in an Op-Ed piece. Un. Real.

The Friday evening dump: the free Captain Elliott's Party Boats edition

2012-01-09T12:45:00.000-08:00

One in a series that takes a look at some unsavory news being jettisoned from Washington D.C. right in front of the weekend.

A confluence circumstances that have us surprised it hasn't happened before this: a Friday evening news dump and the ObamaCare waiver process...

Labor unions continued to receive the overwhelming majority of waivers from the president’s health care reform law since the Obama administration tightened application rules last summer.

Documents released in a classic Friday afternoon news dump show that labor unions representing 543,812 workers received waivers from President Barack Obama‘s signature legislation since June 17, 2011.

By contrast, private employers with a total of 69,813 employees, many of whom work for small businesses, were granted waivers.

The Department of Health and Human Services revised the rules governing applications for health reform waivers June 17, 2011, amid a steady stream of controversial news reports, including The Daily Caller’s story that nearly 20 percent of last May’s waivers went to businesses in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s district in California.

The labor unions receiving waivers include those that are monitored under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, and those that are not. The waivers granted since June 17 are valid until 2013, but recipients must make sure their employees understand the “limits of their coverage,” according to HHS documents.

A complete list of waiver recipients can be found here. (Oops. Looks like they killed that link. That particular link now takes you to Medicare's Consumer Information main page. If anyone knows where that waiver list now resides, please provide us the link. We'd like to know how many total people are on the list. Considering the fact that by the beginning of 2011 when the ObamaCare waiver applications were supposed to be cut off, the Department of Health and Human Services has not even bothered to update the waiver list, so it's no small wonder that they have seemed fit to rub out the waiver list entirely.)

Going back to our archives, as of April of 2011 there were 2.2 million Americans receiving ObamaCare waivers. So add the combined union and non-union numbers provided by the article, we now have at least 2.8 million American exempted from the coverage limits of ObamaCare.

And originally, the waiver applications were to be submitted on a year-to-year basis. Perhaps the paperwork was backing up a bit at HHS because these particular waivers granted after June 17, 2011 have a shelf life of 2-1/2 years. A waiver of 2-1/2 years does not sound like "giving time for the markets to adjust" as that was the reasoning we heard to excuse the 1 year waiver.

For something that we supposedly could not live without, it's curious to see its biggest supporters in the unions being ~~exempted~~ denied the benefits of this wondrous law for 2-1/2 more years now. You'd think they'd be pitching a fit or something.

Photo image of the day

2012-01-09T05:56:00.000-08:00

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Hosting Christmas potlucks are wondeful for no other reason than the attendees are more than willing to express their gratitude by leaving most excellent leftovers for said host.

That being said, there are some occupational hazards that go with the territory as to what guests leave behind.

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Folks, life is just too short for the soul-less existence that is "light". Spend an extra 15 minutes in the gym, walk to the store rather than taking the car... do what thou must but please step out of the "light" .

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Quickies

2012-01-08T15:57:00.000-08:00

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A round-up of news items, articles, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.

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Yes, definetely not very Christian of us but we cop to a strong American trait of distrust of dynasties, so Joseph Kennedy III, you may very well be a swell guy, but ...

Joseph P. Kennedy III, the son of former U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy, is launching an exploratory committee in preparation for a likely run for the seat recently vacated by U.S. Rep. Barney Frank.

... we're already sick of you.

With apologies to Jim Rome: MAP!

The greatest paper map of the United States you'll ever see?

You make the call but we're going with the National Geographic map of which we are the proud owner of a 4' x 3' beaut. The Nat Geo map is simply easier to read. Detailed looks at both maps at the link. Let us know your preference.

Awwww.... Occupy DC attracting a whole new demographic:

The dwindling number of residents who stayed behind zipped up their tents, swallowed vitamins and swaddled themselves in clothing to battle the elements. Medics in both camps said Wednesday that they were passing out vitamin C tablets and Theraflu but had no official cases of hypothermia — yet. Good Samaritans streamed by to drop off blankets, and a collection was started to raise money to buy propane for heaters.

Meantime, there were increased sightings of rats nestling under pallets strewn with sleeping bags, and occupiers in McPherson Square voluntarily shuttered their kitchen for 48 hours for what they said was a monthly cleaning. Protesters were eating donated food brought in by supporters.

(italics, ours)

Awwww (Pt. II)... David Brooks gets a clue 3 years later:

“Yeah, I still like him — admire him personally,” Brooks said on Laura Ingraham's radio show this morning. “He’s certainly more liberal than I thought he was. And he’s more liberal than he thinks he is. He thinks he is just slightly center-left. But when you got down to his instincts, they’re pretty left. And his problem is he can’t really act on them because it would be political disaster. And so that means, I think he is doing very little — proposing very little.”

Was: David Brooks: Proving even someone as brilliant as a NY Times columnist can finally get up to speed with what we've know all along.

Is: Obama's behavior of late shatters any notions of a left/right or conservative/liberal thing. He's gone absolutely power-mad.

Yes. Re-election prospects are one reason but the overriding factor in his timidity is a complete lack of leadership and vision. If he does indeed win a second term, he will be positioned perfectly to address our most pressing domestic issue that is of far more importance than discretionary spending and that is entitlement reform and specifically that of the looming disasters that are Social Security and Medicare. Unfortunately, however, given this historic only-Nixon-could-go-to-China opportunity, he will squander it focusing instead on small-bore legacy-building legislation.

A grid-locked and hopelessly partisan Washington D.C. update:

Perhaps the President should be directing his We can't wait message to the obstructionist Harry Reid.

To get the economy moving again Democrats in the Senate need to act on House-passed jobs bills, Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-N.Y.) said in her party's weekly address.

"Right now, there are nearly 30 jobs bills passed by the House with support from both Republicans and Democrats that are awaiting action in the Democratic-run Senate," she said.

"One vote is all each of these jobs bills needs to get to the president’s desk, and it’s disappointing the Senate hasn’t acted."

Obviously, if the President chooses to run against Congress this year, the eventual Republican candidate would be wise to point this out.

Crony capitalism at the federal level of which we cover on a pretty consistent basis will give way to cronyism at the municipal level as practiced right here in America's finest city. Here's B-Daddy on Mayor Jerry Sander's latest manuever:

The temporary name change of Jack Murphy Qualcomm Stadium to Snapdragon, despite a memo from City Attorney Jan Goldsmith that the name change was not authorized unless approved by the City Council just disgusts me. The city loses money every year on the stadium, undermining public support for everything else that Mayor Sanders has proposed, including a new City Hall. Why would the mayor engage in such an egregious display of crony capitalism, in effect donating millions of dollars of free advertising revenue to Qualcomm? What is the value of exposure to the approximately 30 million viewers that watched the three games during the temporary name change? The mayor seems totally insensitive to taxpayer sentiment, his false claims of calamity in support of Prop D come to mind. Why elect Republicans if they are just going to gouge taxpayers on behalf of big business, as opposed to Democrats gouging the taxpayers on behalf of the employees unions.

Indeed. One's just as bad as the other.

A random thought that occurred to us while discussing the OWS movement and a friend of ours and supporter of OWS on the "failed" state of free market capitalism:

If the face of the income disparity debate and the "failed" state of market capitalism is a twenty-something that spent 6 years getting that sociology degree and who can't find a job now in order to earn a decent living and pay off that student loan can still afford to literally sit around and do ~~nothing~~ tweets, updates and "mic-checks" on any number of social media platforms on any number of electronic devices provided by that same "failed" system... if that is the face of failed market capitalism then we would really hate to see the face of any alternative socio-economic system.

Ah, but we have: the twentieth century was nothing more than a study of the human misery brought about by any and all of the -isms under the broader collectivist tent. Pity the OWSers: we've all won and they don't even realize it.

Michael J. New on some more of that federal transparency we've been hearing so much about:

Late in 2011, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released abortion surveillance data for the year 2008. The figures indicate that the number of abortions declined very slightly from 2007. Or so we think. Federal reporting standards for abortion are notoriously weak and several states typically refuse to report data to the CDC. The 2008 figures are no exception. California, Florida, Maryland, and New Hampshire all failed to report complete data to the CDC. In fact, only 43 states have reported abortion data to the CDC every year between 1999 and 2008. Furthermore, even among states that report, there exist legitimate questions about both the consistency and reliability of this data.

We wouldn't think this should matter if you are pro-life or pro-abortion: If our tax dollars are going to fund abortions, should not those body counts be a matter of public record? What, pray tell, national security risk is there in reporting out on the un-born dead?

OK, gang. That's it for today. We'll see you all tomorrow.

Your (California) high-speed choo-choo update

2012-01-08T07:26:00.000-08:00

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Built into the legislation that authorized the first $9 billion dollars of bonds to be issued to build California's high speed rail system and which was approved by voters back in November of 2008, was an advisory panel known as California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group, ostensibly an independent watchdog group for the project.

If supporters of the project thought this panel to be an Amen Corner for high-speed choo-choos then they found themselves to be sorely disappointed this past week.

In a scathing critique that could further jeopardize political support for California's proposed $98.5-billion bullet train, a key independent review panel is recommending that state officials postpone borrowing billions of dollars to start building the first section of track this year.

Gov. Jerry Brown has said he will ask the Legislature in the coming months to issue the first batch of $9 billion in voter-approved bonds for a high-speed rail network that backers say will create jobs, help the environment and transform the state's economy.

But in a report Tuesday, a panel of experts created by state law to help safeguard the public's interest raised serious doubts about almost every aspect of the project and concluded that the current plan "is not financially feasible." As a result, the panel said, it "cannot at this time recommend that the Legislature approve the appropriation of bond proceeds for this project."

Although the panel has no legal power to stop the project, its strong criticism, coupled with recent polls showing public opinion has shifted against the proposal, is giving some key political leaders pause.

"The peer review group report raises important issues for the Legislature to weigh as we consider any appropriation for the project during this year's budget process," said the leader of the state Senate, Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), a longtime supporter of the program.

The project has won major support from organized labor, some big-city mayors and many state lawmakers. But Tuesday's report adds to a string of negative assessments from the state auditor, the state inspector general, the legislative analyst, the UC Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies, as well as the transportation committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.

So what did this panel that includes private-sector financial experts, a University of California dean of engineering, a former Caltrans director and a local government representative find wrong with the project? What didn't they find wrong?

The expert panel asserted that the plan to start construction between Chowchilla and Bakersfield does not meet requirements approved by voters. Their report also found ridership estimates are unverified, construction costs may exceed the current $98.5 billion estimate, and the state agency overseeing the project lacks adequate management resources.

Left unsaid in the article was the fact that the initial funding to put down the rails in the Central Valley will cover just that, the rails. No transmission grid to get power to the trains, no lights and crossing gates and not even any actual trains.

And, oh, by the way, the project has no money...

Most problematic, the report said, is the lack of certainty about funding the balance of the project once the state exhausts the $9 billion in available bonds and $3.3 billion in federal grants. Congress has eliminated future funding for the project, and Republicans are attempting to freeze funds already granted.

The fact that the funding plan fails to identify any long-term funding commitments is a fundamental flaw in the program," the panel said. "We cannot overemphasize the fact that moving ahead on the high-speed rail project without credible sources of adequate funding … represents an immense financial risk on the part of the state of California."

About every single group in this state that has taken a sober look at the high-speed rail project has pointed out serious flaws in the project, a fact that will not deter the faith-based believers in high-speed choo-choos who believe that the money for this project which may cost as much as $120 billion dollars will appear on the backs of unicorns bounding over rainbows to be delivered to Brown's Folly office in Sacramento.

Brown's office signaled that the governor isn't likely to be swayed by the panel's findings. "It does not appear to add any arguments that are new or compelling enough to suggest a change in course," said Gil Duran, Brown's press secretary.

Because why should the fact that there is simply no money for this project distract one from having the Obama administration and Big Labor urging you to stay the course on this disaster?

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Feel good story of the year

2012-01-07T09:56:00.000-08:00

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Single mother, recently widowed and now confronting two intruders in her home threatening both her and her baby's life.

Do not mess with this woman!

Completely blown away by the cool, calm and collected manner in which she handled this.

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Radio KBwD is on the air: the covers edition

2012-01-06T16:57:00.000-08:00

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High time we got back on track with our first Friday of the month covers edition.

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First up, it's Lou Reed performing "Sweet Jane" (and because we love you guys so much, we chose the version off of Rock and Roll Animal, the one with the kick-ass duo guitar intro virtuoso by Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter.

"Anyone who ever had a heart wouldn't turn around and break it"

And now, the worthy challenger: from Toronto, Canada (and our mid-90s cow trip phase), it's the Cowboy Junkies performing their version of "Sweet Jane".

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Matt Millen likes: helmet on helment action. Alliteration... not so much

2012-01-06T14:37:00.000-08:00

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Matt Millen, again, put his utmost meat-headed idiocy on display the other night during ESPN's Fiesta Bowl broadcast between the Stanford Cardinal and the Oklahoma State Cowboys, commenting favorably on a helmet-to-helmet hit for which Deadspin commenter Eddie Murray Sparkles reminded us of happier times when Millen's complete ineptitude was suffered exclusively by Detroit Lions fans.

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Musburger Munchies Matchup: Martin Mauls Montgomery; McDonough Mentions Malfeasance; Matt Millen Drafts Wide Receiver.

Link of the day

2012-01-06T09:59:00.000-08:00

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Your high-speed California choo-choo update can wait because there is something else that takes precedence (suffice to say, it will not be good news for California's high speed rail project. Hint: it just may have something to do with the fact that some very important people realize we have no money for which to build the damn thing).

We digress...

Leslie at Temple of Mut writes eloquently and passionately in her post My STEADFAST resolve to kick elite a$$. about how to best expend resources to effect political change in the most efficient manner possible.

Instead of giving some distant group money to do the work, I might suggest you donate to pundits proven to get the conservative message across (and help promote your local efforts). Think about the websites you read daily, and consider if they have ever linked to you or provided a solid platform to spread your message. These are people who have been forced to buy server access so their blogs don’t disappear on the whim of WordPress or Google.

I assert that the money I spent with these fabulous patriots will be 1000 times for effectively used than it would be if I sent it to some central planning committee — who would then use it to hire limos that take them to deluxe resorts for conferences with elite, politically connected pundits.

Leadership and organization are extremely important but the days of dictates, fiats and top-down planning are long gone. Technology has allowed us to make end-arounds the established protocols and business-as-usual template for effecting change.

This extends to even the tea party itself where the inevitable internecine squabbles have broken out regarding policy and tactics. It's all good: no movement is without these struggles and it helps shape and define who it is we are and what we want to accomplish.

Before we are accused of rambling, please just go to the link to get the rest of the story.

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Next post: Radio KBwD is on the air

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Constitutional republics are, like, hard (cont.)

2012-01-05T20:38:00.000-08:00

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Here's the President earlier today in Shaker Heights, Ohio defending his (not in) recess appointments of 3 members of the National Labor Review Board:

But when Congress refuses to act, and as a result, hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, then I have an obligation as President to do what I can without them. (Applause.) I’ve got an obligation to act on behalf of the American people. And I’m not going to stand by while a minority in the Senate puts party ideology ahead of the people that we were elected to serve. (Applause.) Not with so much at stake, not at this make-or-break moment for middle-class Americans. We’re not going to let that happen. (Applause.)

(italics, ours)

No he doesn't. No, he absolutely does not ahead of an obligation to the Constitution.

Fancy that: Our constitutional scholar forgot about that whole obligation to the Constitution thing. He took an oath to uphold it or something.

However, considering how we led ~~from behind~~ in our efforts to ~~protect civilians from wartime atrocities~~... ~~take out military targets~~... whack the leader of a sovereign nation that posed no threat to us without Congressional authorization, this whole issue of a few (not in) recess appointments is kind of small potatoes but potatoes they are.

We didn't think we would have to update so soon but we fear we would start running behind if we waited too long.

A crowd favorite we're disappointed to announce but here it is... the O > W boogaloo jambaroo:

* = new entries

~~Closing~~ Keeping open Gitmo.

~~Ending~~ Formalizing the indefinite detention of suspected terrorists.

~~Ending~~ Maintaining military tribunals.

Not letting unemployment get above 8 10.5 percent with a $800 billion stimulus package.

~~Discontinuing~~ Continuing other Bush-era policies like rendition, Project Gunrunner and TARP.

~~Ending~~ Throwing into warp drive the politicization of the Justice Department under the leadership of the biggest hack in the administration.

Engineering a bankruptcy cramdown of domestic auto companies that will most likely cost the U.S. tax-payers tens of billions of dollars.

Interpreting the Patriot Act to collect information on people via mobile phone geolocating

A crony capitalism that is disguised as a green jobs program.

Including Fisker, SunPower and Beacon Hill

Engaging in an act of war against a country that posed no threat whatsoever to the U.S. ~~with~~ without the consent of Congress.

~~Swift~~ Painfully slow response to national disasters.

~~Ending~~ Maintaining the practice of signing statements.

Subjecting our national security to an expensive green technology boondoggle that doubles down on the cronyism.

For you visual types, how about a federal government - Goldman Sachs Venn diagram? (thanks, W.C. )

Signing off on predator drone strikes for the ostensible purpose of assassinating a foreign head of state. And then doing so.

Using executive orders and administrative actions and generally subverting the role of Congress in order to enact his agenda.

~~Shutting down~~ Operating a seeming revolving door between the White House and Wall Street and K Street.

* Signing legislation that would allow the military to indefinitely detain terror suspects, including American citizens arrested in the United States, without charge. Got 4th amendment? Not anymore, you don't. *

Pushing through health care reform legislation in the sleaziest, most cynical, un-hopenchangey and business-as-usual manner possible.

Authorizing a program to assassinate American civilians.

Actually authorizing a drone strike hit that killed American-born Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan (from this point forward, we never... never want to hear a peep about water-boarding)

And adopting another Bush-like tendency in combating the war on terror: refusing to provide the legal justification for the killing of U.S. citizens.

The more we think about it, the more we think this Bush/Obama mash-up does an extreme disservice to President Bush.

Share it. Share it, brothers and sisters with friends, family and particularly all those alleged Bush-hating Obama supporters to see who it is are the hypocrites in your life.

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Cartoon of the day

2012-01-05T15:41:00.000-08:00

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Pretty much summing up the Republican Iowa caucus:

Despite our zealous extremism and in light of recent events, this choice (and amongst the other GOP candidates) is becoming less noxious than it once was.

You find the darndest things in your Inbox

2012-01-05T09:31:00.000-08:00

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Faithful reader and commenter Road Dawg passed along to us this email he received from the Obama campaign which read, in part:

(Road Dawg),

People have been sending around two videos here at headquarters this morning, and I thought you'd want to see them, too.

This first one was posted to YouTube almost exactly four years ago. It's Barack Obama's "closing argument" to Iowans the night before the caucuses in 2008.

It's pretty incredible to see candidate Obama talk about what President Obama ultimately did. He makes four specific promises -- on reforming health care, making college more affordable, ending the war in Iraq, and putting us on the path to energy independence -- all of which today, four years later, are promises kept.

You make me promises, promises... why do I believe?

1) If by "reforming" health care, he meant adding reams and reams of legislative requirements and layers and layers of bureaucracy to our already bloated health care system and effectively making the health insurance providers wards of the state, all of which will result in taking more and more health care decisions out of the hands of the individual while simultaneously driving up the cost of health care then, yes, he "reformed" the hell out of our health care system, thank you very much.

2) Making college more affordable. Perhaps the numbers can be gamed but a simple Google search of "college tuitions" is pretty unanimous in the assessment that college is continuing to get anything but more affordable. The federal government subsidizing tuitions just jacks up the price of those tuitions by corresponding degrees.

3) Ending the war in Iraq.... or merely making good on the agreements made between the previous administration and the Iraqi government?

4) Putting us on the path to enegry independence. How exactly is Obama doing that? By not signing off on the Keystone XL pipeline so that oil from Canada can go instead to the Chicomms? By choking off natural gas and crude drilling here, domestically? By his fantastically corrupt Dept. of Energy loan program that props up not-yet-market-ready green technology and which serves as the model for the best in banana republic cronyism?

Incidentally, while there are certainly external factors aside from domestic energy policy that will effect gasoline prices at the pump, it bears mentioning that gas was in the neighborhood of $1.80/gallon when the President took office.

Since we don't have the Reverend Wright to kick around this time, thank god this election just might be about the issues.

Republicans shocked... shocked...

2012-01-04T21:25:00.000-08:00

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... that President Obama would abuse his Executive power.

Pushing the limits of his recess appointment powers, President Obama on Wednesday bypassed the Senate to install three members of the National Labor Relations Board and a director for the controversial new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - moves Republicans said amounted to unconstitutional power grabs.

Mr. Obama said the appointments, which he previewed during a campaign-style speech in Ohio, were necessary because Senate Republicans have blocked him at every turn. But in making the move, he rejected three precedents, including two in which he played a part, that would have blocked the appointments.

“I refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer,” Mr. Obama said in Shaker Heights, drawing applause from his audience. “When Congress refuses to act and as a result hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, then I have an obligation as president to do what I can without them.”

Mr. Obama tapped former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head the consumer protection agency and named three others - two Democrats and one Republican - to the labor board. Those nominations had all been stymied by congressional Republicans, who said Mr. Obama was accruing too much power to himself through those two agencies.

The president acted just a day after the Senate held a session, albeit a pro forma one without any business transacted.

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So, let's get this straight: Boehner and McConnell, respective leaders of the Republican House and Senate, whine about a (not in) recess appointment but are entirely complicit in the passage of a Defense Authorization Bill that includes the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil without cause? Got it.

While we may be game for a certain degree of politics-as-usual up on the Hill, we also believe there needs to be a serious re-racking of priorities when it comes to raising a ruckus over appointing a new HMFIC of yet another worthless new federal bureaucracy as opposed to casting aside some of our most treasured and cherished American liberties such as due process and the prohibition against illegal search and seizure.

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That may just be us. Let us know what you think.

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Video clip of the day

2012-01-04T15:04:00.000-08:00

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Stuart Varney and Adrian Moore, the vice president of research at the Reason Foundation discuss a group in California's efforts to recruit Kim Kardashian to pimp Governor Brown's tax the rich plan here in the Golden State.

"We'll she's a widely respected financial advisor in California"

Varney misses following up with Rassmussen when Rassmussen suggests people want others making twice as much as them to pay twice the total tax bill. That's a flat tax, no? We think they got wrapped around the axle a bit on tax rate vs. total tax bill.

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Quotes of the day

2012-01-04T09:31:00.000-08:00

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Some quotes we ran across the past couple of days that caught our attention:

Here's Mike Huckabee who won the Iowa caucus back in '08 assessing the rhetoric of the current G.O.P. candidates:

“One of the reasons that I was so frustrated and decided not to get in the race was because it appears to me, and it still does to a large degree, that many of the Republicans are more interested in just defeating Barack Obama than they are in rebuilding America. Well, defeating somebody without a plan to really resolve problems, to me, is a worthless endeavor. You know, I want to see us really focus on how to get the country back to work. We’ve got 15, 16 million people that don’t have jobs that would like to have them. Let’s talk about that, not: ’Let’s spend our time talking about what’s wrong with one of the candidates we’re trying to defeat,’ and that’s unfortunately been the focus of this primary.”

Huckabee always seems like a nice enough guy while being interviewed or when he is part of a discussion panel but there has always been something that seemed a tad odd to us about the guy. To wit, is he saying that the reason he didn't enter the race is because he didn't like the campaign strategies of the other candidates? That's patently absurd as that, from a political standpoint, is precisely why you would want to enter the fray. I'll be the alternative to what the other candidates are offering. Isn't that precisely the message every candidate attempts to convey? Again, odd.

And while Huckabee has a good point with generating a message that conveys a positive way forward, there is an awful lot of overlap in that Venn diagram between defeating Obama and rebuilding America suggesting those two concepts are far from being exclusive of one another.

Here's KT on the canard of money in politics:

Getting the money out of politics assumes that money is somehow corrupting what the government does, that there is some best solution to whatever set of problems we're trying to drown with three-and-a-half trillion dollar bills. If we got the money out of politics, then our political leaders would make wise decisions that were best for all of us.

Sort of like Mussolini did. There wasn't much money in politics in fascist Italy.

But the best set of decisions depends on what you're trying to achieve. Over in Greece, they've pretty much done the things that Robert Reich has been suggesting for years and they're now starting to throw their poor and elderly out into the street. So much for finding wise political leaders who can make your decisions for you, eh Robert?

And what does "getting the money out" even mean? The government contracts out to private companies for much of its work. If there's a customer out there with $3.5T to spend it's utterly childish to think that marketing dollars aren't going to gush forth in pursuit of that prospect. (You can solve this problem by nationalizing all industries so that everyone is inside the government and no one outside. See also: Union, Soviet.)

The only way to get the money out of politics is to get the money out of the government. Given the track record of geniuses like Alan Blinder and Robert Reich, that's probably a good idea for lots of other reasons, too.

A favorite refrain of ours (which, honestly, we don't know whether or not we came up with or stole from someone else) goes something like this:

You will never remove money from politics until you remove power from government by corresponding degrees.

And here's B-Daddy at The Liberator Today on differing views of and just how to combat the near-universally loathed effects of crony capitalism:

The left sees crony capitalism and concludes that more regulation of business is required to prevent business from seeking ill gotten gains from government intervention. They forget problems of regulatory capture and the fact that regulation favors the entrenched business interests of today, against the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

The right calls for less regulation, forgetting to tackle the problem that government is enriching corporations in the first place. The tea party answer, is for government to be stripped of the power to enrich corporations in the first place. In my opinion, such a theory is incomplete, because some opportunities for mischief, especially in financial markets are so great that after the fact prosecution is an insufficient deterrent.

Go to the link for some hopeful news that Western democracies will get this figured out.

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#OWS update

2012-01-03T15:58:00.000-08:00

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We had heard that the #OWS set was building a float and negotiating with the Rose Parade organizers to have it entered into the parade. Now, we hadn't watched the Rose Parade in anger for years but felt this might be too much theater to miss out on. We caught probably 90% of the parade but did not see the Occupy float... did we miss it?

Nah. We guess the negotiations agreed upon entailed them walking the parade route to the rear of the street sweepers and riot cops where they would not be televised, essentially leading from behind. Sheesh. Occupy is really going soft.

Here's a file report from one of the local stations up there:

Saw a replica of a United States Constitution amongst the protesters. That's good. Considering their concern for this rapidly-becoming- irrelevant document and further considering recent events, perhaps that person should consider taking up Occupying a different locale. But concerns for constitutional fidelity aside, we know that the driving ideology of #OWS is for the rapid expansion of the state to further income redistribution so we know that is not happening.

And in other #OWS news, yet another prestigious New York City institution of higher learning will be offering a course on the ~~tea party~~ Occupy movement. First, it was NYU and now Columbia will be getting into the act:

Columbia University will offer a new course for upperclassmen and grad students next semester. An Occupy Wall Street class will send students into the field and will be taught by Dr. Hannah Appel, a veteran of the Occupy movement.

The course begins next semester and will be divided between class work at Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus and fieldwork that will require students to become involved with the Occupy movement outside of the classroom.

The course will be called “Occupy the Field: Global Finance, Inequality, Social Movement” it will be run by the anthropology department.

Appel is a staunch defender of the Occupy movement, in her blog she said that, ““it is important to push back against the rhetoric of ‘disorganization’ or ‘a movement without a message’ coming from left, right and center.”

Appel told the New York Post that while her involvement with the movement will color the way she teaches it will not prevent her from being an objective teacher.

Hannah, babe, own the bias. You're not fooling anybody and it's all good.

Columbia and NYU's complete lack of self-assessment when it comes to further contribution of completely un-employable B.A.s is really quite charming and disarming in a way. They really are completely unaware of the self-perpetuating academic death spiral in which they are participating.

As a wrap, here's what we wrote concering NYU's intial efforts to Occupy the Occupy:

Harvard, the 2nd most expensive university in America, which has matriculated a demographic that has made an absolute mess of this country, doesn't see fit to offer a class on the American Revolution and now NYU is offering their contribution to the American higher education bubble.

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The Friday evening New Years Eve dump (UPDATED)

2012-01-03T08:12:00.000-08:00

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(Please scroll down to bottom of post for update)

One in a series that takes a look at some unsavory news being jettisoned from Washington on ~~Friday evening~~ New Year's Eve.

Do you remember when they told us that if we voted for McCain it would mean an unprecedented expansion of the federal government's authority in the war on terror and with respect to constitutional civil liberties? Well, they were right.

In his last official act of business in 2011, President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act from his vacation rental in Kailua, Hawaii. In a statement, the president said he did so with reservations about key provisions in the law — including a controversial component that would allow the military to indefinitely detain terror suspects, including American citizens arrested in the United States, without charge.

The legislation has drawn severe criticism from civil liberties groups, many Democrats, along with Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, who called it “a slip into tyranny.” Recently two retired four-star Marine generals called on the president to veto the bill in a New York Times op-ed, deeming it “misguided and unnecessary.”

“Due process would be a thing of the past,” wrote Gens Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar. “Current law empowers the military to detain people caught on the battlefield, but this provision would expand the battlefield to include the United States – and hand Osama bin Laden an unearned victory long after his well-earned demise.”

(italics, ours)

So considering his campaign rhetoric of 2008, does this mean he was against it before he was for it?

However, when you have initiated and then carried through on a program assassinating U.S. citizens who are suspected terrorists overseas, it's not a stretch to sign off on further 4th amendment-inconveniencing legislation.

Funny, we don't hear too much about waterboarding anymore. Seriously... waterboarding?

And amid the deafening silence of Obamabot zombie hypocrites, there's at least one former Obama supporter out there with the courage of her convictions to speak out. Here's Taylor Marsh:

Then there’s Obama’s foreign policy, the issue that weighs most for me, which picked up where Bush left off. Pres. Obama and his “serious reservations” didn’t keep him from signing the NDAA, something any conservative Republican president would sign. Indefinite military detention without trial is now the policy of the Obama administration, which is something Mitt Romney would also do. There is no habeas corpus at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. What is called “targeted killing” has actually increased under Pres. Obama, something Glenn Greenwald writes about regularly. As for “secret prisons,” it’s not quite as a bad as Bush, because now people are held for a “short-term, transitory” basis. But Pres. Obama’s surveillance program is identical to his predecessor. Candidate Obama was against the Iraq war, but he had no trouble bombing Libya without congressional oversight or approval, even though it was not of strategic interest to the U.S. or a clear and present danger. We’ve supposedly gotten out of Iraq, but there is a 104 acre embassy, the biggest on planet earth, with support and logistics to match.

For more on this general O > W theme, please go here. We will be updating the tally sheet in the near future.

Struggling to find the balance between national security and civil liberties is one thing but simply mailing it in from Hawai'i by gutting the 4th amendment because constitutional republics are, like, hard is entirely another.

So, this really is what democracy looks like under a progressive constitutional scholar.

(UPDATE #1):

Nice video wrap-up of the Obama vs. Bush civil liberties tale of the tape.

Maybe the drum beat is getting a little louder but we still stand by Instaglen's assertion that if civil libertarians are serious about shining the light on executive branch civil liberty abuses then they better vote and hope for a Republican presidency every term as that is the only time people pay any attention to that sort of thing.

And speaking of civil libertarians, here is ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero's statement:

“We are incredibly disappointed that President Obama signed this new law even though his administration had already claimed overly broad detention authority in court,” said Romero. “Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today. Thankfully, we have three branches of government, and the final word belongs to the Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on the scope of detention authority. But Congress and the president also have a role to play in cleaning up the mess they have created because no American citizen or anyone else should live in fear of this or any future president misusing the NDAA’s detention authority.”

Years ago, when the Patriot Act passed, we were slow to listen to B-Daddy's highly skeptical take on the law as he asserted that though we were at war with the terrorists and for whatever decent and protective intentions President Bush had, President Bush would not be President forever and this Act would simply open the door for abuses of civil liberties for whoever else took over the Oval Office.

Some 10 years on, the gutting of the 4th amendment is complete so we guess we really can thank Bush for this one.

Link of the day

2012-01-02T15:21:00.000-08:00

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Too late for an end-of-the-year list? Hardly. Not when we are enjoying bowl games and have not yet returned to work from the Christmas and New Years Holidays.

Check out fellow SLOB Sarah's Sexiest Men of 2011 which you will find simultaneously worthy and yet straining credulity with some highly questionable choices (#4?).

#OWS update

2012-01-02T07:39:00.000-08:00

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What better way to start off the real first post of the year than to see what the American chapter of Time Magazine's PoTY has been up to lately.

Who's up for some flag-burning?

Four protesters, including the spokesman of Occupy Charlotte, were charged after setting fire to two American flags early Friday near the Occupy camp in Center City, police said.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police weren't sure earlier if the four men who set fire to two flags were associated with the Occupy Charlotte movement.

But, WBTV has learned that one of the men is the media spokesman for the Occupy group and has been the contact person listed on press releases from Occupy Charlotte.

The fires happened with in feet of the group's encampment.

Earlier reports indicated one flag was burned, but a police report says that 2 US flags were burned.

And dig this:

All four men were charged with being careless with fire. That charge is a misdemeanor under the city ordnance.

Police officers told WBTV the protesters gave them a verbal tongue-lashing while being detained, calling then fascists, as well as using other colorful words.

We're sure the irony of those burning things casting about the "fascist" label on others is not lost on you.

And how's the Occupy the Iowa Caucuses working out?

Turns out the owner of a coffee shop in Des Moines had finally had enough of the squatters.

On Friday morning before a planned event appearance by Newt Gingrich, some members of "Occupy Iowa" made a stop at Java Joe's, a coffee shop here that MSNBC has been broadcasting from.

The protesters didn't get far before the owner of the shop gave them the boot.

About four or five Occupiers stood chanting in the middle of the crowded coffee shop before they were told to leave.

"I just had to shut it down, I couldn't stand it," Amy Brehm, who owns the store, told Yahoo News after police escorted the last demonstrators out. "We all have our rights, but not in my place."

We're not quite sure what the woman at the end of the clip meant by "hypocrisy".

One is guaranteed a 1st amendment right to peaceably assemble on the village green to chant, yell, scream, drum circle or whatever. That same right does not extend to doing the same on someone else's property or business.

There's a name for that: it's called "theft".

The Occupiers were occupying square footage that would've been otherwise occupied by paying customers and generally making the dining experience less pleasureable for the other customers perhaps making them less willing to return with their pocketbooks.

Again, the involuntary confiscation of others' wealth and property is at the core of the Occupy movement whether they realize it or are even willing to admit it.

New Years: 2012

2012-01-01T07:28:00.000-08:00

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The staff here at Beers with Demo wish you all a very happy New Years as we say goodbye to 2011 and look ahead now to 2012.

Quickies: the 2011 year-end edition

2011-12-31T10:33:00.000-08:00

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A round-up of news items, columns, article and blog posts that caught our eye this past (two) week(s)

It's our year-end edition so we may just roll with updates and make this a "Farewell to 2011" open thread sort of thing. Please feel free to chime in with your thoughts on 2011 or anything else for that matter in the comment section.

Strangely enough, troops not impressed with Biden's Taliban not our enemy comment.

Syrian dissenters apparently not huge fans of "smart power".

More O > W:

The rapid expansion of the drone program has blurred long-standing boundaries between the CIA and the military. Lethal operations are increasingly assembled a la carte, piecing together personnel and equipment in ways that allow the White House to toggle between separate legal authorities that govern the use of lethal force.

In Yemen, for instance, the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command pursue the same adversary with nearly identical aircraft. But they alternate taking the lead on strikes to exploit their separate authorities, and they maintain separate kill lists that overlap but don’t match. CIA and military strikes this fall killed three U.S. citizens, two of whom were suspected al-Qaeda operatives.

No one, most of all, worthless Bush-hating Obamabot "civil liberties" hypocrites want to have the conversation regarding the legality and morality of whacking U.S. citizens abroad without due process.

North Koreans are completely insane.

Finally... we can put those Obama-is-a-Muslim rumors to rest.

I realize the Obamas are wealthy people, and that wealthy people have the right to drop $260 of their disposable income on chow. But if you’re going to invite Associated Press photographers along to capture your trip to Target and stage photo ops at PetSmart and Best Buy, then I’m going to write about your unpublicized excursion to Alan Wong’s.

The press pool was not invited in to take photos this time. In fact, others were discouraged from doing so too. From the pool report:

Diners have been trying to takes pictures of POTUS, only to be chased off by advance staffers.

Since when are people not allowed to take pictures?

According to the pool report, the Obamas and their friends dined on the five-course “tasting menu” that was tasty to the tune of $75 a person, $105 with wine. Among the highlights were “Sassey Salad” and bacon wrapped pork loin.

(italics, ours)

Not as much snark as you may think. Truthers, Birthers and the like really annoy us as they distract from the real issues of unhinged Muslim extremism and absolutely horrible executive branch policies, respectively.

Where's Olbermann who hasn't done a live broadcast on Current TV since Dec. 22?

“Countdown” on Current draws just a fraction of the one million viewers that Mr. Olbermann routinely had on MSNBC; his ratings are not reported on an overnight basis, but in his first months he was known to be averaging about 200,000 viewers a night. (Current is expected to start receiving overnight ratings in January, according to a person with knowledge of the ratings.)

His program also draws less media attention than it once did, though it was credited for early coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement in the fall.

In early December, Mr. Olbermann suddenly started to broadcast from a darkened studio, with nothing but a black backdrop behind him. The Web site Mediaite first noted the change, which was due to a series of technical difficulties at the studio that Current rents for “Countdown.”

Despite whatever snark Olbermann can be mustering for the current GOP field, who wants to reside over, nay, be the spokesperson for the progressive crack-up that Obama's second term promises to be? The man (Obama) best politically positioned to do something about the greatest domestic issue of our time (entitlement reform) will instead shrink from this responsibility and busy himself with god knows what.

Here's B-Daddy over at The Liberator Today opining upon Iran and securing your base in a tyrannical regime:

Consider the bearded ones' positions. Despite years of work, they still seem a ways off from achieving their goal of building a nuclear warhead that can be delivered at a distance. Clearly the U.S. and/or Israeli campaign of sabotage and assassination has been successful in slowing their nuclear progress. It seems that the mullahs are in a race against time; they feel the need to fulfill their nuclear ambition to secure their base and to increase their popularity before popular discontent with their failing socialist economy causes the government's collapse. This is why the threat to close the Straits of Hormuz is so telling. It is an almost credible threat, but reveals that they are nervous about the impact of economic sanctions.

Those mysterious explosions at Iran's nuclear facilities may wind up being the President's most significant foreign policy achievement when all is said and done.

2011's best local news bloopers...

Via Hot Air...

In 2008, the youth vote helped sweep Barack Obama into office. Americans 18-29 spread the word on social media, energized fundraising and went to the polls.

In 2012, the youth vote is moving on and throwing those omnipresent “Hope” bumper stickers and t-shirts in garbage bins.

Not because of apathy. Not because another candidate generates more enthusiasm. Not because of his character. Not because they think voting is pointless. The 18-29 vote is up for grabs in 2012 because youth can’t afford cars to put bumper stickers on and those t-shirts are worn out from too many days sitting on the couch unemployed.

But for those that still can afford a car, there is hope:

Sir Charles, an apparent Clinton supporter on voter fraud:

Despite my voting history a shocking phone call reaching my mother prior to the 2000 Presidential election. My mother was called to confirm that I had voted for Bill Clinton in November 1996 in the State of Indiana. Initially, we viewed the call as a prank, but now that call has been revealed as no joke.

I am currently investigating the extent by which I have been the victim of voter identification fraud. There is a good chance that my vote has been counted for every Democratic candidate in Indiana from 1996 to present day. My name may have helped put Barack Obama on the primary ballot in Indiana. In the coming weeks, I will get to the bottom of this and my hope is to bring attention to the theft of the American political system.

MSNBC, the Department of Justice and progressives around the country are currently waging a publicity war against Voter Fraud reduction measures. This war is being waged despite repeated examples of voter fraud by ACORN, the Indiana Democratic Party and the Black Panther Party. My hope is to gather proof and present it as widely as possible.

OK, gang. That's it for now. We hope everyone enjoys a safe and happy New Year's Eve. We'll see you all on the flip side.

Radio KBwD is on the air

2011-12-30T21:04:00.000-08:00

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If you've been tuning into KBwD for any length of time you know we trend towards rootsier, basic North American fare (heck, even when we do some Elvis Costello, it's a cover of a George Jones classic) but we really like this song from the British electronica duo Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker that comprise Zero 7.

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(Warning: massive hook in the chorus around 1:20)

(Warning Pt. II: you can skip the commercial after 5 seconds. Sorry.)

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Here they are doing "Destiny".

Project Gunrunner/Operation Fast and Furious update

2011-12-30T14:00:00.000-08:00

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Just getting caught up on some Fast and Furious news from over the past week or so.

First off, confirmed: Joe Lieberman is a racist.

Connecticut independent Sen. Joe Lieberman has directed the staff of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, which he chairs, to examine miscommunication between law enforcement agencies related to the Justice Department’s Operation Fast and Furious.

A spokesperson told The Daily Caller Wednesday that Lieberman “believe[s] that the lack of interagency coordination along the border merits further examination, and as Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, he has directed his staff to follow up with the relevant federal agencies on that topic.”

Fast and Furious was a program of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, overseen by Holder’s DOJ. It sent thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels via straw purchasers — people who legally purchase guns in the United States with the known intention of illegally trafficking them somewhere else.

At least 300 people in Mexico were killed with Fast and Furious weapons, as was Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. The identities of the Mexican victims are unknown.

(italics, ours)

That's an interesting choice of terms as it very much appears to be quite excellent communications amongst the agencies under the DOJ umbrella that allowed those thousands of guns to be smuggled across the border and placed into the hands of violent Mexican drug cartels. Lieberman's efforts do, however, remove whatever heft of the partisanship and, umm, bigotry charges that have been levied at the House and Senate committees investigating this.

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And what has that miserable hack that runs the Justice Department been up to lately? Campaigning against illegal firearms, of course?

The number of officers killed in the line of duty jumped 13 percent in 2011 compared with the year before — and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder condemned the increase as “a devastating and unacceptable trend” that he blamed on illegal firearms.

The number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty rose to 173 this year, from 153 in 2010, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund announced Wednesday. This year’s figure is 23 percent higher than 122 killed in the line of duty in 2009.

Holder said “too many guns have fallen into the hands of those who are not legally permitted to possess them,” in explaining the increase.

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“This is a devastating and unacceptable trend. Each of these deaths is a tragic reminder of the threats that law enforcement officers face each day,” Holder in a statement. “I want to assure the family members and loved ones who have mourned the loss of these heroes that we are responding to this year’s increased violence with renewed vigilance and will do everything within our power — and use every tool at our disposal — to keep our police officers safe.”

For much of the past year, one fatality in particular has weighed heavily on Holder’s mind, that of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, whose December 2010 murder sparked interest and public investigations into the Justice Department’s botched Fast and Furious gun-walking program.

(italics, ours)

Again, how it is the miserable hack gets around Washington lugging those basketball-sized stones is a minor miracle in itself.

But we suppose that Holder can play it straight here as the guns ran into Mexico can hardly be considered illegal as Fast and Furious was executed under the full faith and credit of the miserable hack's own department. The DOJ and ATF are here to protect us, right?

And about the death of Agent Brian Terry: obviously not weighing heavily enough as the hack has repeatedly stonewalled and/or otherwise obfuscated and bobbed and weaved through sworn testimony against efforts to get to the bottom of this ~~botched~~ wildly successful American law enforcement gun-running operation.

Holder is doing everything possible to make this a campaign issue for his boss in the coming year.

Democratic establishment adopting the #OWS platform

2011-12-30T07:32:00.000-08:00

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Here's George Will taking it to Clinton-era Labor Secretary and Porkulus theoretician, Robert Reich on ABC's This Week.

"Big government inevitably exacerbates the problem of (income) inequality".

He's right: the more the government intervention into the free market, the more the system can be lobbied and gamed by already favored and moneyed interests to their advantage.

Politics: the practice of public policy for personal advantage.

"You are a pyromanica in a field of staw men".

We'll cop to an amount of sympathy for Reich because how do you even respond to that bit of smack?

But let's call this for what it is: the template has been set and Reich ably demonstrates how Team O will adopt the #OWS meme of "income inequality" to distract the electorate from just how disastrous their economic policies have been.

Don't be mislead, folks. This is pretty much all you are going to hear out of the Obama camp for the next ten months leading up to the election in 2012.

And just so you know that the Christmas/New Year's season is not going to interfere with some much-deserved shadenfreude, let's hit the way back button to reflect upon what we wrote when Reich and Chuckie Rangel were complaining about the obstacles placed in front of them and their dream of reducing unemployment via Keynesian gimmickry because of those nasty rules and regulations:

It's interesting to note both Rangel and Reich whining about those pesky state legislators. State legislators and a dense and complex web of bureaucracies and regulations set up by the same that are blocking the money from getting to where Rangel and Reich, er... the formulas and criterias determine.

Imagine that: the statists' dream of "stimulating" a recessed economy via demand-side Keynesian economics completely choked off by a bureacratic and regulatory regime built-up over the years by the very same statists.

Just sayin'...

MAXED OUT: the best beer I ever drank

2011-12-29T16:04:00.000-08:00

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It's Max's last blog post of the year so that means it's time for the great unveiling!

Huzzah! We made it through our first year together, y'all! We laughed. We cried. We bitched and moaned. And best of all, we DRANK GOOD BEER! Thanks for stickin' it out with me.

And now, without further ado, my FAVORITE BEER OF ALL TIME!!! Wait, no. I'm going to further ado for a moment and recap my previous 9. Which ones have you tried out of my top 9?

Ok, so we started the year off with Jolly Pumpkin's Oro de Calabaza, remember that one? The 'breakfast beer' that I'd love to drink every morning when I wake up. Who needs OJ? I'm not sure, but I think the next one was Hitachino XH, a sour brown ale from Japan. Delirium Tremmens was next, and is oft voted the "best beer in the world" by beer geeks. I had two IPAs on the list, my favorite of which is Pizza Port OB's Cho Saiko which is unfortunately rarely available. The other IPA being Ballast Point's Sculpin, which is just my go-to beer that is typically available year round. We also had the mouth-puckeringly sour St. Louis Geuze Fond Tradition that I had for my birthday at Toronado. FYI, we have that in bottle at Hoffer's as well. Moonlight Brewing's Reality Czech made the cut as my favorite pilsner, so next time you're in the Bay Area keep your eyes open. And the final of the best of the rest is actually the most similar to my numero uno which is Ballast Point's Victory at Sea, a huge Imperial Porter that tastes of coffee and vanilla and rainbows and magic. OK, maybe not rainbows, but magic for sure. Alright, that's it, my top 9.

And now! Now it is time to unveil. Gosh, seems like I've been building up to this moment for so long. I guess I kinda have, haven't I? You know, this one time that I was... Ok! Ok! I'll get on with it. Geez!

My absolutely most favoritest beer in the history of all things fermented is Stone's home brew collaboration winner from 2009. Ken Schmidt is a local home brewer and in Stone's first home brew contest he created a recipe that combined coconut, coffee and macadamia. Stone took it one step further and paired up with Maui Brewing Company out of... uh duh!... Hawaii. And used their kitchen to toast thousands of pounds of coconut. The elicited Kona Coffee Company for their freshy fresh freshest coffee beans, and threw in several hundred pounds of macadamia nuts. The result? Well, it's the best beer I've ever had. That's the result.

I was working at K&B Wine Cellars in Del Cerro when this beer first hit the market. The word of mouth was soooo huge that we had to limit the customers to 2 bottles a piece. But I worked there! HAHAHAHAH! Between my roommate and I, we racked up about 15 bottles. Maybe 20. Oh, and it gets better. About 6 months ago they released their Bourbon Barrel Aged version of this beer. They raffled off a few hundred bottles at $1 per ticket, all of the proceeds going to some Escondido cause of sorts, then sold the bottles at $25 each. Oh, and one of my best friends, one Joseph Ornelas happened to win! BBOOOOOOOYYYAAAAAA BBAAAAABBBBBBAAAAYYYYYY!!!!

I could go on about how limited it was and how you now have to spend some $75 on ebay to find one of the original 12oz bottles, but instead I am going to describe this little taste of heaven in a glass.

So, the thing that is most amazing about this beer is that it changes COMPLETELY with each passing moment. There are certain beers that gain complexity the more they warm up, and this one absolutely takes the cake. As it warms you start off with strong coffee notes with a little back end of coconut. All of the sudden the macadamia slowly drifts in, but never takes control of your tongue but simply adds a beautiful, slightly oily mouth feel. Towards the end of the bottle (which took me 45 minutes to drink the first time I had one at home) the toasted coconut, macadamia and fresh coffee seem to harmonize into a perfect rift that makes you want to some how ring the bottle out for the very last drops available. I really don't know how to describe the last sip of this beer when I first had it. It's like having really good sex for the first time. It's like the first time you catch a perfect wave. It was like.... MAGIC!!!!!!!! And a couple of Saturdays ago I had it side by side with the Bourbon Barrel Aged version. My head exploded. EXPLODED!!!

Oh, and just so you know, it's technically an 8.5% American Porter. Or as I call it THE BEST BEER THAT I HAVE EVER HAD!!!!

So there you have it, kiddos. My Top 10 favorite beers of all time, so far. But next year is another year with more beers to try and more blog posts to tell you about them. I'm going to take a couple weeks off so I can regroup and organize my thoughts but please, join me in 2012 for another amazing year of hops, grain and water! And a little teaser for this year to come: Oktoberfest in Munich. My favorite beer of the week. And much, much more! I'm working on it, guys.

As always, thanks for joining and COMMENT!!!

Until next time my beer loving brethren, have a beer for me.

(ed. note: We wanted to chime in with what we thought was our favorite beer of all time. We believe it was a one-off because they, unfortunately, do not brew it anymore (at least, that's what we think) but Speakeasy Ales and Lagers concocted a couple of years ago their Prohibition Amber Ale. It's classified as an American Amber/Red Ale but because of the amount of hops in it, it drank like an IPA. (And a quick check of Tap Hunter.com just now did not reveal any locales where it was being served). Don't ask us for any Max-like deets on flavor, notes, noses, sessionability or any of that faldoral... all we remember was that it was amazing and that we would walk a few miles if it meant wrapping our taste buds around one again.

Alright, gang. As Max said, he'll be taking a few weeks off here over New Year's and into January to re-charge the batteries. We sincerely hope you've enjoyed this regular feature of the Beers with Demo franchise.)

Your Arab Spring update

2011-12-29T10:03:00.000-08:00

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Ah well, who said the slide into an Islamist third-world state was not going to be rough on a few people?

This year, mobs have looted and attacked Coptic churches, homes and shops throughout Egypt. Churches have been burned down, and one Copt had his ear cut off by a Muslim cleric invoking Islamic law.

Strong gains by Islamist parties in the recent elections have further raised fears among the Christian minority that they won't have a place in the new Egypt.

The plight of the nation's roughly eight million Copts poses a quandary for the U.S. The pivotal Middle East ally receives $1.3 billion annually in military aid, and the administration has riled some critics who say it has failed to strongly rebuke the transitional rulers amid recent violence against women, Copts and other minorities.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a federal advisory agency, asked the State Department to place Egypt on its list of "countries of particular concern"—egregious violators of religious freedoms. The department declined, saying that its goal is to work with the Egyptian government to improve conditions for Christians.

Kathleen Fitzpatrick, a deputy assistant secretary of state, says her department has been "very concerned with the attacks on the Copts in Egypt in recent months," and has shared its views with "the highest levels of the Egyptian government."

(italics, ours)

Glad we're sharing.

Quandry: $1.3 billion/year in tax-payer money in return for rubbing out Copts. We'd say someone is getting quite the sweet deal.

As we've noted previously, some persecuted minority groups are just a little more equal than others.

Bonus round: Leslie at Temple of Mut has her thoughts on the fire at one of Egypt's most important library.

Got stickers?

2011-12-28T21:54:00.000-08:00

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Legal Insurrection has their top bumper stickers of 2011.

The winner and a perfect response to the #OWS set:

Some other faves and more can be found at the link.

Speaking truth to power.

Getting out the Hispanic vote in Tejas.

Wonder if they have a Facebook group?

Video clip of the day

2011-12-28T16:22:00.000-08:00

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Reason.tv announces their Nanny of the Year.

Given the nature of the of the legislation being proposed, file this year's nominees under "Solutions to non-existent problems."

Exit question: With Nanny-dom running amok in this country to the degree that it is and with a few more days remaining on the calender, did Reason.tv perhaps announce their winner too early?

Federal judge: Blacks need to be told who the Democrats are on the ballot

2011-12-28T10:46:00.000-08:00

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The plantation mentality is alive and well in the South, after all.

A U.S. District Court judge has rejected a challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — filled when the Department of Justice barred the city of Kinston, N.C. from holding nonpartisan elections — reasoning that lack of access to party affiliation would discriminate against minority voters who otherwise wouldn’t know how to find Democratic candidates on a ballot.

The challenge was initiated after the Justice Department rejected a 2008 referendum vote in which the city of Kinston voted to stop listing candidates’ party affiliations on ballots.

Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department must approve changes to election law in regions with a history, however distant, of racial discrimination.

The Justice Department prevented the 2008 referendum change, arguing in part that “the elimination of party affiliation on the ballot will likely reduce the ability of blacks to elect candidates of choice.”

Advocates for nonpartisan elections including Republican state representative Stephen LaRoque and several other Kinston residents subsequently sued the Justice Department, challenging the constitutionality of Section 5.

If there is a better example of institutional bigotry with respect to voting rights in this country, we'd like to see it.

The statist desire to see minorities as wards of the state now extends to that of a single political party as well.

The assumptive reasoning behind this is rather absurd as local elections, particularly in smaller towns across the country are absent party affiliation and how does the flip side of this sound?: Republicans will be required to be identified on the ballot so that white voters will be better able to select their candidate of choice.

The Holder Justice Department: enforcing the soft bigotry of low expectations for minorities in America since 2009.

Video clip of the day

2011-12-27T10:12:00.000-08:00

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The hypocrisy of these supposed "Patriotic Millionaires" is exposed when asked to give voluntarily to the Department of the Treasury in this 3 minute clip from the Daily Caller.

"It would be of no impact whatsoever"

You said it, champ: Quite similar to the effect on the national debt it would have if they raised taxes on you people.

We're going to have to assume that these "patriots" inherited or otherwise fell into their fortunes unwittingly as taking this stance demostrates an economic illiteracy that suggests they did not make all that jack by their wits, alone.

And what is particularly galling is this notion that they think of themselves as being so noble as to quantify a level of patriotism commensurate with the amount of money they give to the government. That is patently absurd on its face.

Perhaps these jackasses would like to visit Balboa Hospital here in San Diego and the wounded warriors convalescing and re-habbing there to get a much needed recalibration with respect to the term.