Making near-vacuous points on Facebook

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We saw this picture below posted by a friend on Facebook.

In a vacuum, we’re not sure what the point is. However, given that the picture was sponsored by what we’re sure is a truly worthwhile organization called Americans Against Republicans… we’re still not sure what the point is. Sure, given who the group is, it’s obviously an ad hominem attack on Republicans/conservatives but how? What point are they trying to make with respect to their disdain for all things Republican-y.

Wait a minute. We think we might know. An outfit like Americans Against Republicans, by the very nature of this sign, know two things about Republicans and conservatives: 1) They’re all Christian and 2) they all hate people from the Middle East.

Are we right? This would appear to be just Americans Against Republicans little way of reminding those of us over here on the right that it’s a tad of an inconsistency to love Jesus but hate others of his geographic origin. Did we nail that or what?

Yes, the liberal fantasy template of Islamophobia on the right. Of course, we have nothing against Muslims or the Islamic faith. We do question, however, that whole fly-planes-into-skyscrapers and genital mutilation thing that are held in high regard among many Muslims. Funny then, that the liberal-Left would cozy up to adherents of this faith in the perpetual existential Israel vs. the rest of the Middle East scrum. To our knowledge, the Jewish faith condones no such acts.

And as far as hating Middle Easterners... Hey, look, it wasn’t the Republican President that has been wacking Middle Easterners by the thousands these past few years via drone strikes.

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About last night

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We apparently just missed it as we were getting in the door when last night's half-time show on NBC during the Cowboys-Eagles was just wrapping up, but here's Bob Costas's little anti-gun rant we're sure you've either seen or heard about in the context of the Kansas City Chief's Jovon Belcher's murder-suicide:







Don't know if the nation could've soldiered on last night without Costas unburdening himself Whitlock's half-baked pieties and pronouncements.

And we most definitely do not know for sure if both Belcher and his girlfriend would be alive if Belcher did not have a gun.



But Costas was certainly within his right to say what he did and we are perfectly within our right to post the following:

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Photo image of the day

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Guess what came in the mail today? A multi-colored glossy brochure explaining the changes to our healthcare plan starting Jan. 1 due to the Affordable Care Act aka ObamaCare.

Free HPV testing and free contraceptive services and drugs!

Hooray free stuff!

You ladies can leave your "thank yous" in the comment section. "You're welcome" ahead of time.


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Quickies

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







A nice graphical representation of what the President has put on the table to avoid the fiscal cliff.

It doesn't appear that someone is dealing in good faith.


Related: Why have conservatives ceded to the left the term "revenue" to mean exclusively "raise taxes"? What about "pro-growth policies" as a means to generate revenue?



So, what should the Republican response be to the President's proposal? Guy Benson thinks the Republicans should embrace the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan.

Simpson-Bowles, for all its faults, was conducted in an open and transparent manner and brought disparate political players into a room to forge a serious compromise. It overhauls and streamlines our byzantine tax code, takes some important first steps on entitlements, and reduces and caps federal spending. On substance, I'd wager that it would be considerably better than anything Obama and Boehner might produce after weeks of behind-closed-doors acrimony with the proverbial gun to their heads. Politically, it paints Democrats into a tough corner. Republicans could make a grand show of reluctantly supporting Simpson-Bowles for the betterment of the country. Ideally, the press conference would be led by Paul Ryan, who might explain why he voted against the plan as a commissioner, but is now willing to set aside some of his strong ideological preferences to move the nation forward.

Remember, Simpson-Bowles was the President’s own idea and which had bipartisan support. Thus far, the President has not embraced a single part of the plan. We think it would be a brilliant stroke by the Republicans to put the Democrats back on their heels and have they and the President playing defense.

As Benson stated, Simpson-Bowles has its flaws, but we see it as a giving the Republicans a leg up both tactically and strategically because as it stands now, the Republicans, fair or not, are going to take the hit, P.R.-wise, unless they get the President to take a stand on a commission that he specifically requested and whose recommendations he has since rejected.






Salary.com on the 8 college degrees with the worst return on investments.

Yep, all the usual suspects: sociology, fine arts and nutrition are in the mix.




And Salary.com on the 8 college degrees with the best return on investment.








Atari's "Pong" turned 40 years old this past week.

Here's Buzzfeed's short history of the first video arcade game many of us played.









Warren Buffet has been out again pushing his soak-the-rich tax plan. As you are about to read, raising taxes on the rich isn't so much about improving the economy as it is about improving our... feelings.


From the TODAY Show:

MATT LAUER, TODAY: So bottom line, would raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans have a chilling effect on hiring in this country?

WARREN BUFFETT: No, and I think would have a great effect in terms of the morale of the middle class, who have seen themselves paying high payroll taxes, income taxes. And then they watch guys like me end up paying a rate that's below that, you know, paid by the people in my office.

This is an admission of naked class warfare aggression that, never mind the dismal state of the economy, we'll somehow feel better knowing that the rich are paying more in taxes than they did previously.

It's hard to see someone as independently successful as Buffett become such a hack and such a dishonest one at that. Again, if Buffett paid himself a salary above the $100,000/year he so nobly limits himself, he would land himself in a tax bracket that would make us all feel a whole lot better.








Remember, gang, these are the people that will be in charge of your compliance with ObamaCare:

South Carolina's governor faulted an outdated IRS standard as a contributing factor to a massive data breach that exposed Social Security numbers of 3.8 million taxpayers plus credit card and bank account data. Gov. Nikki Haley's remarks on Tuesday came after a report into the breach revealed that 74.7 GB was stolen from computers belonging to South Carolina's Department of Revenue after an employee fell victim to a phishing email. People who filed tax returns electronically from 1998 on were affected, although most of the data appears to be after 2002, Haley said during a news conference.

It's not just small businesses and restaurants that are doing it but now it appears that colleges are getting in on the act.

From College Insurrection:

Youngstown State University is the second institution to be public about cutting adjuncts’ hours to avoid Affordable Care Act-related costs.

The Ohio university announced its plans in a campuswide memo Thursday, hours after an internal department memo from an English professor warning colleagues about the cuts was leaked to the media.

“A provision under the [Affordable Care Act] requires employers to share in the responsibility of providing health insurance to full-time employees,” the campus memo reads. “Effective this academic year, part-time faculty will not be allowed to teach more than 24 hours over fall, spring and summer.”

Youngstown’s announcement comes just weeks after Community College of Allegheny County in Pennsylvania announced it was preemptively cutting hundreds of adjuncts’ hours to avoid an estimated $6 million in employee health care costs when the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate begins in January 2014.

Curious if the deranged left will now consider boycotting institutes of higher education.






America's trusted highway life line, AAA, not down with ethanol:

The AAA says the Environmental Protection Agency and gasoline retailers should halt the sale of E15, a new ethanol blend that could damage millions of vehicles and void car warranties.

AAA, which issued its warning Friday, says just 12 million of more than 240 million cars, trucks and SUVs now in use have manufacturers' approval for E15. Flex-fuel vehicles, 2012 and newer General Motors vehicles, 2013 Fords and 2001 and later model Porsches are the exceptions, according to AAA, the nation's largest motorist group, with 53.5 million members.

"It is clear that millions of Americans are unfamiliar with E15, which means there is a strong possibility that many may improperly fill up using this gasoline and damage their vehicle," AAA President and CEO Robert Darbelnet tells USA TODAY. "Bringing E15 to the market without adequate safeguards does not responsibly meet the needs of consumers."

BMW, Chrysler, Nissan, Toyota and VW have said their warranties will not cover fuel-related claims caused by E15. Ford, Honda, Kia, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo have said E15 use will void warranties, says Darbelnet, citing potential corrosive damage to fuel lines, gaskets and other engine components

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It's bad for your car, it drives up food prices and its production has a larger carbon footprint than does the extraction, refining and shipment of crude oil. It's the worst alternative energy idea ever created yet it continues because it is a subsidized cash crop in a state that is first up during primary season every 4 years.




OK, gang. That's it for today. We'll catch up with you all tomorrow.

All the hep cats are getting with the times

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Europe is so modern they're throwing things into reverse.


From CNBC:

The French politician who said Indian steel company ArcelorMittal should leave the country has told CNBC that his government is only acting like U.S. President Barack Obama.

Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg, a member of the governing Socialist party, caused controversy last week when he said that the Indian company, which employs close to 20,000 people in France, should leave after it said it would have to close down a factory.

The French government announced on Thursday that it could nationalize the factory in question, with backing from an unnamed businessman.

The news raised the specter of the nationalizations of the early 1980s, which were instigated by Hollande’s predecessor Francois Mitterrand.

Montebourg told CNBC after a meeting with trade unions in Paris: “Barack Obama's nationalized. The Germans are nationalizing. All countries are nationalizing. I've also noticed the British nationalized 6 banks.”

Montebourg brushed off comparisons with that era. He said: “It's a very good sign to send out (to investors). Nationalizing is a very modern step to take. Especially when you not only nationalize losses but profits as well, when you make public/private partnerships. This is our strategy.

(italics, ours)



Just an aside but the U.S. taxpayers stand to lose tens of billions of dollars as things currently stand from our most ballyhooed nationalization effort: the government-engineered bankruptcy cramdowns of Chrysler and General Motors.


Yeah, that whole nationalization trend in Europe back in the 30s worked out pretty well, didn't it? Oh, but you say, to use the term this guy does, Europe is too "modern" to let some monster like Mussolini or Hitler come to power. Perhaps, but the framework for gross abuses of power against the individual and society as a whole via a supra-legal public-private complex would be firmly entrenched serving at the behest of an unaccountable political class.

We see it here as there are no fewer than 40 lawsuits being brought against the Obama administration on the grounds of religious liberty being infringed upon by the public-private fascist union of the largest health insurers bound to the federal government which was made possible by the Affordable Care Act, or, ObamaCare.

What power you grant the federal government to grant you "rights" is the same power by which the government can take away actual rights.





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"Nationalization": It was the "modern" thing to do back in the 30s.

Video clip of the day

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It's been a long week since coming off the Thanksgiving long weekend, so let's lighten things up shall we?

While we liken the United Nations General Assembly to the Star Wars cantina scene, Brit comedian, Eddie Izzard figures, logically, that there must have been a cantina on the Death Star as well.



Here's Eddie:

(your obligatory language warning)







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Kind of a no-brainer when one thinks about it

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“Pops” would refer to the following as “a solution in search of a problem” but when it is vigorously backed by the Russians it is no longer merely unnecessary but becomes a menace.

The United States will seek to block an “alarming” Russian proposal to give a United Nations telecommunications group control over the Internet, a senior State Department official said on Thursday.

“We will actively oppose the Russian proposal,” Terry Kramer, head of the U.S. delegation to a U.N. conference in Dubai, told reporters.

“I have to say, out of all the proposals that have come in, the Russian one candidly is the most shocking and most disappointing in terms of achieving the success that we are seeking globally,” he said.

A Russian government proposal to amend a U.N. treaty at a meeting of the world body’s World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai next week contains a provision that calls for bringing “IP-based networks” under U.N. control.

The U.N. treaty, called the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITR), is currently limited to regulating international telecommunications services.

The Russian proposal to amend the treaty has the support of other non-democratic states such as China and Iran.

One does not need a degree in telecommunications or even one in foreign policy to realize that if Russia, China and Iran are in cahoots over something, it is probably not in our best interest nor is it in the best interests of global freedom and democracy.

It’s no big surprise that the enemies of freedom would want some way of harnessing and controlling the internet as social media and the avenues of communication it provides to people is worrisome to autocratic regimes.

These bad actors know that the feckless body that is the Star Wars cantina scene can themselves be easily manipulated and controlled for their purposes. It’s the U.N. for crying out loud.


To summarize, here’s Arthur Herman from the current issue of Commentary on the dangers that U.N. control of the internet poses:

If new restrictions are codified at the conference, “In short, governance of cyberspace will pass from the country that has kept it free and accessible since its creation—the United States—to the same organization that gave us the financial scandals at UNESCO, voted to designate Zionism as racism, and seated China, Syria, and Muammur Qaddafi’s Libya on its Commission on Human Rights,” Herman wrote.

Could not have said it better ourselves

Graphic image of the day

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You'll need a old-fashioned fifth-grade classroom globe or a world atlas for the following because graphic below isn't as interactive as we had hoped.



(click to enlarge)

Gallup has surveyed people in 150 countries and territories on their daily emotional experience based upon five questions meant to gauge whether the respondent felt significant positive or negative emotions the day prior to the survey. The countries that answered "yes" more often than other countries are depicted in increasingly stronger hues of purple. Conversely, those answering "no" more often are depicted in relatively paler shades of yellow.


From the study:

Singapore is the least emotional country in the world. ”Singaporeans recognize they have a problem,” Bloomberg Businessweek writes of the country’s “emotional deficit,” citing a culture in which schools “discourage students from thinking of themselves as individuals.” They also point to low work satisfaction, competitiveness, and the urban experience: “Staying emotionally neutral could be a way of coping with the stress of urban life in a place where 82 percent of the population lives in government-built housing.”

The Philippines is the world’s most emotional country. It’s not even close; the heavily Catholic, Southeast Asian nation, a former colony of Spain and the U.S., scores well above second-ranked El Salvador.

That the Philippines is the world's most emotional locale does not surprise us. Though, we really don't know the reason why, any country where you can, honest to goodness, get yourself killed if you off-key a karaoke rendition of Sinatra's "I Did It My Way" is going to be on the short list of keyed-up countries.


And check out the gulf in positive vibes between the English and Spanish-speaking societies and the Arab world. Hmmmm....


Go to the link for more analysis and statistical break-down.

Your Mid-week Maritini-worthy photo image

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We've seen this guy on a handful of occasions and we're pleased to inform you that the same ribald exchanges he has with his bandmates and the crowd during shows in front of the unwashed greasers and rockers at, say, outdoor Hootenanny concerts, he shares also with the Chardonnay and brie crowd at Humphreys by the Bay.



From Stockton, California, it's Chris Isaak performing "Speak of the Devil" at San Diego's very own Belly-up Tavern.



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Sign of the times

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You just can't make this sort of stuff up but apparently, Sandra Fluke, the middle-aged Georgetown Law School student whose call for everyone but herself to pay for her contraceptive devices and which became a central plank in the Obama re-election platform is on the short list for TIME Magazine's Person of the Year.

Actually, since this election was a referendum on the entitlement class, it makes perfect sense.

Here's Michael Graham:

Can you think of anyone who better represents the America of 2012 than Ms. Fluke? I can’t.

She’s got it all: The “Generation Cupcake” inadequacy (“So what if she didn’t earn the award — give it to her, anyway!); the “Occupod” sense of entitlement (“Somebody should be buying my condoms, and it ain’t gonna be me!”); and, of course, the liberal detachment from reality (“There’s a war on women! We’re being oppressed! Just ask Hillary Clinton, Condi Rice and Oprah!”).

Then there’s the economic angle. One could argue that the icon of the failing Obama economy is the college grad with a worthless degree under his arm and a bed in his mom’s basement.

Time magazine gives us Sandra Fluke, with a bachelor’s degree in (no joke) Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, no marketable skills, and still on the academic track, living on the largess of others.

I’m not trying to be mean to Sandra Fluke. Unlike Rush Limbaugh I make no comment on her personal life or sexual proclivities.

But I also didn’t — and would never — put this unaccomplished 30-something on the “Person of the Year” list for publicly whining about paying her own bills.

And if I were Ms. Fluke, I’d be embarrassed by Time’s selection. I’d be pointing out the people who’ve actually made some impact— maybe Fidelity’s Abigail Johnson, or Malala Yousufzai, the 14-year-old girl shot by the Taliban for insisting on attending school.

Ah, but I’m not Sandra Fluke, who used her “Person of the Year” moment to complain, in a tweet, about the “few women” nominated.

Yeah. In a day in time when our entitlement programs are threatening to swallow-up our economy and the fiscal cliff debate is centered around class warfare, a woman whining that you should pay for her rubbers and birth control pills is indeed the perfect candidate for TIME's award.

Rock on, Sandra!

Rules are for other people

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Let's get this straight: the man who wants to try terrorist masterminds like Khalid Sheik Muhammed in civilian court, only now getting around to writing up the rules that would govern drone strikes.




From Investors.com:

The New York Times had a front-page story the other day reporting that in the final weeks before the Nov. 6 election, President Obama ordered acceleration of the process "to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones, so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures."

That was preparation in case Republican Mitt Romney won. He would then inherit a full-blown written policy for targeted killings, as every president hands down written policies to his successor for continuation, alteration or termination.

But here's what that Times story also means that's much more disturbing than a standard political CYA story from anonymous sources:

For nearly four years now the Obama administration has been flying unmanned drones all over the world killing upwards of 3,000 known people with no explicit set of written rules.

Kill that guy. Not this one. That guy too. Vaporize everybody in that house. But this one we'll let stand, for today anyway.

Seriously? A president of the United States, even one from Chicago, running a classified killing campaign with no rules? The United States used to condemn Israel for such targeted assassinations.

As we've said before with respect to Obama's kill list; it's not that he's blood-thirsty or even coldly pragmatic in prosecuting the war on terror. He's lazy. Having to capture and interrogate terror suspects and detain them at places like Gitmo is messy business and unlike just going out and killing these types, there are actual rules you have to follow once the terrorists are in your possession.


The moral calculus here is stunning. Harsh criticism of George W. Bush was levied by Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign regarding the former's interrogation methods yet he is only now getting around to providing a framework on the who, why and whats of his death-from-above drone campaign so he can better avoid the grave moral misgivings of his predecessor.

But the beautiful thing is, he won. Now that he won, what are the odds these "rules for drone attacks" will ever get written if ever finalized? That's not a bet we would take.

A lawless presidency certainly has it's advantages for how can one say any rules were broken when there are no rules.

Perhaps the single best thing about a Republican presidency is that we pay attention to stuff like this.

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