Republicans are beginning to split from these votes due to the CR's failure to defund ObamaCare, as well as a general dislike of the drip-drip-drip process.

I don't mind the drip-drip-drip -- I think it's pretty clever. Isn't it? We have $10 billion in cuts so far, and every time we do this, we can ask, "You're saying you can't cut just an additional $4 billion more?" It's like the frog in boiling water.

I understand that people like Rubio want to get this funding issue out of the way to work on other things, but I think the GOP leadership is playing this pretty well so far.

Posted by: Ace at 11:59 AM | Comments (161)
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You know, I've lived my whole life not knowing the actual meaning of shibboleth. I could sort of understand it in context -- sort of -- as a blip-word, a word you sort of blip over. I knew it was used in the context of liberal shibboleths and conservative shibboleths but I just sort of read that as "bromides" or "dogma."

Rush explains what it means in this clip about Sarah Palin.

What a perfectly outstanding and interesting word. It turns out I've been writing about shibboleths for years -- my constant re-working of the same basic idea of people signifying to each other the tribe they belong to (or aspire to belong to) by adopting the manners, biases, and received wisdom of that tribe -- without ever realizing there was such a genius that-is-exactly-what-I-mean word for it.

How come you doofuses never alerted me that I was missing such an awesome word? I know a lot of you guys know the Bible -- why wasn't this brought to my attention immediately? Why you gonna hold out on your buddy Ace like that?

(Apologies if you tried and I missed the comment or email.)

That part aside -- Thanks, Rush! -- I disagree with Rush -- in part.

There is no question that something like a shibboleth may be at work here. Since it turns out I am a huge believer in the idea of shibboleths, I can't argue too much that that sort of thing doesn't happen.

But there's something that's going on a lot lately that I sort of hate.

One of the biggest sources of frustration in arguing with a liberal is that the liberal refuses to take your stated reasons for your beliefs as your real reasons for the belief. If you say "I don't support quota or racial-plus-factor-based affirmative action, because I think it's unfair to discriminate against white people, too, just as it's wrong to discriminate against anyone based on their race" they almost reflexively offer up the secret motivation they assign to you: "You don't like black people, that's what your problem is."

If you state you want to keep taxes low because the private sector flourishes under a low-tax regime, and it's the private sector that creates wealth while the government merely transfers it (and destroys part of it in the process), they of course ignore that stated rationale, and decide, in the twinkling of an eye: "You hate poor people. Also, you probably hate black people too. In fact, you probably hate poor people in the first place because you hate black people and many of them are poor."

It's a rude form of argument (in both senses of the word "rude") and is unproductive, because, of course, the moment this card is played, it's no longer a fair exchange in which people's actual arguments are offered, criticized, and responded to, but instead essentially a series of insults disguised, very superficially, as an argument.

I mean, when someone takes a perfectly reasonable and respectable argument in favor of capitalism and immediately turns that into the straw-man insult You're a racist, what is the sense of arguing any further? Once one party decides it's fair to simply make up secret motivations and put them into your mouth (or head, really), and then argue against not what you are saying but the convenient bugaboo strawman they've created, how do you respond?

Well, you say I'm not a racist, maybe, and then you throw in a You're the real racist for good measure, but that's pretty much as far as that particular argument is going to go. The well is now poisoned; no real argument remains to be had. The argument (in the sense of "reasoned exchange of ideas") now turns into an argument (in the sense of "bitter quarrel") and then one or both parties walks away.

I do this myself a lot. Hell, everyone does. It doesn't work out well, at least not if you're attempting to persuade a would-be ally. It's really a technique to be used only against those you've decided are unreachable opponents, because once that card is played, that's it as far as a genuine exchange of points of view.

Obviously I do this a lot with liberals (my whole argument about shibboleths is this type of argument, which doesn't make it untrue; it does, however, make it very, very unlikely to be greeted by liberals with an open mind). I often, far-too-frequently slip up and begin doing it with conservative would-be allies, too, which is when people start advising me to 1) walk away from the thread and 2) stop being such a complete asshole.

Like I said, it's a dangerous form of argument. It's perceived as dismissive and condescending for the simple reason it is dismissive and condescending -- all offered arguments are immediately dismissed as lies (in favor of the unspeakable truth of racism or other bias) and of course claiming to know what is really in someone's head or heart -- and to know this far better than the actual person you're arguing with -- is the height of condescension.
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Posted by: Ace at 10:52 AM | Comments (779)
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The world is going to hell in a handbasket, and Obama tapes himself picking his NCAA bracket:

Via Mike AllenÂ’s newsletter, we see in the first line how the leader of the free world will spend his day during this awful crisis:

President Obama is taping his NCAA picks today, and theyÂ’ll be revealed tomorrow on ESPN.

Okay, that’s not all he’s doing. “Obama will tape interviews from the Map Room with KOAT Albuquerque, KDKA Pittsburgh and WVEC Hampton Roads on education reform and the need to fix No Child Left Behind.”

Japan faces an almost unparalleled crisis, Libya is in civil war, and weÂ’re having another budget showdown after running up a $222.5 billion deficit in the 28 days of February. And after last weekÂ’s bullying summit, Obama is spending this week talking education reform.

Bush was trying not to alarm young schoolchildren. Obama is alarming everyone. At least he's starting to scare the hell out of me.

UPDATE: Others are noticing as well. Keith Koffler goes into even greater detail about Obama's fecklessness:

he Middle East is afire with rebellion, Japan is imploding from an earthquake, and the battle of the budget is on in the United States, but none of this seems to be deterring President Obama from a heavy schedule of childish distractions.

The newly installed tandem of White House Chief of Staff William Daley and Senior adviser David Plouffe were supposed to impart a new sense of discipline and purpose to the White House. Instead, they are permitting him to showcase himself as a poorly focused leader who has his priorities backward. . . .

But the fun stuff wonÂ’t end anytime soon. On Thursday, the Taoiseach of Ireland will be in town to help the president celebrate St. PatrickÂ’s Day. And then Friday itÂ’s off to Brazil for the start of a three-country Latin American tour.

Oddly, heÂ’ll be missing Carnival, which went down last week.

Obama is supposed to officially kick off his re-election campaign next month. I have to wonder if his heart is really in it. ..fritz..

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:10 AM | Comments (359)
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One of the major downsides to a large welfare state full of unfunded ("pay as you go") entitlements is that actuarial mistakes can really bite you in the ass. In this case, California's bill for retiree health and dental benefits unexpectedly shot up $8.1 billion dollars over and above the $51 Billion they had estimated just last year. Much of the increase was due to...wait for it...wait for it...bad forecasting, bad rate-of-return assumptions and over-reliance on subsidies.

The unfunded obligation as of June 30, 2010, grew $8.1 billion from the $51.8 billion obligation identified in the prior year. Less than half of the increase was simply due to another year of costs, payments and interest. The bulk of the increase was due to a change in the California Public Employees' Retirement System's (CalPERS) pension-benefit assumptions based on their latest 10-year study. That study found employees are retiring earlier, retirees are living longer, and actual premiums increased more than previously projected by the actuary. The increase appears larger because in 2008 and 2009, CalPERS decided to use surplus funds from its health care plans to reduce increases in health care premium rates. The 2011 rates were not subsidized, causing the premiums to jump back closer to what the level would have been without the surplus.

Public-sector actuaries are...how shall I put this?...highly motivated to use the most optimistic numbers for their projections. The problem is, when these projections don't pan out, guess who gets to make up the shortfall?

More on this story here.

Posted by: Monty at 04:53 AM | Comments (265)
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Et tu, Brute?— Then fall, Caesar!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:50 AM | Comments (305)
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Some Amazing and Sad Video of the Tsunami

I saw this video last night on NHK and it's one of the more astonishing ones where you can truly see the full scale and force of the wave. And it's also one of the few where you can actually see people trying to escape from the incoming wave. I remember reading years ago that due to the speed tidal waves travel at by the time you even see one coming, it's pretty much too late to escape. And this video seems to confirm that.

If you look towards the bottom of the hill around 0:40, you can see people running towards higher ground. Most made it but based on the higher-res version I saw I don't think they all did.

And in one piece of good news a 4-month old baby was found alive today amid the tsunami wreckage and reunited with her parents.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:52 PM | Comments (817)
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Moron MikeTalley73 asks "is Ace of Spades going to have an NCAA bracket?"

Why yes Mike, yes we are.

Over at Yahoo Sports like last year, click there and pick "join a group". Group ID is 147496, password is paulanka

I sure hope Obama has a press conference again to show us his bracket.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:36 PM | Comments (31)
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This is reactor number two. The first explosion hit reactor number one.

: A new explosion at a stricken nuclear power plant hit Japan on Monday as it raced to avert a reactor meltdown after a quake- tsunami disaster that is feared to have killed more than 10,000 people.

Searchers found 2,000 bodies just in the northeastern region of Miyagi...

Below is video of the tsunami wave hitting a marina in California. A full ocean away and it is still strong enough to overturn boats.
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Posted by: Ace at 03:15 PM | Comments (271)
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I'm just not lovin' the news today.

Posted by: Ace at 02:19 PM | Comments (216)
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Oh, so this stuff isn't that serious? Funny, it was very serious indeed just 45 days ago when it could be used as a club against (in order) Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, and the Republican Party.

Posted by: Ace at 11:42 AM | Comments (315)
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