Content Warning because the man, on the Number 6 train in NYC, screams the N-word a bunch of times, before transitioning, I think, to Jews.

He also takes all of his clothes off, and begins attacking people at random.

F-bombs too. Actually it's like a good R-rated movie:

Strong Language
Nudity
Violence
Adult Themes and Situations

All four food groups, as I used to say.

One of his relatives just emailed me to suggest "I think he was probably looking for the bathroom and didn't know the right word... He's only been on a subway like three times."

Oddly hypnotic. Compelling... and rich.

Let me just go ahead and spoil Jon Stewart's joke for tonight: "The man immediately surged to become the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president." more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:23 PM | Comments (121)
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On the cover of Men's Health, Republican Representative Aaron Shock poses semi-shirtless, showing off his abs, which isn't so much a sixpack as much as a case of forties.

This vulgar, tasteless display fills me with the overwhelming desire to curl up and nestle in the hollow of his pecs. Like a little squirrel who's found a wonderful new nest, where I'll always be safe and always be protected.

No but seriously, I never know what to make of this. Okay, I guess it tends to fight the stereotype the media has of Republicans. That's good.

On the other hand, it does so by validating the liberal media's criteria of valuation. Pretty is good.

Plus, I hate guys showing off their abs. It's vulgar. That's why I don't do it. In fact, I find it so vulgar I have taken great precautions to make sure I never cross this line, such as dilligently encasing my rippling abs in a protective slab of Modesty Fat.

I expect the Moronettes will disagree with my take on Shock.

On the other hand, there's Meghan McCain, who really, really, really wants you to know she's not that kind of Republican.

Like shock, she bares some skin for "a good cause," ego, but also with the back-up cause of public awareness. He poses to publicize a get fit campaign (I won't be joining that; if anything, I need to add layers to the Modesty Fat, because the abs are always threatening to ripple and sheen in a provocative manner), she poses to raise awareness of skin cancer.

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Posted by: Ace at 11:18 AM | Comments (283)
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A modest proposal. The nine-page sales brochure for the plan is here.

The "don't touch Medicare" is both a big plus and a big minus. We have two deficits in this country, both growing, both exacerbating the other, because there's only so much you can borrow.

The first deficit is our current operating budget. This is the deficit Toomey wants to cut.

The second deficit is our rapidly-growing gap between entitlement pay-outs and entitlement take-ins. Not only is health care becoming more and more expensive -- it costs more now than it was ever projected to, when the older people were paying taxes into it in their younger years -- but demographically, there simply are a whole lot of aging Baby Boomers and a comparatively small number of Gen Xers, Gen Yers, and Gen Zers.

Toomey's plan is to ignore that deficit and kick the can down the road.

The trouble with that is that can has been kicked down the road for 30 years and now we're actually very near the end of the road.

The good thing about this is that politically, kicking the can down the road has always been wildly popular. That's why we've done it for 30 years. Every year the country has chosen the action-adventure roller-coaster thrill ride of the Summer -- Kicking The Can Down The Road: Part 22: The Revenge.

While we talk up the Ryan plan, and it's good to talk up, there is actually no chance whatsoever it can be passed with any sort of Democratic input into government. I don't even think we can do it in 2012, assuming we capture the presidency and the Senate too, because the Democrats can still filibuster.

I'm conflicted on this because while I think the Ryan plan is a good one, the fact of the matter is, I do not know under what circumstances it could possibly actually be enacted into law. I do not see the route by which it goes from a plan to a law.

We seem to have little chance of actually passing it, and yet we get all the political downside of a seniors' revolt, even though, really, I don't even think this could happen (and wouldn't effect seniors anyway, but they seem to be suspicious of that, and seem to vote for the idea that "if we protect everyone, even those 55 and younger, then there's no chance they can come after us later -- those 55 and younger are a tripwire to protect current seniors").

On the other hand, there's Toomey's plan, which fails to deal with the problem, and invites a coming fiscal catastrophe. Which is... what the public seems to strongly desire.

Toomey's plan also includes something that I doubt could ever be enacted, at least not with Democrats' in possession of a filibuster -- he can get us a surplus by 2021, but only if we limit spending, almost immediately, to 18.5% of GDP. We're currently at 23%, and the most aggressive plans (apart from Toomey's or Rand Paul's) usually shoot for 20% or so. Going even further to 18.5% is almost as politically difficult as Medicare reform.

As Toomey says, his plan is not in competition with Ryan's. It's not an either/or. We can do Toomey's (or try to) and the later also pursue Ryan's.

The deficit is so enormous we need an All of the Above approach. All of it.

The trouble with "doing Ryan's later" is that we never actually do these things later. That's why we're in our current fix.

But politically, since we can't do any of this until 2012 at the earliest (and, alas, probably not even then), there is a certain sense in pushing Toomey's plan and downplaying Ryan's.

If you don't mind the "coming fiscal catastrophe" part of it.

Which, again, is incredibly popular. America really seems hot for this "coming fiscal catastrophe" thing.

Posted by: Ace at 10:26 AM | Comments (175)
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Trading in energy futures was halted briefly this afternoon as prices plunged on inventory data. Unexpectedly.

New York RBOB gasoline for June fell by more than 7 percent to hit a limit down in the contract, a move that sparked a 5-minute halt in trading across the energy complex midday Wednesday.

I won't hold my breath waiting for Obama to call on Eric Holder to investigate the cause of the speculators' losses. Because that's how it works in the real world, even though the left's caricature of the market is:

1) Speculate
2) ???
3) Profit!

Today's EIA data was bearish across the board as both crude and gasoline stocks generated a much larger build versus the consensus

Gasoline demand was down year-over-year as higher prices at the pump cut into demand ahead of the peak driving season. Given this, we believe crude and gasoline prices will likely have to correct further over the near-term to generate stronger demand and reduce inventories from current levels.

Now just hold on one damned minute.

You mean that supply and demand forces might have something to do with the price of gasoline? The deuce you say!

Oh, what the hell. Let's raise Big Oil's taxes anyway. To be fair.

Posted by: andy at 09:12 AM | Comments (163)
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So sayeth the country's Spin Machine in DC, regarding the question of whether information gathered by enhanced interrogation led to the kill of Usama bin Ladin.

A former counterintelligence head directly connected with interrogating al-Libbi and KSM says the information did lead to Usama bin Ladin.

A White House flack says that information did not directly lead to Usama bin Ladin.

Jose Rodriguez ran the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center from 2002 to 2005, the period when top al-Qaeda leaders Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and Abu Faraj al-Libbi were taken into custody and subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) at secret prisons overseas. KSM was subjected to waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other techniques. Al-Libbi was not waterboarded, but other EITs were used on him.

“Information provided by KSM and Abu Faraj al-Libbi about bin Laden’s courier was the lead information that eventually led to the location of [bin Laden’s] compound and the operation that led to his death,” Rodriguez tells TIME in his first public interview. Rodriguez was cleared of charges in the video-destruction investigation last year.

Rodriguez’s assertion drew criticism from the White House. “There is no way that information obtained by [EITs] was the decisive intelligence that led us directly to bin Laden,” says National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor. “It took years of collection and analysis from many different sources to develop the case that enabled us to identify this compound and reach a judgment that bin Laden was likely to be living there.”

Note the misleadingly off-topic nature of the denial. One man says the information led to bin Ladin; another man injects the qualifier "directly" into the discussion, and offers a denial of something Rodriguez didn't say.

Rodriguez didn't say the information led directly to Usama. What he's saying is that from the EIT's, the name of the courier was learned. And later, when the courier was finally found, that courier led to bin Ladin.

The flack adds the word "directly" to this statement, and then denies that it led directly there.

Liberals are fond of this technique of denying that which is not asserted, the denial resting upon a misleading speicific qualifier, and denying it in such a fashion as to suggest a broader denial, which the media happily repeats.

The fact is that Saddam Hussein offered bin Ladin sanctuary in Iraq. This is uncontrovertible. In the liberals'/media's telling, however, the key fact becomes "Usama bin Ladin never took sanctuary in Iraq."

Why no, he did not. He got a better offer from the Taliban. But we weren't talking about whose generous offer UBL decided to take; we were talking simply about whether Saddam had made the offer.

By endlessly repeating the part of it they want to repeat -- UBL didn't go to Iraq -- they create, with the media's assistance, the belief that Hussein never made the offer.

But he did.

Similarly, now they are going to go all-in on this "directly" denial.

It is true that if I buy a car, that car does not lead "directly" to, say, a road trip to another city. There are intervening decisions here, also critical. But the purchase of the car is necessary for the ultimate outcome of my going on a road trip.

Without the courier's name, there is no kill of UBL. That is the fact.

Cheap obfuscations of this fact by paid liars and reality-benders -- which is what spokesmen are -- does not change that fact.

Posted by: Ace at 08:29 AM | Comments (140)
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Spiking the ball is bad, Victory Laps are good, Jonah Goldberg on Obama's inability or unwillingness to keep his damn mouth shut.

ItÂ’s a bit like racing to the microphones to announce youÂ’ve stolen the other teamÂ’s playbook before youÂ’ve had a chance to use the information in the big game.

But that’s exactly what President Obama did. He raced to spill the beans. The man couldn’t even wait until morning. At just after 9:45 p.m., the White House communications director, Dan Pfeiffer, informed the media: “POTUS to address the nation tonight at 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time.”

The announcement came less than three hours after Obama had been informed that there was a “high probability” that bin Laden was dead and that the Navy SEAL helicopters had returned to Afghanistan.

In other words, it seems that the White House planned to crow as soon as possible. Why? Nobody IÂ’ve talked to can think of a reason that doesnÂ’t have to do with politics or hubris.

...Surely one more week of harmlessly searching hard drives while the public was kept in the dark wouldnÂ’t have been too great an additional burden. The White House would have still gotten their moment to preen and to ride their bump in the polls as far as they could. All they had to do is hold their tongues for a little while longer.

The only way to describe such questions is clearly...RACISM.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:09 AM | Comments (107)
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Remember when we started a war because we were afraid Gadaffi might slaughter civilians? Well, what do we do when the Syrians actually do it?

The Syrian army shelled residential areas in the country's third-largest city Wednesday, sending people fleeing for cover in a sharp escalation in the government's attempts to crush a popular revolt against President Bashar Assad's autocratic rule, according to activists and witnesses.

Heavy tank- and gunfire rocked at least three residential neighborhoods in the besieged city of Homs, which has seen some of the largest anti-government demonstrations during the seven-week-long uprising.

"There were loud explosions and gunfire from automatic rifles throughout the night and until this morning," a resident told The Associated Press by telephone, asking that his name not be used for fear of government reprisals. "The area is totally besieged. We are being shelled."

More than 750 people have been killed in a crackdown on the unrest and thousands of Syrians have been detained, with about 9,000 still in custody, said Ammar Qurabi, who heads the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria.

But fear not! Bill Richardson says some talk might be on the way!

Bill Richardson expects Obama admin to slowly ratchet up rhetoric against Syria but slowness due to lack of Mideast allies being anti-Assad

Well, I'm sure that has the Syrians shaking in their boots!

I'm not saying that a military campaign against Syria would be a great or even good idea at this point but it shows the fecklessness of the Obama administration. If you're going to talk about protecting civilians in Libya, why not Syria? Everything Obama said about Libya applies to Syria....

In the face of the world's condemnation, Gadhafi chose to escalate his attacks, launching a military campaign against the Libyan people. Innocent people were targeted for killing. Hospitals and ambulances were attacked. Journalists were arrested, sexually assaulted, and killed. Supplies of food and fuel were choked off. Water for hundreds of thousands of people in Misurata was shut off. Cities and towns were shelled, mosques were destroyed, and apartment buildings reduced to rubble. Military jets and helicopter gunships were unleashed upon people who had no means to defend themselves against assaults from the air.

Confronted by this brutal repression and a looming humanitarian crisis, I ordered warships into the Mediterranean. European allies declared their willingness to commit resources to stop the killing. The Libyan opposition and the Arab League appealed to the world to save lives in Libya. And so at my direction, America led an effort with our allies at the United Nations Security Council to pass a historic resolution that authorized a no-fly zone to stop the regime's attacks from the air, and further authorized all necessary measures to protect the Libyan people.

Ten days ago, having tried to end the violence without using force, the international community offered Gadhafi a final chance to stop his campaign of killing, or face the consequences. Rather than stand down, his forces continued their advance, bearing down on the city of Benghazi, home to nearly 700,000 men, women and children who sought their freedom from fear.

At this point, the United States and the world faced a choice. Gadhafi declared he would show "no mercy" to his own people. He compared them to rats, and threatened to go door to door to inflict punishment. In the past, we have seen him hang civilians in the streets, and kill over a thousand people in a single day. Now we saw regime forces on the outskirts of the city. We knew that if we wanted — if we waited one more day, Benghazi, a city nearly the size of Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.

It was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that happen. And so nine days ago, after consulting the bipartisan leadership of Congress, I authorized military action to stop the killing and enforce U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973.

Actually, there are two big differences between Libya and Syria.

The first is we have a far greater interest in seeing regime change in Syria than we ever did in Libya. Syria hosts and supports terrorists groups, has nuclear ambitions and is one of Iran's most important allies. Undoing that is worth the risk of instability that would follow.

Second, as Richardson points out above, there's no international interest in doing anything about Syria. That puts the lie to the idea that Obama created some great international coalition in Libya. He followed Sarkozy and Cameron into Libya and either can't get them to do anything about Syria or he's not really even trying.

Where's this great leadership? Where's the Obama charm that would get other countries to follow us? Syrians dying for their freedom don't even get a speech, just a paper statement a week after business hours on Fridays? "Leading from behind" looks not so much like leadership but a craven attempt to avoid responsibility at all costs.

I admit that just because we can't do everything, doesn't mean we should do nothing. We can't invade Iran or North Korea but that didn't mean we had to take a pass on Iraq. It's precisely because you have to pick your battles carefully that you can't make sweeping pronunciations like a lot of liberals did about some supposed "Responsibility to Protect" and you damn well better be sure when you do play the war card, it's for a vital interest.

Obama simply fails at all of this.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:39 AM | Comments (133)
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Slublog sends this story: Annuities come up short. As I told Slu: I think annuities suck even when interest rates are up. They are almost never a good idea.

Andy sends news that the Irish government, desperate for cash, is planning to levy a tax on pensions. I use the word "planning" because I seriously doubt the measure will be implemented -- the good Irish citizenry, used to decades of cradle-to-grave State welfare, will not stand for it. (Particularly when Ireland will not increase their low corporate tax-rate, in order to keep businesses from fleeing the Emerald Isle completely.)

PIMCO's Bill Gross: the world's greatest bond vigilante. When kids have nightmares, they dream of the boogeyman. When Teh Bernank has nightmares, he dreams of Bill Gross.

In case you forgot, that European sovereign debt crisis is still...well, a crisis. However bad our fiscal situation is here (and it's pretty damned bad), it's worse over there.

My theory has long been that QE2 mainly served as a way to export our inflation to China, and it seems to have worked a treat. (This is because the Yuan is pegged to the USD. Apparently the Chinese fear even worse inflation if they let the Yuan float.)

Via Insta--er, Ann Althouse guesting as Instapundit: more often than not, grad school is a lousy investment. If you're in a STEM field with good employment prospects it might make sense, but otherwise...nope.

The UK as an example of how to do "austerity"? I'm not so sure about that. The UK's financial straits are not as dire as those of, say, Spain, but they're far from healthy -- and it's not clear to me how well the Brits are going to manage this austerity program as a political matter. The Brits, like their European bretheren, are going to fight any substantial changes to their enormous welfare-state apparatus.

More on the 21st century version of class warfare: pension tension between the "haves" and the "have-nots". I agree only to the extent that the "have-nots" are pissed because they have to fund the pensions of the "haves" -- I don't think it's a class-warfare issue so much as a basic fairness issue. Uninvolved third parties (i.e., taxpayers) should not be put on the hook for making unsustainable pension promises good. (This goes for both public pensions and for private pensions "guaranteed" by the PBGC.)

Annals of the boned: Vista, CA is cutting back on some luxuries to save money. What luxuries, you ask? Oh, nonessential stuff like streetlights, ambulance service, stuff like that. Nothing major.

[UPDATE 1]: The Greeks protest recent austerity measures in the calm and dignified way they are admired for. (Another link from Kratos in the comments.)

[UPDATE 2]: Via Andy in the sidebar, investor Jim Rogers joins Bill Gross in shorting Uncle Sam. Geithner and Bernanke are not feeling the love here, people!
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Posted by: Monty at 05:03 AM | Comments (158)
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I expect the Obama DoJ to file suit before the month is out.

After hours of contentious and often emotional debate, the Texas House passed HB 12, the controversial "sanctuary cities" legislation, which would prohibit cities, counties and other governmental entities or special districts from adopting a policy that prevents law enforcement from asking persons lawfully detained or arrested if they are in the country legally. Entities not in compliance could risk losing state funds.

That, on top of a new voter id law, AND a budget that will likely be the second net cut in actual spending, from back to back legislative sessions, gives me some cause for cheer.

Meanwhile, the O continues his petty haranguing of the state he "hasn't given up on", refusing to grant Texas disaster relief status for wildfires that have been raging for two months now, and also his out of control EPA wresting control of permits for "greenhouse gas generators" from the state.

He's visiting by the way. Gave a "rousing" speech on immigration reform in El Paso yesterday, then came to Austin for a fundraiser. I sincerely hope he enjoyed his visit. Gov. Perry was invited to the El Paso DREAM Act party, he wisely took a pass on that now-famous Obama Paul Ryan-Sam Alito Presidential courtesy.

I predict it's the last time we'll see him here.

Commenter brak adds: "adios, mofo"

via MelissaTweets

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:25 AM | Comments (66)
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:04 AM | Comments (145)
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