A total, complete ban on cutesy suggestions that people should be killed. I've had this ban in effect forever but apparently some dumbasses just don't get it.

Any Secret Service agents monitoring this blog should check out this solid citizen, for example.

I'm serious, assholes. Take your assassination fantasies elsewhere.

You want to use my platform for your sick fantasies? Well, if you're going to make problems for me, I guess I'll just have to make problems for you.

Did that work out the way you thought, "Scenario Questioner"?

The old system of deleting these comments wasn't having the effect I wanted.

Now I'm going the other way.

You want to make a public death threat? Then be prepared to make a very public death threat.

Ready to stand behind your words, Chief? Ready to deal with some problems stemming from your comments?

Hope you are.

Posted by: Ace at 08:50 AM | Comments (364)
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This is one of the most important messages for us to repeat until people get it.

Liberals treat raising the debt limit as if, with the stroke of a pen, we can simply authorize ourselves to spend and spend and spend more money than we have.

That's not true.

An average citizen can, by connivance or dopey decisions by a credit card company, raise his own credit card limit or take new mortgages on his house; but just as with that average citizen, there may be very severe consequences later for living outside of one's means.

That is, there is the arbitrary, pen-stroke raising of the debt limit.

And then there is the real credit-worthiness of a person or entity like the US, which is determined by its debt-to-revenue ratio.

Our current debt-to-revenue ratio is, in economic terms, totally fucked.

The President and his allies in the media wish to pretend these credit rating warnings are only about the risk of default due to a failure to raise the debt limit.

They're not, as S&P makes clear:

A 50 percent likelihood that the U.S. will lose its top credit rating from Standard & PoorÂ’s even if Congress reaches agreement on raising the debt ceiling left markets little changed.

“I don’t know if anyone is taking the situation seriously at the moment,” said Marchel Alexandrovich, an economist at Jefferies International Ltd. in London. “It’s seen as a bit of a hollow threat.”

...

The U.S. will lose the AAA credit rating it has held since 1941 if New York-based S&P finds that a “credible solution” to the nation’s rising debt burden isn’t likely for the foreseeable future, the firm said yesterday. Borrowing will continue to rise unless a $4 trillion fiscal consolidation plan is agreed on, S&P said.

Let me propose the new narrative the GOP must press at every opportunity:

The President says he's trying to preserve our credit rating. He is not. Absent showing the markets some serious reforms that will put us on a sustainable path, our credit rating will be downgraded, not due to a debt-ceiling imposed default, but simply due to the fact we cannot pay the bills we are accumulating.

Over and over again we have to say The President's plan -- or non-plan -- is what leads to a downgrade. We're the ones trying to save our credit rating, and that can only happen when Washington brings its spending priorities in line with what the public is actually willing to pay for government.

They're not willing to pay 25% of GDP for government. They have been willing, historically, to pay 18-21%. We must bring spending to that level.

Anytime we try to spend more than that, we always do simply by borrowing from our children. And we have now maxed out the possible debt we can lay on our children, and we have followed that up with going to 90% of the max of what our grandchildren can pay.

We can borrow no more, and we have shown, as a country, we are willing to pay not much more. Ergo, spending must be reduced to a realistically sustainable level.

Our biggest creditor -- someone we should listen to, as they've been floating our loans for 20 years, and are now telling us they're wary of extending further credit -- are telling us to cool it on the spending. The Chinese warning was in fact almost entirely about the regular debt-service -- the vig we owe them -- but there's also this:

In China, Dagong Global Credit Rating, a Chinese rating agency that downgraded its assessment of the U.S. last November, said Thursday that it had placed that rating on a negative watch list, citing the declining solvency of the U.S. government, slow economic growth and high fiscal deficits.

Simply maxing out a new credit card -- the biggest one we've taken out yet, $2.5 trillion for just 18 months of living expenses! -- will not fix this problem. The problem can only be fixed by lifestyle changes.

Posted by: Ace at 08:23 AM | Comments (98)
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Over Fox Business. I only note this because even Fox Business refers to this as a "surprise" drop, non-ironically.

At what point does it cease to be a surprise?

Posted by: Ace at 07:47 AM | Comments (85)
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So Far... A live streaming feed at Fox.

He briefly mentioned trimming waste from Medicare, then went into the meat of his proposal -- "hundreds of billions" more in cuts to Defense, and increased revenues. He calls this "a balanced approach."

Also, he said he hopes Republicans "aren't just listening to lobbyists."

Once again restates that he is willing to cut Medicare, but not reform it. See, if you reform it, those cuts might wind up not being severe, as market forces bring down prices.

If you do it the way Obama and the liberals insist -- cuts without reform -- then those cuts are just plain cuts.

And he says he's doing this as a service.

Oh my God, he's taking credit for Bowles-Simpson, who said the same things the last 4 panels on the problem said, and then claims he supported it. He didn't. He called it an "interesting starting point for discussion" or some crap like that.

Claims he committed no error by not pushing Bowles-Simpson, because, he says, the American people are already sold on it, so this means it was good and right he spent six months playing golf and going on vacation and singing with Paul McCartney.

Is now claiming that entire problem of overspending is due to Bush -- tax cuts, Medicare drug benefit, two wars, recession.

Politically astute here in now claiming this is all easy to fix that requires no "radical" solutions. People like hearing they don't need to make tough decisions.

Continues vowing we don't need a balanced budget amendment. Also starts whining that we shouldn't do this as a "multiyear" process -- that is, he is insisting again we do one debt ceiling rise that gets us to 2013.

...

Here's a preview. These are Obama's prepared remarks from a July 11th presser...

And it is possible for us to construct a package that would be balanced, would share sacrifice, would involve both parties taking on their sacred cows, would involved some meaningful changes to Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid that would preserve the integrity of the programs and keep our sacred trust with our seniors...

And those were prepared remarks; he wasn't wining this. This was written for him.

First he uses the cliche "sacred cows" to indicate things that ought not be sacred at all. When he's talking about Republican sacred cows.

Then, in the same sentence, he proposes respecting his own sacred cow, and actually uses the word "sacred" to boot, in "sacred trust."

Caution: Genius at work.

Funny how the media doesn't call Obama on playing politics here. The media knows that America's solvency relies upon some reform to our entitlements -- as I keep saying, the media itself has been making this case for at least 20 years. This is a broken-clock-twice-a-day deal. They're right. What they've been saying for 20 years is right.

But now comes a machine pol whom they love, love, love and suddenly they've reversed their position on whether entitlements need to be reformed. Need? Well that's an awfully strong word, need...

The media acts as if Obama's making a big compromise by offering some small reforms in entitlements. (By the way, he always takes these offers back.)

Is he?

Is it really Obama giving up something critical when he floats the idea of entitlement reform? Is he really bending over backwards to accommodate Republicans with such noises?

Or is he actually fulfilling a campaign promise he made over and over again on the campaign trail?

Can Obama Actually Achieve Entitlement Reform?

...

As daunting as the obstacles to reform are, Obama is banking on a number of recent developments to allow him to succeed where Bush and Clinton failed.

That's from just one month into Obama's then not-yet-a-failure presidency, as he convened some kind of meeting to figure out how to fulfill his campaign promise to reform entitlement spending, and by "reform," we mean what we've meant for the 20 years: We mean "cut."

Obama made this promise, Media. You guys noted it yourself. You praised him for it.

And then, after praising him for this promise, you talked up how he could succeed in this where Clinton and Bush (idiots! numskulls!) had failed.

And now you're telling me the opposite? Now you're claiming that Obama always vowed to hold the line to the penny on entitlement spending (his current stance) and to give any on this represents a huge, huge concession to the GOP?

How about, no? How about this is and always was a non-partisan/bipartisan "GooGoo" (good government) venture? So it's not a concession at all by Obama, but rather the fulfillment of something he repeatedly promised to do, and, hell, even got some votes for promising to do?

Thanks to Hot Air for the opening quote from Althouse.

Below, video of the Washington Press Corps protecting Obama.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 06:54 AM | Comments (418)
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Chicks dig songwriters. The sensitive wordsmith type, you know. Quite appealing.
Plus, there's a chance you'll be the subject of the next My Sharona or Come On Eileen, which is supernifty.

Authorities say that when a Pennsylvania woman complained that her songwriter boyfriend [Jason Banks] had never written a song about her, he choked her and hit her in the face.

She was jealous because he had written songs about his previous girlfriends; Shut Up Diane, and I Don't Want To Hear Your Shit, Lisa.

Posted by: LauraW at 05:22 AM | Comments (264)
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FRIDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:00 AM | Comments (165)
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Since Cantor popped up in the news yesterday in a way that detracted from Obama... Today He Must Be Destroyed.

Look at the references to Cantor in this article - almost everyone is, at best, subtly negative.

more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:48 PM | Comments (156)
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Final Images

Okay most people can probably recognize the opening scenes of well-known movies. But can you recognize movies by their final image?

Well test yourself with these and others here.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:01 PM | Comments (804)
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First up, some conservative entertainment, if you consider perversion and mutilation and murder conservative, and I have it on good authority from the media that it is.

This film is a low-budget independent thing done by a friend of the site. A long time ago I mused that the Grand Guignol theater might be a good setting for a horror movie, and I guess I wasn't alone in this idea.

Called Theater Bizarre, it's getting some attention, including from Film Threat. One of the segments -- it's a horror anthology movie, with multiple stories, like Creepshow or the old Trilogy of Terror -- was directed by Hobo With A Shotgun's DP, so there's some more AoS Lifestyle linkage.

I'm linking the trailer but I have to re-warn with a very special Ultra Gore Macabre Content Horrific Imagery Just Plain Awfulness NSFW Warning. Seriously, this is not for anyone who's not into this kind of thing.

Now comes The Thing prequel, also called... The Thing. I don't know, looks a little bit exactly like the first one, except now we have two chicks and a bunch of Norwegians in it. I sort of like the chick, but I don't think chicks belong in a Thing movie. The first one was notable for not having chicks, and better for it: A bunch of men alone in the cold, with no women, subtracted virtually everything light and sexual and human from the situation, and made it into pure animal survival.

The chick in the MacReady role actually co-starred with Kurt Russell in an underrated but great kid's movie.

I was underwhelmed when I heard they were doing a prequel and still am.

I know this should get some people interested -- John Carter of Mars, but just called John Carter, I guess because People hate Mars.

I dunno about that one, either. Not as barbaric and swords & laser-ish as I was expecting. Seems a little plodding. Did they want "plodding" in the trailer?

Oh, and did you guys know they're rebooting Spiderman just like eight years after it was booted? So another origin story. No trailer, but there are pictures.

Spiderman has a new costume. The problem with the old one? Not gay enough.

H/t to Norm MacDonald for that joke.

And more geek stuff at Geek Week Online. Including new Hobbit pictures, of the dwarves.*

* I know this sentence sucks; you try writing it. "Including new dwarf pictures from The Hobbit." Including new hobbit dwarf pictures. See? It's a problem.

Posted by: Ace at 02:41 PM | Comments (271)
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Sometimes hilarious, sometimes frightening examples of how bad taxidermy turns familiar shapes into nightmare fuel. A few of my favorites follow.

Posted by: Ace at 02:26 PM | Comments (102)
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