Happy New Years Eve All!

Put on the hat, grab a party cup and come on inside.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:36 PM | Comments (1062)
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Sponsored by that company. Which had terrrific numbers in 2012 in year over year same store sales so suckit, haters.

LSU ( and Clemson (14). 7:30 EST.

Happy New Years you bunch of morons.

BONUS video of LSU cheerleader getting thrown in the air. Made me dizzy.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:04 PM | Comments (342)
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Big fan of unchecked power and tyranny, I guess. This isn't surprising. Certain soft minds have a natural attraction to Strong Men on White Horses.

If we acknowledged what should be obvious — that much constitutional language is broad enough to encompass an almost infinitely wide range of positions — we might have a very different attitude about the obligation to obey. It would become apparent that people who disagree with us about the Constitution are not violating a sacred text or our core commitments. Instead, we are all invoking a common vocabulary to express aspirations that, at the broadest level, everyone can embrace. Of course, that does not mean that people agree at the ground level. If we are not to abandon constitutionalism entirely, then we might at least understand it as a place for discussion, a demand that we make a good-faith effort to understand the views of others, rather than as a tool to force others to give up their moral and political judgments.

If even this change is impossible, perhaps the dream of a country ruled by “We the people” is impossibly utopian. If so, we have to give up on the claim that we are a self-governing people who can settle our disagreements through mature and tolerant debate. But before abandoning our heritage of self-government, we ought to try extricating ourselves from constitutional bondage so that we can give real freedom a chance.

Posted by: Ace at 01:33 PM | Comments (417)
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Your offer is accepted without reservation.

Deport me? If America won't change its crazy gun laws... I may deport myself says PIERS MORGAN

By Piers Morgan

I have fired guns only once in my life, on a stag party to the Czech capital Prague a few years ago when part of the itinerary included a trip to an indoor shooting range. For three hours, our group were let loose on everything from Magnum 45 handguns and Glock pistols, to high-powered ‘sniper’ rifles and pump-action shotguns.

It was controlled, legal, safe and undeniably exciting. But it also showed me, quite demonstrably, that guns are killing machines.

...

The Sandy Hook massacre brought back such horribly vivid memories for me of Dunblane, the worst mass shooting in Britain in my lifetime.

I was editor of the Daily Mirror on that day back in 1996 and will never forget the appalling TV footage of those poor Scottish mothers sprinting to the small primary school, many already howling with anguish at the thought of what might have happened to their five-year-old children.

It was a slaughter so senseless, so unspeakable, that it reduced even hard-bitten news reporters, including me, to tears.

Note that Piers says Dunblane was the worst mass shooting of his lifetime. He doesn't mention the second worse. We'll get to that.

In 1996, Britain had much more restrictive gun laws than America had -- and yet the Dunblane massacre still happened. The killer shot and killed 16 children, armed with four handguns.

That resulted in even tighter gun laws that "effectively" made any possession of a handgun illegal in Britain.

So, did the tightened gun laws stop mass shootings in the UK?

Nope. In 2010, with the de facto ban on all handguns now in place, a man killed 11 and shot 12 more in Cumbria.

And in October 2012 a maniac killed one and shot 13 in Cardiff. Where they film all those Doctor Who episodes with "guns are bad" messaging.

Piers wants to talk about Dunblane, the massacre that happened before Britain had its draconian gun laws (but they were still pretty draconian then, too!); he doesn't want to talk about the massacres which have happened even under the total prohibition against handguns.

And from this record of the efficacy of stopping mass shootings by banning guns -- first almost every gun, then, literally, every gun -- Piers Morgan deduces "America must follow Britain's lead"... so that we may experience a mass shooting at approximately the same rate as Britain.

Posted by: Ace at 12:31 PM | Comments (297)
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Hypocrisy?

I saw this video last week but wasn't sure what to make of it. The short film here, ridiculing celebrities for pronouncing on gun control while romanticizing gun violence in movies, seemed to be making the same mistake the celebrities were.

That problem is precrime.

I think our society -- any society -- goes off the rails badly when it stops criminalizing criminal acts and instead dabbles in a precrime regime, seeking to criminalize non-blameworthy behavior on the theory that such behavior, while not harmful to others directly, is indirectly harmful, or is a "root cause" of the ultimately blameworthy behavior.

Making murder by gun a crime is perfectly reasonable. So is making it an extra felony to carry a gun during the commission of a crime.

But actually just owning a gun?

The theory these Big Thinkers work under is that "the crime couldn't happen but for the gun," so they want to eliminate the gun, and not just remove it from the criminal's hand, but to remove it generally, from existence.

But this is a horrible response for two reasons: First, criminals are defined as ignoring the law generally so they really don't care if you make a gun illegal. In the case of the Newtown shooter, the criminal was not deterred by the law that you are forbidden to murder your mother and steal her guns, for example.

Second: And in your attempt to make it slightly more difficult for a small pool of persons to get a gun, you're taking away guns -- and basic rights -- from millions and millions of law-abiding Americans.

People often criticize Hollywood, too, for celebrating gun violence -- and thus, the theory goes, making it more likely that some lonely, unloved loser will see The Gun (capital letters intended) as a totem, as a Symbol, as a vehicle for giving him power over others which he doesn't otherwise have.

That's actually... true. And yet I still flinch from the idea of taking away another Amendment right (the first, of course) simply because of the indirect and tenuous link that violent, gun-crazy movies might have on a violent, gun-crazy viewer.

Some things may in fact be indirect contributing factors to an ultimate harm, but we do not generally criminalize indirect contributing factors for a simple reason: Virtually everything we do that is not useful work, sex for reproductive purposes, childraising, and church-going is an indirect contributing factor to some social or criminal evil.

Alcohol causes a great deal of violence and death that probably wouldn't happen in its absence -- drunk driving deaths, the hand that balls into a fist and strikes the head in a flare of vodka-fueled anger, the gun that sneaks out from a pocket in an inebriated fury.

Shall we ban that?

No. All these things are PreCrime.

There is a sad fact that most people don't seem to appreciate, or wish to even credit as a fact: Most heinous crimes are punished retrospectively, after the carnage. Only a minority are stopped beforehand, and that can only happen if the criminal (or would-be) criminal is under intense surveillance before his intended crime. An intense surveillance our society has not yet -- thankfully -- extended beyond a few thousand known terrorists or known mafiosi.

So people start dreaming up ways in which we could have avoided the carnage -- they start thinking Precrime. If we just had criminalized this or that behavior...

So as I thought about it more I started thinking this video was in fact fair, and not a mistake. If these celebrities want to install Precrime laws criminalizing otherwise-lawful activities on the notion that We Must Do Everything Possible to stop all contributing factors to killings... They should take a look at themselves.

They certainly have done an awful lot of PR work for the Gun as Totem Bestowing Power on the Impotent. They've depicted the gun -- unrealistically, fantastically -- as a Magic Wand that grants its owner the heroic ability to Win and Impose His Will on Any Situation.

And that belief is just as necessary to the mass killing of six year old children as the gun itself. Normal people do not murder 20 children.

It wasn't only the gun that was needed for this killing; it was also the psychological state of believing in The Gun as an agent of Power and Deliverance.

And that came from Hollywood.

Now I wouldn't indulge in either of these awful and stupid precrime measures. I would not repeal the First Amendment just as I wouldn't repeal the Second.

But if Hollywood's calling for one precrime prohibition, it is duty-bound to call for the other as well.

After all -- the children. The children that they were responsible for killing.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:27 AM | Comments (344)
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Here is the outline, as I understand it.

Rates on the rich will increase, but only above the $400,000 threshold, rather than the $250,000 threshold so beloved by Obama. But the tax cut for those making less than $400,000 would be permanent -- no sunsetting, no expiration date.

However, some exceptions and deductions will be lost for those making more than $300,000 (jointly) or $250,000 (singly):

Under the proposed accord being hammered out by Biden and McConnell, households earning less than that would largely escape higher income tax bills, though couples earning more than $300,000 a year and individuals earning more than $250,000 would lose part of the value of their exemptions and itemized deductions, under the terms of the emerging agreement.

The estate tax rises from 35 to 40%, but the $5 million exclusion (the first five million isn't subject to tax) remains.

You'll be happy to know we've agreed to keep spending an awful lot of money. Republicans spin this, saying they've gotten a permanent good in exchange for a temporary bad, but we never get around to spending, do we?

Low-income households would also benefit from a five-year extension of credits for college tuition and the working poor first enacted as part of ObamaÂ’s stimulus package in 2009. And businesses would see a variety of popular tax breaks extended, including a credit for research and development.

...

The two sides also appeared to have reached consensus on unemployment benefits, with Republicans acceding to Democratic demands to keep benefits flowing to the long-term unemployed for another year. Medicare payments would not be cut for doctors next year, and the cost of preserving those programs would not be offset with other spending cuts

There are no damn cuts in the agreement. The agreement isn't quite struck yet, as the sides are hung up on what to do about the automatic sequester -- Republicans want to delay that for three months, in order to revisit spending issues later without, I guess, the supercharged atmosphere of the current negotiations. Democrats want the cuts delayed until after the 2014 election (to 2015).

Sabotage? The liberals apparently hate this deal, so Obama larded his 1:30 speech with attacks against them, possibly to provoke them into walking away from a deal he's finding politically tough. (The liberals are incensed that the $250,000 threshold was moved.)

Obama: "If Republicans think I will finish the job of deficit reduction through spending cuts alone Â… then they've got another thing coming"

Others call the "speech" a "political rally" and "tone-deaf."

Republicans are apparently reacting angrily, but who knows if they'll walk away.

ATM Fix Permanent? The current plan is to fix the ATM -- permanently.

And nearly 30 million households would be protected from paying the costly alternative minimum tax for the first time — either on their 2012 tax returns or at any time in the future. The developing agreement calls for a permanent fix."

Is There Any Hope? Soothsayerwing Plover has an idea:

emember that ROBERT PALMER video with all those hot looking CLONE MODELS behind him?

that's what Boehner should do

Posted by: Ace at 10:28 AM | Comments (323)
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President Obama's scheduled to speak at 1:30pm Eastern. It's possible we can get a sense of how much our alleged GOP "leadership" is going to cave then.

Feel free to make your predictions in the comments. A one-year subscription to AoSHQ Premium goes to the winner.

Posted by: andy at 09:12 AM | Comments (475)
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Obama will have to respond now

Seriously, what better "jobs program" could you have than a Deathstar? In less dramatic news, the Chinese are building a heavy transport akin to the C-17. Its something they'll need to support their African economic push.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:32 AM | Comments (397)
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• Journal News Hacks Memory Hole Twitter Accounts
  
• Oops, Der Spiegel Publishes George HW Bush Obit
  
• Gun Control Fails Says Statistics From Gun Control Advocates
  
• Tom Friedman Opinion Editorial Generator
  
• Video Mocking Hollywood's Demand A Plan Video(autoplay)
  
• Muslim Brotherhood To Egyptian Jews: Come Back. Admiral Ackbar Could Not Be Reached For Comment
  
• As Assad Quakes On His Throne, Is Iran Ready To Deal?
  
• Obama Promises Gun Grab Bill In 2013
  
• Brace For An Avalance Of Unfunded Debt
  
• Liberal Author: Why Is Obama Caving On Taxes?
  
• In A Surprise To No One, Pat Buchanan Backs Chuck Hagel For SecDef
  
• Peggy Noonan Pretty Excited About This George Will Speech
  
• Sentimentalizing Serial Murder
  
• There's A New Bhutto In Town
  
• Is Manchin's CALM Worth Consideration?
  
• Pentagon To "Temporarily" Fire 800,000 If No Cliff Deal
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:55 AM | Comments (624)
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Happy Monday.

Over the weekend you may have heard something about "chained CPI" and social security benefits. Chained CPI (consumer price index) is an inflation index, one that many folks on both the right and the left have advocated for, both because it is more accurate and because it would reduce the growth in Social Security payments a bit.

Chained CPI came up over the weekend because Democrats lost their leverage. Until this weekend, the Democrats, with the help of their media allies, had portrayed the major stumbling block to a fiscal cliff deal as Republican intransigence on tax hikes for the wealthy. That ended this weekend because Senate negotiators were openly shooting for about a $400,000 threshold for the Bush tax cuts to expire.

In other words, the so-called major stumbling block to a deal was gone and Democrats were worried that the Republicans were starting to look a little "reasonable" to the American public. They hurriedly turned to the old Democratic playbook and came up with a new plan: tell the media that the Republicans were trying to take away Grandma's Social Security.

Here's the thing: although many Senate Republicans would vote for a switch to chained CPI, it wasn't a dealbreaker for their fiscal cliff offer. It wasn't a stumbling block at all. Democrats merely claimed that Republicans were refusing to budge on this "controversial" proposal (which in the past had been supported by many Democrats, including President Obama) and the lapdogs in the media faithfully reported that.

And that's how the Democrats kept their leverage over the weekend. Instead of reporting that a deal was in sight, the media reported that the big bad Republicans were holding middle class tax cuts hostage to cutting Grandma's Social Security.

So the media got played, the American people got rolled. Nothing new there. The only reason it got my attention at all was because it wasn't just the media that took this bait. So too did many conservative commentators.

Aghast that the Senate Republicans would fold on chained CPI (even though it hadn't been part of their program), conservatives had harsh words for Republicans and Republican leadership in the Senate. How dare these Senators, the conservative commentators said, not consider the rejected House plan of Speaker Boehner to be a baseline for any Republican fiscal cliff offer?

Well, obviously the Senators dared because Speaker Boehner's plan was rejected by the House. It, and the things it contained like a switch to chained CPI, cannot serve as a baseline for the Senate Republican negotiation because not even Republicans could pass it. If conservatives had wanted Speaker Boehner's plan, with its $1 million tax cut expiration threshold and its permanent AMT and death tax fixes and its chained CPI to serve as the foundation for Republican negotiations, they probably should have voted for it.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:58 AM | Comments (226)
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