Mm-hm.

During an interview with Noticias Univision 23, the networkÂ’s Miami affiliate newscast, Obama pushed back against the accusation made in some corners of south FloridaÂ’s Cuban-American and Venezuelan communities that he wants to instill a socialist economic system in the U.S. The president said he believes few actually believe that.

“I don’t know that there are a lot of Cubans or Venezuelans, Americans who believe that,” Obama said. “The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican.”

Posted by: Ace at 08:02 AM | Comments (157)
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There are no words.

A shooting at a Connecticut elementary school this morning prompted the town of Newtown to lock down all of its schools and drew SWAT teams to the school, authorities said today.

A gunman has been killed and at least one other person has been shot, authorities told ABC News.

The shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, about 12 miles east of Danbury.

State Police received the first 911 call at 9:41a.m. and immediately began sending emergency units from the western part of the state.

A photo from the scene shows a line of distressed children being led out of the school.

If you're wondering if this will be politicized. Yeah.

Shooting at CT elementary school. Obviously, we need to lower the age limit for concealed carry so toddlers can defend themselves.

— davidfrum (@davidfrum) December 14, 2012

What an assclown this guy is.

It Could Have Been Worse [ace]: Drew wrote:

I'm glad @davidfrum's first reaction to an injured child is an attempt (a poor one at that) to score political points.

But he can do worse. @davidfrum's first reaction to Crowder's beatng was to self-plug for his book which almost no one read or liked, Patriots:

Falsified fight video on Fox? http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/12/selective-editing-by-fox-news-contributor-revealed-by-fox-news/ Â… Life again imitates Patriots.

So let's praise him for his restraint in the shooting situation? He might have said something like "This is a tragedy rivaling even my unconscionable firing from AEI" or something.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:28 AM | Comments (307)
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• Barbara Walters Asks Hillary If She's Too Fat To Be President
  
• The Swift Boaters Will Probably Be After Him
  
• Send Us Hagel And We'll Make Sure Every American Knows He's An Anti-Semite
  
• That's Crazy: Psychiatrists Making Millions In California
  
• Tommy Christopher Is Pathetic, In Case You Had Forgotten
  
• Averting The Teacher Pension Crisis
  
• Albania's Abstention On The Palestine UN Vote And The Islamist Response
  
• Queen Hillary And Her Courtiers
  
• BTW, The GOP Just Took Control Of Washtington's state Senate
  
• Reddish Behavior In Blueish States
  
• How Republicans Engineered A Blow To Michigan Unions
  
• Only 15 States Opt To Run Obamacare Exchanges
  
• Russia Reveals Its Weakness In Syria
  
• Leahy Wants Clarification On State Marijuana Laws
  
• Depardieu Puts Paris House On The Market
  
• Labor's Sore Losers
  
• Turkey Backs The Kurds..In Iraq
  
• Laura Ingraham Returns To Radio
  
• Loud Commercials Have Officially Been Banned
  
• Shockingly Few Pakistanis, Political Elites Pay Taxes
  
• Roommate Killed Over Pork Chop

  If you do you holiday shopping on Amazon, please be sure to buy your products through the AoSHQ Amazon store. You can either click the link or use the widget on the upper right side of the blog.

  
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  Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:02 AM | Comments (408)
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Happy Friday!

Gov. Bobby Jindal's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal is going to get a lot of attention today, so we might as well start with that. The governor is proposing that birth control be available over-the-counter with out a prescription to adults. Read the whole thing. (If that link stops working, google "bobby jindal birth control" and click the WSJ link.)

It seems like Gov. Jindal's reasoning comes in two flavors and I agree with both. First, and he starts with this, it is politically better to be in favor of this sort of thing because it will make the GOP look less like the mutant-creep-Akin party. Second, as a practical matter, there is simply no reason, medical or moral, that oral contraceptives should require a doctors visit. He lists some policy aberrations that result from the current situation, including that it's possible to get the morning-after pill without a prescription, but not birth control.

Anyway, you're going to see some discussion of the op-ed today, so I thought I'd put it on your radar. I wonder if Sen. Santorum has a position on it and if he'll be aggressive enough to state it publicly. This is, after all, Gov. Jindal's opening salvo in his 2016 run for the White House. For that purpose, it is well-chosen. No matter what the economy or foreign policy or federal spending looks like in 2016, you can take it to the bank that cultural issues like binders and birth control will be part of the 2016 contest.

In other drug news, President Obama says enforcement of federal marijuana laws against users of weed in states where it is legal is not a "top priority" of his Administration. Sure, but he said the same thing about medical marijuana four years ago and AG Holder just spent those four years raiding and shutting down dispensaries.

And one more drug link, Reason's Mike Riggs takes Politifact to task for shoddy ratings on Obama's drug policy promises. People, even supposedly research-based fact-checkers, really are just kidding themselves when they claim to know what Obama is about.

Another Senator breaks ranks, says GOP should give in on the middle class tax rates, let the upper rates revert to their pre-Bush levels, and revisit the issue later. It's North Carolina Senator Richard Burr.

NASA is so confident the world isn't going to end on December 21, that they put together a video gloating about it and debunking the various permutations of the Mayan calendar myth. Clearly meant for release on December 22 (it begins, "December 22, 2012. If you're watching this video, it means one thing. The world didn't end yesterday."), it seems to me they're being a bit premature. Maybe they just wanted people to see their nifty video before it all ends. Watch:

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:50 AM | Comments (420)
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How Emotional Are Countries?

Well a recent international Gallup poll attempted to answer this question.

The least emotional country in the world (at least according to self-reports) is Singapore - where only 36% of Singaporeans reported feeling any positive or negative emotions on a daily basis.

The Philippines, El Salvador and Bahrain were the most emotional countries with a large majority of the population experiencing emotions every day.

But having emotions doesn't mean they're necessarily fun ones or that they bring happiness:

In the Philippines - which ranked as the world's most emotional society, followed by El Salvador and Bahrain - analysts were quick to point out that being emotional doesn't necessarily equate with being happy. One reporter at GMA News stressed that the nation ranked 103rd out of 155 countries in the 2012 World Happiness Report - and that its 95 million inhabitants are said to be the most depressed in all of south-east Asia.

In fact the Danes are considered rather cool and unemotional yet have the highest consistent  levels of happiness in the world:

Danes have more subdued, but more consistent, levels of positive affect as compared to Americans (Biswas-Diener et al., 2010). Although there should be little to no difference cross-culturally on intrinsic personality types such as introversion or extroversion, personality traits such as optimism and self-esteem are usually a product of one's environment, upbringing , and social groups.

There is little data on personality types of Danes; however, there exists data that suggests that Danes report more moderate changes in mood than people in the U.S. This could suggest a different, less emotional personality type for Danish people compared to Americans.

And how are Americans different? Well we go to 11... and sometimes -1:

In the U.S., people feel stronger feelings of positive emotions and have higher positive and the corresponding negative affect. I believe that this a contributing factor to higher levels of unhappiness.

Due to this, it seems that people from the U.S. are much more prone to having more peak experiences-more intense feelings of joy and excitement as well as anger and excitement.

Well I like to consider this just a side-effect of us having a bit too much joie de vive in our bloodstream which tends to convert over into a certain exuberant restlessness. Alcohol, boredom, and open spaces seem to help this process along.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:31 PM | Comments (757)
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This is a joke, I don't know if it's funny or I just think it's funny.

I was talking about Jim Rome and his idiotic branding as an edgy "Bad Boy" of talk radio. Come on, "edgy Bad Boys" don't get bitch-slapped this easily.

So this sort of dumb branding is so obvious and common. We see the attempt to claim the mantle of the "dark, edgy" X of Y all the time.

Like Chriss Angel, Mindfreak. So Jim Rome's media strategy is to position himself as the Chriss Angel of sports talk.

And this can be widely applied. Like, Vampire: The Masquerade is the Chriss Angel of Dungeons and Dragons.

This blog, I have to admit, is the Chriss Angel of conservative blogs. I don't like admitting that, but whatever.

You can have fun with this formula, too: Like, Dick York was the Chriss Angel of Actors Playing Darren on Bewitched.

Or, the Toucan is the Chriss Angel of Angry Birds.

The Chriss Angel of Dwarves in The Hobbit...? Bombur.

Not sure if this is something. Let me know.

Update: Opinions seem to vary between "no, it's not something" and "maybe it was something five years ago" and "it's barely something but mostly nothing."

No one even seems to like the Toucan or Bombur jokes.

Posted by: Ace at 02:55 PM | Comments (522)
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I mean, he's marrying a white woman, there are Rumors he might be a Republican... He just doesn't seem authentically black, not a real brother, not "on our side." This racial miscegenation business is very troubling, I tell you.

Next up on ESPN: Not Rush Limbaugh.

Posted by: Ace at 02:07 PM | Comments (369)
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Andrea Mitchell immediately said that this hurts Republicans, to have forced out a Person of Lying About Terrorism Victims. Other Persons of Lying About Terrorism Victims, you see, will be angry. This further solidifies the impression that Persons of Lying About Terrorism Victims can't get a fair shake from the GOP.

Mitchell really did say that, but about Persons of Color, of course. As if that's the reason for objecting to Rice.

If Obama really wanted a female Person of Color as Secretary of State, he shouldn't have terminated her career by putting her out there to Lie On His Behalf. And Hillary Clinton, too, apparently refused this odious duty.

But let's not blame them, or Rice, for Rice's lies. Let's blame Republicans.

So, here will be the nominees: John F. Kerry for State. Which isn't as bad as Obama's original idea, to make him Secretary of Defense.

And Chuck Hegel for Defense.

Both awful, of course, but we have an awful President, and we are set to have four more awful years.

Two More Points: 1, Rice didn't make this decision, Obama did, and 2, it was made to avoid her answering more questions about the Massive Lies she told the public.

Posted by: Ace at 01:09 PM | Comments (194)
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And Twitchy.

Soothsayer's giving me grief about not saying more about the unions. Maybe it's because he doesn't read Twitter, so he's not where I am. Where I am, having beat the Pat Moran story and the union story to death on two different platforms, personally, I'm talked out of it.

Plus, learned futility has kicked in. It's pretty clear that Anderson Cooper, [name redacted], and the rest of the media are simply in the bag for the Democratic party and cannot be shamed or embarrassed out of this position. They are now comfortable with it; they have tried on Open Partisanship and like the way it looks on them.

As usual they will not even address a question from a conservative blogger about why they embargo, yet again, a story that embarrasses Democrats. Oddly enough, though, they will approvingly cite leftwing blogs for arguments which justify their embargo. (They won't call them leftwing blogs, though-- they're just blogs.)

The New York Times, for example, reports that Steven Crowder "selectively edited" his video because I Read It On A Blog (TM).

Although I got into it with Soothsayer, let me be clear about this: I now understand that it is completely futile to note the extreme and blatant partisanship of the allegedly "mainstream" media because they have consciously embraced this partisan mantle. They have decided that their personal political preferences are more important than abstract notions of professionalism (the only thing they care about is the appearance of professionalism -- they will cite leftwing blogs as "objective evidence" for their partisanship, but try to keep the veneer that they're just "reportin' news").

So this is where I'm at: While I used to think there was some value in criticizing or shaming the media, I am now certain that there is no value in it, because they are shameless, have decided that they will carry the water for the Democratic Party with no more cover than the simple assertion that they're not.

"No I'm not" will be the sum and entirety of their objectivity. They just won't address charges that they're biased, they'll just ignore them, and when forced to defend their bias, they'll just say "No I'm not." And that's it.

So this game which I used to play because it seemed winnable no longer seems that way. They have simply decided that they are the DNC's Media Arm. They're not saying so, bu they've decided that. And it is as futile to ask the media why they're not covering the Jim Moran matter, or the union thuggery matter, as it would be to ask the DNC itself.

It would be absurd to ask the DNC-- pointless. It would be pointless to call them politically biased -- of course the DNC is politically biased. And it's the exact same with the media.

I'm not just throwing up random ideas when I say that this current model is futile and pointless and we have to radically rethink our media, and rebuild it from the ground up. It's what I believe.

The media has a perfect defense to criticism-- they simply ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist. And because they control the streams of information and opinion, their embargo actually makes the criticism cease to exist.

We cannot argue with them. They are now simply card-carrying Democratic operatives who hide their cards. They know it, we know it. As they are no longer even pretending (except to say "No I'm not") they know there's no fruitful reason to even pretend they give a shit about the charge of bias.

We really, really do simply have to create our own media. Period. That's it. There is no other option. I can write a dozen posts and a thousand tweets but there's no way ABCNews carries any story that doesn't benefit the DNC and Obama.

If you want to do something, Boycott NBC, which is already on the ropes and can't stand much of a push before it collapses.

But we can't even do that so what's the point?

Leaving only the option to simply create another media.

The Hand and Glove Operation of The Supposedly Objective Media and Leftwing Blogs: The media now exists to advance the Democratic agenda and suppress stories that complicate that agenda.

Leftwing blogs, on the other hand, exist to argue that the media (supposedly politically neutral, remember) did the right thing in that reportage and non-reportage.

Why, the New York Times will even link you if you write up a useful explanation for Why the NYT Didn't Report The News.

Now, the leftwing blogs have simply gone into Defend the Media mode, so the media no longer bothers defending itself. They'll figure out their reasons for embargoing a story after Kos explains it to them.

So they're no longer even entertaining a dialogue, or pretending to have any professional interest in objectivity. The defense of the media's partisan choices has been subcontracted out to ProgGrrrl85 or whoever.

Posted by: Ace at 12:16 PM | Comments (349)
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In related news...get ready to say hello to Secretary of State John "Global Test" Kerry.

Aww.

In a letter to Obama, Rice said she was convinced her nomination process would be "lengthy, disruptive and costly"

Does this hurt Chuck Hagel's chance to become Secretary of Defense? Diversity and all?

If so, Obama could name Michele Flournoy as the first woman to head the DoD. Honestly, it sounds like Obama could do worse, so he probably will.

As far as Rice goes...she did Obama's biding by reading the talking points on Benghazi on the Sunday shows. Funny thing...she wasn't responsible for the Benghazi security situation or the intelligence about the attack. Those were the responsibility of one Hillary Clinton. She "accepted" responsibility for the lapses from South America but didn't become the face of the cover-up. Rice, who Hillary wasn't a fan of to say the least, loses State and Hillary gets glowing farewells. Moral of the story...do not mess with Hillary Clinton.

Posted by: DrewM at 12:04 PM | Comments (144)
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