I'm at the FreedomWorks- and Franklin Center-sponsored BlogConCLT this weekend and just saw a fantastic video by Matthias Shapiro visualizing what Obama has done to the national debt.

Watch this. Tell your friends.

Also, he's a good follow on twitter.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:02 AM | Comments (137)
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UPDATED 11:11AM Zimmerman was granted $150,000 bail with GPS and electronic monitoring.

This gave the most in-depth look we've had at the prosecution's case so far. It does not look strong at all.

OLD: LIVESTREAM AVAILABLE: Courtesy Slublog, the livestream of the bond hearing.

A little late for this, but George Zimmerman's bond hearing is going on right now. (Some background here.) The question at these things is whether the defendant would be either a danger to the community or a flight risk. Zimmerman, clearly, is neither.

His attorney, Mark OÂ’Mara, is expected to argue for bond for Zimmerman -- who has spent the past nine days as an inmate in Seminole CountyÂ’s John E. Polk Correctional Facility -- during a 9 a.m. hearing before Seminole County Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. OÂ’Mara is likely to argue that ZimmermanÂ’s behavior since the shooting nearly two months ago justifies a bond: Though in hiding, Zimmerman stayed in touch with law enforcement, and turned himself in once charges were filed. He also has family ties to the area.

AS IF WE DIDN'T ALREADY KNOW the "Zimmerman wasn't injured" claim was utter BS. You could see the wounds on the video and now, ABC News, of the "exclusive" story claiming Zimmerman wasn't injured, has "exclusive" photos of the bloody back of Zimmerman's head. I won't post it here because it's quite bloody---almost as if it was smashed into the ground several times---but the link is here.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:04 AM | Comments (299)
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Happy Friday, 'rons and 'ronettes!

If you love your mother Earth, and who doesn't, be sure to check out the seventh installment of one of the best events ever to grace Al Gore's Internets: Iowahawk's Annual Earth Week Cruise-In.

Here's one of my favorite entries so far:

Pontiac is dead? NUTS, sez Fred McDermott re his tasty sleeper Poncho ragtop:

"This is my 1968 Pontiac LeMans, full frame-off restoration. ItÂ’s got an environmentally incorrect (no emissions controls whatsoever) original Pontiac 400ci engine bored out to 461ci with a Butler Performance package that results in about 550HP on pump gas (premium, of course). Virtually everything is new or restored. Upgrades include front disc brakes, a 5-speed overdrive transmission and completely upgraded suspension. ItÂ’s a dream to drive and when those second two barrels kick in, hang on!"

If you have a gas-sucking, CO2-belching implement of planetary destruction that's worthy of consideration, Iowahawk will be taking entries through Sunday. Do it for Mother Earth - the Ultimate MILF®!

Posted by: andy at 02:45 AM | Comments (330)
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Oh man, this is bad.

Why did I rent it? I figured, give it a chance. Worse comes to worse, I can always get a review out of it.

Bobcat Goldthwait is a liberal dick, but I heard him on Carolla, and he mentioned this movie, God Bless America, which the liberal critics are praising because it's about a Character -- wait, it's not a character; it's a zero-dimensional Mary Sue for Bobcat Goldthwait and his unwarranted feelings of superiority over other people -- who executes reality tv stars and, naturally, FoxNews personalities. (One is plainly Bill O'Reilly, the other Glen Beck.)

I gave it a chance not because I was so rah-rah to see Bill O'Reilly die, but because I can appreciate a good, dark, halfway evil black comedy. Assuming it's funny or well done.

This isn't. This is the most amateurish pile of nothing crap I've seen in a long time.

It's on Amazon now, in "Pre-Theatrical Release," which sounds overly optimistic: There will not be a theatrical release, at least outside three or four stunt theaters. It's egregious in all ways, and so far he's only killed a Sweet 16 Reality TV show star. It's just horribly written, with the main character giving Bitter Liberal Diatribes, and awful jokes. The "Teenage Girl" character is written like, well, like every other character is written -- like Bobcat Goldthwait doing bad standup. She curses an improbable amount, saying things like "This really tears my cock off."

Pretty funny, right? Hahaha, a little girl, played by a 23 year old, is cursing like an old fat guy.

No? You think it's just too contrived? Oh well, get ready for an hour an ten minutes of it.

I thought the film was bad in other respects until I saw this "Teenage Girl" character. This doesn't seem like a Teenage Girl; doesn't really even seem human.

Bobcat, have you talked to human beings? Did you ever notice the way they talk? Yeah, try writing them to sound like that.

Anyway, this isn't really a review, but I had to get this out there. This is awful.

Don't go the way I did.

Let me serve as a warning.

Posted by: Ace at 07:20 PM | Comments (227)
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"Teaching as a Subversive Activity"

Here Zombie exposes what goes on at a typical educational conference - this time at UC Berkeley:

Because this was a presentation aimed at education insiders only, the lecturer, retired professor H. Douglas Brown from S.F. State, seemed perfectly willing to let the cat out of the bag about political indoctrination on college campuses. Fortunately, I had my trusty camera with me, so I was able not only to snap a few pictures but also record several key portions of his speech, which I found so eye-opening that I felt the general public deserved to hear it as well.

...Let it be noted that Professor H. Douglas Brown is no wild-eyed extremist; in fact, he's rather bland and respectable and not the most thrilling of speakers, as you will soon hear. But that's what made his presentation so disturbing: radical and self-admittedly "subversive" attitudes that affect the future of society are discussed with matter-of-fact nonchalance.

The main drawback of Professor Brown's verbal style (at least from my point of view) is that he often resorts to the academics' tried-and-true escape hatch, which is to rephrase statements as questions, so as to have plausible deniability if later confronted. Thus, for example, instead of just flatly saying something like "We should indoctrinate students with leftist ideologies," he asks "Should we indoctrinate students with leftist ideologies?" and only after five minutes of talking in circles eventually concludes "Yes."

Read the whole thing but I just want to point out that is a classic example of a common (perhaps even universal) affectation on the left: which is that they are all oppressed dissidents in the US and their most minor protests somehow make them members of the brave underground American Maquis.

Even when in fact they're actually in charge of large parts of the establishment and the worst oppression they face daily is having to park in the old faculty parking structure which requires an extra 2 minute walk to get to the fair-trade coffee co-op in the morning.

But then it's always more fun to live out a fantasy of being a secret freedom fighter against The Man rather than say the less thrilling reality of trying to do your job well and sweating the little details that keep the wheels of society running.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:11 PM | Comments (723)
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No hookers. As far as we know.

Nugent, 63, confirmed in a statement that “two fine, professional Secret Service agents” came to see him Thursday in Oklahoma, where he was scheduled to play Ardmore’s 2 Frogs Grill that night.

By his account, all parties concluded “that I have never made any threats of violence towards anyone. . . I thanked them for their service, we shook hands and went about our business.”

"Anyone" meaning a person or persons, and not a critter that can be legally killed and grilled.

Just for funs.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:37 PM | Comments (59)
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Content Warning. It's pretty ugly.

So, here's where the laughs stop, and the ick factor begins.

Morgen sent this over. Google identifies the language as Indonesian, so maybe Breitbart's source was just acting defensively to the question and not being straight.

It's nasty. Not only are dogs kept, of course, in slaughterhouse conditions, but then are, yes, butchered and all. The heads, for reasons I can't fathom, are kept intact and served cooked.

Anyway, content warning.

Posted by: Ace at 03:59 PM | Comments (416)
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Which raises the question: Where did Bill Ayers go where he ate dog?

Like, how mad is Obama right now at Ayers for tossing that Multi-Culti Feel-Goodery into "his" autobiography?

McCain Cracks Dog Joke; Jay Carney Claims Romney's Just Making an Issue To "Get Him Out of the Doghouse." Um, he then says he just made that up.

It's a lame joke, so it's possible he just made it up.

But I think he's lying. I think they scripted that not-so-bon mot Tuesday night.

Anyway, video here.

OUTRAGE!!! How dare you insult a child?!!

This is the Left's standard rap. That Obama was six at the time. (Or ten, though they prefer guestimating six.)

Anyway, in response to McCain's joke tweet, they fly into rage.

Thanks to @nykensington

Posted by: Ace at 02:23 PM | Comments (442)
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You know what we need after an emotionally-bruising primary?

A new fight over a hot-button issue we thought we'd resolved.

If Rubio really goes ahead with this it will do significant damage to the GOP and Mitt Romney (who will have to pick sides between seeming anti immigrant or the GOPÂ’s enforcement first base. HeÂ’ll get no credit if he goes with the former and will be bashed if he sides with the latter).

You know who would love to run on who can be more pro-amnesty than anyone? Barack Obama, thatÂ’s who. It beats talking about this economy and especially the part where Hispanic unemployment is running about 3.5% higher than for the general population.

All this damage over a plan that will win no votes and will never see the light of day in the Senate or the House.

Seriously, is Rubio nuts?

Posted by: Ace at 01:44 PM | Comments (189)
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Hot little catch from @conartcritc (CAC): PPP's new poll shows Romney "catching up" to Obama. I put that in quotes because I think Romney's already ahead, but whatever, Democratic polling outfit. It's now, they say 49 Obama 46 Romney, but that's an improvement from February's Obama 49 Romney 42.

Even if a poll is biased, directionality matters. If it's biased in similar ways every time it's taken, the direction of poll numbers should be relevant, even if you can't quite trust the percentages.

Romney's seen a massive improvement in his personal favorability numbers over the last 2 months as GOP voters have unified around him. He's gone from a -28 spread (29/57) up to a -12 one (39/51). Most of the improvement has come with Republicans, going from 43/41 to 67/22. His numbers with Democrats are steady and he's seen a little bit of improvement with independents from 32/55 to 36/50, although he remains unpopular.

Yeah, you know, Romney's low favorability ratings are largely due to Republicans not liking him the way other nominees have been liked. But that is mostly temporary.

Anyway, on to #conartcritic's catch. From the full results...

There are two ways to read this. First, maybe this sample oversamples Republicans. The 2008 split was 54 (almost) to 47.

Okay, that's possible.

What @conartcritic suggests is that 8% of people who "don't remember"? Yeah, he says maybe they sure do remember, but don't want to admit it.

Buyer's remorse, maybe.

It's a famous factoid that when polled a decade after JFK's assassination, 75% or so of the public claims to have voted for him.

Which is silly; 1960 was a close election.

But people remember things how they wish they'd actually been.

I find it hard to believe that 8% of the public literally cannot remember who they voted for three and a half years ago.

This is all sort of "It seems to me" without numbers -- like the typical percent who says they can't remember. So, this is half-baked at this point.

Meanwhile, a poll says that Obama's advantage with the young is only... seven points?

And also meanwhile, are Obama's favorability numbers something to write home about? Nope!

While the media continues wishcasting about Obama's favorables being higher, they keep overlooking an important fact: Obama's unfavorables are higher too. And higher than his favorables, in fact.

Posted by: Ace at 12:33 PM | Comments (272)
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