Due to unforeseen circumstances tonight's ONT will be teh suck minimal. So instead we're having a movie night.

Tonight's feature presentation is Idiocracy - a under-rated 2006 movie from Mike Judge that's a moron favorite. While it's labeled a comedy, it's more accurately described as a comedic pre-documentary of our coming future.

Private Joe Bauers, the definition of "average American", is selected by the Pentagon to be the guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program. Forgotten, he awakes 500 years in the future. He discovers a society so incredibly dumbed-down that he's easily the most intelligent person alive.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 04:27 PM | Comments (1055)
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Does 30 Rock have sponsors, or is that on HBO too?

Future Porn Star Impregnates Another Victim. Levi Johnston.

The mom-to-be is Sunny Oglesby, Johnston's girlfriend of over one year; TMZ first broke news that Oglesby, a 20-year-old teacher who now lives in his hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, was expecting.

Guy's not a fan of marriage, it seems.

Thanks to @slublog for that item, and the headline.

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful! This could be what I hear described as a "category error."

Her?

Posted by: Ace at 03:15 PM | Comments (226)
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An alligator begins by eating your arms and legs.

Doesn't mean he stops there. Just means the extremities fit easiest in the maw.

At Hot Air, video at the Free Beacon.

She refuses to rule out middle class tax cuts.

Oh, Granny Rictus McBotoxImplants -- you are so cluelessly honest, I could kiss you on your chemically-mummified forehead.

ROSE: And you have to let the Bush tax cuts that might have benefited the middle class die, even though it came from a Republican president.

PELOSI: Well, IÂ’m for definitely letting die the tax cuts for people making over a million dollars a year.

ROSE: Talking about the middle class tax cuts. ThatÂ’s not what they mean by that.

PELOSI: IÂ’m talking about the high end. IÂ’m talking about the high end.

ROSE: What about the middle?

PELOSI: You can make a judgment about that.

ROSE: YouÂ’re not prepared to say they shouldnÂ’t be continued?

PELOSI: In our caucus, there is a school of thought that says letÂ’s get rid of all the tax cuts.

ROSE: And the former Speaker of the House says?

PELOSI: I say, letÂ’s begin by getting rid of tax cuts for people making more than a million dollars a year.

Posted by: Ace at 02:23 PM | Comments (191)
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Remember, Obama can't find anything to cut in government -- it's all lean muscle now -- and if you cut anything at all, Joe Biden says you're killing cops and firemen.

I wish the 5th Circuit could demand if Obama answer, under oath, if he believes that's actually true.

The leadership collapse came hours before GSA Inspector General Brian D. Miller released a scathing report on the $823,000 training conference, held for 300 West Coast employees at the M Resort and Casino, an opulent hotel in Henderson, Nev., just south of Las Vegas. From $130,000 in travel expenses for six scouting trips to a $2,000 party in PeckÂ’s loft suite, event planners violated federal limits on conference spending.

The episode is an embarrassment for the Obama administration at a time when the role and size of government have taken center stage in the presidential campaign. How much government should spend, and on what, will be at the heart of the election-year battles between Democrats and Republicans.

Gold-Plated Government

Do you want to be governed in a cheap, economical style?

Or don't you really prefer to be governed opulently, Trump-Style?

Yeah ya do!

Posted by: Ace at 12:53 PM | Comments (270)
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This is real escalation.

You're going to intimidate us? Okay, we're going to intimidate you back.

In the escalating battle between the administration and the judiciary, a federal appeals court apparently is calling the president's bluff -- ordering the Justice Department to answer by Thursday whether the Obama Administration believes that the courts have the right to strike down a federal law, according to a lawyer who was in the courtroom.

The order, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, appears to be in direct response to the president's comments yesterday about the Supreme Court's review of the health care law...

The panel ordered the Justice Department to submit a three-page, single-spaced letter by noon Thursday addressing whether the Executive Branch believes courts have such power, the lawyer said.

The case being argued is a suit by physicians and physician-owned hospitals against ObamaCare. After getting the DOJ lawyer to confess that of course that power has been asserted (and used) by the court since 1803, the judge...

... became "very stern," the source said, telling the lawyers arguing the case it was not clear to "many of us" whether the president believes such a right exists.

As Allah noted, as reminded by @baseballcrank, Obama is currently inviting the courts to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by truly solid democratic majorities, and still popular law. He has instructed his lawyers to not defend the law against challenge (Congress, I believe, has petitioned to intervene to defend the law).

So no, he doesn't really believe the courts can't strike down laws.

He's just lying for political effect, as usual.

via @theRickWilson

Status Update: Real. more...

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A lot of property damage visible in the video. "Tremendous damage," NBC reports.

Video here.

If you're around there, get to the basement and stay safe.

Corrected: I linked a story about tornadoes in Texas, thinking it was about today's twisters. It wasn't. It was from April last year.

Posted by: Ace at 11:54 AM | Comments (192)
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What the hell is this crap?

But they're so tasty.

Well okay, I guess maybe this isn't really red-font flaming skull news.

Maybe I overreacted.

But still.

Hidden carbs. They're the enemy.

Posted by: Ace at 11:46 AM | Comments (151)
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Subhed:

President Primarily Known For Taxing and Spending
Urges More Taxing and Spending

The "You're On Your Own" Economy? How about the "I Don't Have A Dozen Stranger's Hands in My Wallet" Economy?

The Resident spoke earlier today. My stopwatch-manipulation was not perfect, but I believe he spoke for 46 hours and 22 minutes.

He talked about "sharing" and such.

[]Resident Barack Obama on Tuesday called the Republican budget passed by the House last week "thinly veiled Social Darwinism," as he attempted to sharpen differences between his economic vision and the GOP's ahead of what's likely to be a contentious re-election battle.

The Republican plan is a "Trojan Horse disguised as a deficit plan," Mr. Obama asserted in a speech to newspaper executives at the annual meeting of the Associated Press. "It's antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everyone who's willing to work for it."

...

Mr. Obama [today said Republicans would] "impose a radical vision on our country."

Their vision, he said, includes gutting the things the U.S. needs to grow—education and training and research and development—and is "a prescription for decline." Mr. Obama said the Republican budget would "dramatically" reduce benefits the middle class receive for health care, retirement and homeownership.

...

Mr. Obama said if the budget became law it would affect a laundry list of programs. He said two million mothers and young children would be cut from a program that gives them access to healthy food; hundreds of national parks would close; and cuts to the Federal Aviation Administration would "likely result in more flight cancellations, delays and the complete elimination of air traffic control services in parts of the country."

He said several times, "I am not exaggerating."

...

The president also criticized former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by name, which he rarely does, saying the Republican presidential candidate called the Republican budget "marvelous."

"He even called it 'marvelous,' which is a word you don't often hear when it comes to describing a budget," Mr. Obama said to laughs from the audience.

What kind of effete bisexual uses a word like "marvelous"?

On that "investing" point -- we no longer spend, you know, we only "invest" in the present, and, as debt accumulates, we increasingly invest in the past -- it's time to cut up this Marvelous Metrosexual's "investment" Mad Money credit cards.

Another solar company, heavily "invested" in by President Precious, filed for bankruptcy.

Solar Trust of AmericaÂ’s Chapter 11 filing on Monday listed assets between $1 million and $10 million, and liabilities between $50 million and $100 million.

It owes somewhere between 5 and 100 times what it owns.

Obama's got that magic touch, doesn't he?

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and California Gov. Jerry Brown were on hand last June when Solar Trust broke ground on a 1,000-megawatt project in California. The project was touted as the worldÂ’s largest solar power plant and a keystone of the Obama administrationÂ’s efforts to promote solar energy.

Speaking of investments, I've recently diversified my investment portfolio to include dousing a stack of money with lighter fluid and setting it aflame.

So far, it's yielding disappointing returns. But I have every confidence.

Thanks to @theh2 (Andy)

Biden: GOP Budget Would Result in Dead Cops and Firemen: Same themes, using cops and firefighters as the Magic Victims.

Biden said itÂ’s a question of public safety, but also of first responder safety.

“There’s one thing we know: the more cops on the street, the fewer cops get killed. The more firefighters responding to a fire, the fewer injuries to the firefighters, because you have each other’s backs,” Biden said.

They always talk about cops and firefighters. What about civil service bureaucrats and teachers? Is anyone gonna die if a Home Ec teacher doesn't get her scheduled 3% raise?

Thanks to Ben (@benk84)

Posted by: Ace at 11:08 AM | Comments (290)
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This is how Democrats do Jewish outreach.

The Democratic Party’s newly appointed Jewish outreach liaison is pictured on Facebook in a series of provocative photos with her friends holding dollar bills and referring to themselves as “Jewbags” and the “Jew cash money team.”

Dani Gilbert, who has been a staffer in the office of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.), was recently appointed as the Democratic National CommitteeÂ’s Jewish outreach liaison, according to her Twitter feed.

The creepy thing is that she looks like a young Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, except without the sharklike maw of savagely hooked, daggerlike teeth.

I dunno. Let's suppose the obvious -- that she uses terms like "Jewbags" as many Jews do, to sort of acknowledge their heritage in a self-deprecating, humorous way, thereby undercutting and undermining attempts to use their heritage against them in a more hostile, mean-spirited, prejudicial way.

Fair enough. If you want to hear a lot of Jew jokes, go to a Seder. They flow like the Mannischevitz wine.

That said: There are private jokes and public jokes, aren't there? If you're going to be a representative to the Jewish community, maybe you want to present a more dignified, self-respecting face to the "Jewbags" you'll be tapping for "Jew cash money."

Eh, it's tough to be a minority (no that's not snark). People have different coping mechanisms.

I tell ya this, this social media thing is crazy. You have kids, who don't know no better, outing the most private details of their lives (and saying stuff that people don't say in public) and few of them seem the least little bit abashed about this.

Posted by: Ace at 10:44 AM | Comments (146)
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Now, two points:

First of all, it's now said that while there was a female spy working her way up the Democratic food chain, it wasn't Anna Chapman. The BBC report ran Anna Chapman's picture to illustrate the story, but the FBI intelligence officer never said that Anna Chapman was the spy getting close to a "sitting cabinet member."

Turns out, it wasn't her. It was another female spy in that same spy ring.

Second point:

Despite the baiting headline, there is no... well, there is not necessarily a sex angle. The spy was gaining "friends" in the Democratic Party the usual way-- by associating with fundraisers.

She'd gained the confidence of one Hillary's fundraiser buddies.

The "honey trap" feared probably involved a scheme to entrap her fundraiser buddy, and then, via him, secure information/influence. Or at least get an introduction, socially, to Hillary.

That's my guess.

Full story here.

[T]he FBI says he wasn't talking about her at all. Instead, officials at the Department of Justice told ABC News Figliuzzi was referring to another of the arrested spies, Cynthia Murphy.

According to court documents relating to the spies' arrest, Murphy had been in contact with a fundraiser and "personal friend" of Hillary Clinton, who took the office of Secretary of State in January 2009. The fundraiser, Alan Patricof, said in a statement in 2010 had retained Murphy's financial services firm more than two years before, had met with her a few times and spoke with her on the phone frequently. Patricof said they "never" spoke about politics, the government or world affairs.

A spokesperson for Clinton told ABC News in 2010 that at the time there was "no reason to think the Secretary was a target of this spy ring."

Oh, you think that fundraiser Alan Patricof was the target? You think the Kremlin activated Agent SUGART*TS get close to Alan Patricof, whoever the hell that is?

Update: This is actually old.

This was reported in 2010, but I don't remember any media interest in the story. I never heard about it.

One of the accused Russian sleeper spies may have been trying to worm her way into Secretary of State Clinton's circle of high-powered friends.

Suspect Cynthia Murphy worked at a downtown financial firm that appears to have put her in contact with Alan Patricof, a New York venture capitalist and top Democratic donor who was a finance chairman of Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.

So, is Cynthia Murphy hot?

No, not really. Kind of affably plain.

... and that's why they ran the picture of Anna Chapman.

Posted by: Ace at 09:56 AM | Comments (234)
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