There's no doubt that Lance Armstrong lied a bit. But, as a thousand liberals told me in 1998, once you've committed to cheating you've also committed to lying about it, so what's the big deal?

And, come to think of it, what do we say of a media that lies every single day in refusing to admit it's biased and strives for "down the middle" coverage?

But the media is in posturing mode. As usual.

The hyperventilating is especially egregious coming from Glenn Kessler and the Washington Post's wildly-misnamed FactCheck -- they lied more than Armstrong, and for far greater consequence, all throughout 2012.

Posted by: Ace at 08:22 AM | Comments (176)
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Heroes.

This dude wants to Raise Consciousness about a serious problem: Paintings of hot sexy women on sci-fi and fantasy books.

Posted by: Ace at 10:50 AM | Comments (224)
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The Republicans are waving their hands and saying, "This is not the hill you are looking to fight on. Move along".

“We will raise the debt ceiling. We’re not going to default on our debt,” the Republican whip said. ”I will tell you unequivocally, we’re not going to default.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has also said that the debt ceiling must be raised. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has said the borrowing limit should not be used for leverage: “If you incur an obligation, you have a responsibility to pay for that,” she told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

While Cornyn doesn't rule out spending cuts as part of the hike, the Democrats don't want that. It's hard to see once you take default off the table what Obama's motivation to cut spending is.

Of course John Boehner explicitly promised to include spending cuts "equal to or grater than" the hike in the debt limit before and after caving on the fiscal cliff.

Some House Republicans argue that the Treasury can avoid default by prioritizing which bills to pay (service the debt first). A former George W. Bush Treasury official disagrees with that.

Let's be honest, the GOP is going to cave on the debt ceiling and get nothing for it. The real question is, will they actually let sequestration (you know the spending cuts the "won" in the last debt fight) happen or will they kick it down the road again to the next hill they will retreat from, the Continuing Resolution?

Let's put it this way...that clanking sound you here is a can being kicked down a road.

Aside from getting rolled on everything the GOP's biggest problem is they look like idiots in the process. If you can't win fights, stop saying you want to fight and think you'll win.

Over promising and under delivering is the worst of all possible worlds.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:35 AM | Comments (323)
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• Oops: In Gun Grab Rush, Idiot Cuomo Forgets To Exempt The Police
  
• Obama To Relaunch Campaign As A Non-Profit
  
• Reporter Fired For Being A Stripper Finds A New Journalism Gig
  
• Chicago Thugs Celebrate Obama's New Gun Laws By Shooting A Woman On The Bus
  
• Piers Morgan Calls Andrew Sullivan A Dick
  
• Sheriffs, State Lawmakers Push Back On Gun Control
  
• Anonymous Staunch 2nd Amendment Supporters
  
• A Very Loyal Dog
  
• The Brotherhood's Agenda, Cairo's Catastrophe
  
• Holder Tries To Stop F&F Document Release
  
• NRA More Popular Than Obama Or The Entertainment Industry
  
• US Mint Out Of Silver Coins, Suspends Sales
  
• White House Uses Children To Make Anti-Gun Argument
  
• Curt Schilling To Sell His Bloody Sock (autoplay video)
  
• Der Spiegel Surprised To Learn Simon Wiesenthal Thinks One Of Their Jew Hating Reporters Hates Jews
  
• Higher Ed Is Failing
  
• School Buses Bankrupting NYC
  
• Is India Losing Faith In Democracy?
  
• The Grey Lady Confirms A Blue Civil War
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:04 AM | Comments (501)
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Journolist punk Dave Weigel has a ridiculous hit piece on the NRA in amateur webzine Slate that you can look up if you want. The HQ's "no links for asshats" rule is solidly in play on this one.

He first criticizes a Sandy Hook Truther video that has a bunch of hits on YouTube. Fair enough. One of those hits was mine, but unfortunately there was no way for YouTube to measure the eyeroll it elicited before I shut it down.

I dunno, maybe it was the misspelling of "hologram" right at the beginning that turned me off. No, wait, that wasn't really it (although it didn't help).

What really provoked clicking away from the video was the fact that it tries to build a conspiracy theory out of the mainstream media's horrendous early reporting of the incident. As an exercise in logic, this is asinine. What they're saying is that the early media reporting should be trusted, but later reporting, which should be more accurate as assertions get backfilled with evidence, shouldn't. In reality, you could fill an Internet with what reporters don't know about guns and aren't interested in learning.

An honest critique of the video, unlike Weigel's, would then flow to how conspiracy theories are enabled by the media and that reporters have a greater duty to get the story right than they have to get it quick, etc.

But that wasn't Weigel's purpose in writing the piece. His purpose, apparently, was to blame the NRA for pushing the conspiracy theory. Which is odd, since the NRA didn't have anything to do with it.

What the NRA did do, though, was raise the possibility that Operation Fast & Furious was run by the Obama administration to generate sympathy for gun control legislation. And, you know, since they believe that, then they obviously believe all the stuff in the video too.

Here's Weigel's smoking gun:

“Over a period of two or three years they were running thousands and thousands of guns to the most evil people on earth,” [Wayne LaPierre] said. “At the same time they were yelling ’90 per cent… of the guns the Mexican drug cartels are using come from the United States.’ ” It wasn’t a wild theory. “It’s the only thing that makes any sense.”

Before discounting that, I'd like to hear the law enforcement purpose of Fast & Furious from the Obama administration, or, for that matter, Weigel. The only plan they had of tracking guns that were sent to Mexico was, apparently, recovering them from crime scenes. That's a hell of a law enforcement operation there. And as far as the 90% thing goes, even the liberal FactCheck.org can't spin it as true.

You know who else said Fast & Furious should be used to support gun control proposals? The ATF, that's who:

On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF's Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

"Bill - can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks."

On Jan. 4, 2011, as ATF prepared a press conference to announce arrests in Fast and Furious, Newell saw it as "(A)nother time to address Multiple Sale on Long Guns issue." And a day after the press conference, Chait emailed Newell: "Bill--well done yesterday... (I)n light of our request for Demand letter 3, this case could be a strong supporting factor if we can determine how many multiple sales of long guns occurred during the course of this case."

So, no, LaPierre's assertions about Fast & Furious are nothing like a conspiracy theory based on bad reporting. Nice try, Weigel, but back to the drawing board.

Posted by: andy at 04:10 AM | Comments (158)
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Happy Friday!

No news from me this morning. How 'bout some music? more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:49 AM | Comments (214)
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You'll take your early ONT and you'll like it.

Books That Have Changed Your Life 

I've been trying to think of particular books that have had a major effect on me but I've read so much over so long that after a while the sources of inspiration begin to blend together.

The only two I could quickly name off-hand would be Voltaire's Candide and Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach. I'm sure there are many others but dangit I just can't think of them when put on the spot.

Feel free to add in your own personal life-changing books.

MLK, Non-Violence, and his Arsenal of Guns

Most people think King would be the last person to own a gun. Yet in the mid-1950s, as the civil rights movement heated up, King kept firearms for self-protection. In fact, he even applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

...William Worthy, a journalist who covered the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, reported that once, during a visit to King's parsonage, he went to sit down on an armchair in the living room and, to his surprise, almost sat on a loaded gun. Glenn Smiley, an adviser to King, described King's home as "an arsenal."

Aaron Worthing points out that King wasn't quite as dedicated to pure non-violence as he always claimed in his speeches. This may make him somewhat dishonest but also more human and practical - and ultimately a better role model for real people than Gandhi was.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 04:41 PM | Comments (918)
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Part of his speech today (video below):

We must be the grownups on this issue. This is not a time for grandstanding and this is not a time for politics. This is a time for an open conversation on how we realistically deal with a very complex issue. Only then can we change the dialogue... change the tone and change how we address this issue so that we can better protect and preserve the safety of the people we serve, which is the first and most important obligation in my view of government."

C'mon, you know. We're going to get a full-throated defense of our individual rights and liberties. We're going to get a forceful and direct challenge to media narratives and assumptions. We're going to hear data and statistics about cities with strict gun control laws versus those that allow for concealed carry. We'll hear the countless stories of firearms being used in self-defense, in many cases saving lives. We're going to hear how ineffective and useless previous legislation like the Assault Weapons Ban has been. We'll hear him criticize "gun free zones". We'll hear how silly "solutions" like magazine capacity limits and restrictions on cosmetic rifle accessories are.

In short: We're about to get our Constitution on!

Or, y'know, the exact opposite.

Rising star of the Republican Party. Rising star.

P.S. He trashed the NRA today. more...

Posted by: JohnE. at 02:59 PM | Comments (329)
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Racist.

Some other gun stuff:

The left is now running ads against pro-gun Democrats, as a Tea-Party-like challenge from the outside, which could, in theory, give politicians more "spine." (But here, of course, they want to give them a left-leaning spine.)

Funniest part of that: They edit out the part of the Georgia Congressman saying he used this here Smith and Wesson "to stop a lynching." They didn't want that part of it confusing the Narrative that Guns Are Bad, Always.

Shock of shock, Obama's restarting his campaign apparatus to push the gun control issue.

On this, I think we just have to wrap our heads around it: The Future will consist of nothing but Permanent Campaigns, and anyone who doesn't utilize this practice is a fool.

I think Bush tried to be a less-political president. We see how that turned out.

Earlier recommended by Andy, this Charles W. Cooke article is pretty good.

The president knows that he cannot get any meaningfully restrictive legislation through this Congress or past the American people, and so he has seen fit to outline what he can do without the legislature. To reserve as much of the action as possible to the realm of the executive order is practically and politically sensible, but it is not a blueprint for good law. If the White House believes an “assault weapons” ban or a restriction on the size of magazines is imperative, then it should steadily make that case and extend its time frame to years rather than months. Instead, it looks likely to go for a combination of very minor quick wins and larger symbolic gestures that it knows full well will die in Congress. What, a cynic might ask, are its real aims are here?

The aims are the typical aims of the sleezy, self-interested professional politician: To posture and gain political standing.

More: More children, from Obama.

You know, the hyper-rational, cerebral, Angels of Our Better Selves president. Teh One who will bring us a better politics, not of tawdry, shoddy emotionally-manipulative appeals, like the conservatives offer, but of purest reason and fairest play.

Posted by: Ace at 03:48 PM | Comments (218)
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There really is no other way to start this off, so take a guess. No peeking.

Posted by: CAC at 02:34 PM | Comments (207)
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