Happy Monday.

This evening I'll be on GayPatriot's conservative radio revival of Match Game, along with Breitbart editor Larry OÂ’Connor, Conservative Daily News' Michelle Ray, Breitbart reporter Mary Chastain, Right HookÂ’s John Brodigan, and PJ Media's Stephen Green. Details are over here.

Some news items to get you started today:

California property crime rate is up after Gov. Brown released low-level prisoners due to overcrowding. Go figure.

Obama nominee for Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is taking fire from both the right and the left. Democrats are asking why Obama would pick this fight right now.

Also, and this is just breaking, Obama will reportedly nominate counterterrorism aide John Brennan as CIA director.

Hurricane Katrina was "nothing" compared to superstorm Sandy, says Harry Reid.

The House and Senate are quietly working on appropriations bills to avoid either another continuing resolution (we're currently on a 6 month extension) or a government shutdown when the CR runs out on March 27. I suppose that's been the stealth "cliff." We've got sequestration in two months and the debt ceiling sometime between now and then. And then the actual budget fight.

NY Post investigation finds, just as you always thought, that EBT cards are being used to get cash at strip clubs, adult video stores, liquor stores, and bars. The NY Post starts: "They’re on the dole — and watching the pole."

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Peabody Award Winner and International Film and Television Star, and host of “Acting School with Nick Searcy” Nick Searcy is also a longtime AoS reader.

And it occurred to me the other day, Morons want to know what makes Nick tick. So I asked him if he'd be interested in answering a few questions. In the vain hope it would either make me go away, or provide supporting evidence for a restraining order, he graciously acceded to my request.

And since Justified* starts its season tonight, it seemed the time was ripe.
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Are You Rich?

Probably - since it all depends on who's measuring your net worth and which yardstick they're using. The WSJ looks at the various government cutoff levels for determining when people are considered 'rich':

It isn't as easy as you might think to determine who is rich. There are many different yardsticks devised by Uncle Sam, banks, brokerage firms and other institutions. The thresholds-as low as $44,000 for people receiving Social Security benefits-matter because they determine the taxes you owe, the college aid you receive, the investments you have access to and the fees you pay.

Overall, the top 1% of U.S. households have a net worth above $6.8 million or at least $521,000 in income, according to data from the Federal Reserve and the Tax Policy Center in Washington. The cutoffs for the top 5% are $1.9 million in net worth, or $209,000 in income.

Needless to say, these national figures obscure large geographic differences. A prince of income in Danville, Va., is a relative pauper in New York City.

In Danville, the threshold for the top 1% of earners kicked in at $179,000, while it took $588,000 to reach the top 1% in New York City and northern New Jersey

But the American people decided in November that the 'rich' need to be punished pay their fair share.

Welcome to Your New 2013 Paycheck You 'Rich' Americans

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I don’t know whether it is some sort of über-hip response to conventional expectations, or maybe it’s the prevalence of young chefs who know how to cook but don’t have the management experience to crack the whip with the help, but too many restaurants with solid, interesting kitchens and bars have lousy service. Oh, the waiters are unique in their own ways…with a fascinating collection of tattoos, piercings, odd haircuts, ripped shirts, pants around their thighs, pendulous breasts untethered by anything so pedestrian as a bra, ultra-cool facial hair (if they actually have enough testosterone to grow it), and many other irritating affectations that make me want to drag them outside and beat them.

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People in central Texas are gah gah over RGIII now.

This isn't right. It's the REDSKINS. vs. Seattle, yo.

We're supposed to hate the Skins. That's the deal.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 12:00 PM | Comments (349)
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Baltimore and Indiana. Houston squeaked by Cincinnati yesterday. In the NFC, Green Bay stomped Minnesota, and we got Seattle and Washington later. Dallas sucked a while back. Not news, just felt like bitching about it again.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 08:41 AM | Comments (128)
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Image courtesy of The Zombie Bible Blog by Stant Litore

Good morning morons and moronettes and welcome to this week's shambling, decaying, brains-hungry Sunday Morning Book Thread.

The Zombies Are At the Gates

Stories about zombies and the zombie apocalypse constitute a very large section of the sci-fi/horror genre. I never realized just how big a sub-genre it is until I started poking around on Amazon, looking for zombie books. Sweet smoking Judas, there's a crap ton of zombie books out there. Some even take material written by someone else and insert a zombie storyline into it.

Which is what author Stant Litore has done. In a very interesting way. Because the "material written by someone else" is the Bible, in particular, the book of Jeremiah.

When the first book in the Zombie Bible series, Death Has Come Up into Our Windows, first appeared on one of my Amazon "recommended" lists, I thought, how can you have zombies and the Bible, this is probably the worst schlock imaginable, I'd better take advantage of this $1.99 Kindle sale so I can read it and tell the book thread how bad it is.

But, I was wrong. This book is actually quite good and in particular, the quality of the writing is really good. It's not something I can put into words, kind of the the Supreme Court justice who said he couldn't define pornography, but he knew it when he saw it. For me, good writing is like that. I can't describe the elements of what goes into good writing, but I read it and think, 'Wow, now that is really some fine writing.' This book is like that.

So, what we have here is a new version of the Old Testament book of the prophet Jeremiah (here Hebraicized as Yirmiyahu). The Israelites have broken covenant faithfulness with God, and their dereliction is symbolized by the hill of Tophet, outside of the city of Yerusalem, a site of abominable human sacrifices to the pagan god Chemosh. Up on Tophet, the the dead walk, and the bones of murdered, sacrificed children are strewn about.

And death is coming from the armies of Babylon who are swarming in from the east and are hammering at the gates of the city.

This is not your typical "club 'em, stab 'em, shoot 'em in the head" zombie thriller. In fact, the zombie involvement is muted and mostly in the background. Yes, the main character has to kill a zombie or two, but that's scarcely the point. In this Old Testament reboot, the zombies are like head lice or other vermin -- in normal conditions, where basic rules of cleanliness are followed, not a big deal, but in an unsanitary, filthy environment, vermin thrive and grow. So here, too, with the Israelites beshitting and defiling themselves with false gods, the zombies are becoming a greater problem.

Yirmiyahu is God's navi, her prophet (yes, God is female) sent to warn Israel of the dangers of her idolatry. But the only things he gets in return are severe, violent beatings. This doesn't matter, he is compelled to speak whenever God fills him with Her word -- he must proclaim it to the city, at whatever cost to himself. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:15 AM | Comments (179)
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Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste

Shorter Left: Dead kids make great props.

The White House and gun control supporters are gearing up for a whirlwind month, with plans to pass reform legislation before outrage over the Sandy Hook massacre has a chance to fade.

... Meanwhile, Back At The Gun Store

John E. provides this example of what's going on out in the gun retail world. AR-pattern rifles are getting mighty hard to come by (scroll down). Ammunition's ridiculously expensive now, too.

Bob Owens described it vividly here, and I think he's exactly right:

The people have responded to these threats by not merely buying up the firearms, magazines, and ammunition that might be affected by these proposed bans as they did in 1993/94 before the Clinton-era ban was pushed through, but by purchasing nearly every firearm of military utility of the past 100+ years. Ruger 10/22s and other common .22LR rifles have doubled in price when they can be found at all. Inexpensive Mosin-Nagants, originally designed in 1891 and typically found by the dozen in your average neighborhood gun shops, are nowhere to be found, and their ammunition is gone as well. U.S. citizens are preparing for war against their government by the millions. Americans aren’t “going Galt” in response to the push by would-be elites to surging statism. We’re on the cusp of going Häyhä.

Gun Of The Week

What's are these lovelies?

(answer below)

Marksmanship Award

The Loganville mother of two assumed the knocks on her front door Friday afternoon were from a solicitor.

“Don’t answer,” she yelled to her 9-year-old twins playing downstairs.
When the visitor began repeatedly ringing the doorbell, she called her husband at work.

“Get the kids and hide,” he told his wife.

Posted by: andy at 05:45 AM | Comments (281)
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Must credit Ace of Spades HQ

Earlier in the week, Nancy Pelosi got in hot water for Photoshopping missing Democrat women into a group photo. Her defense was, basically, "fake but accurate".

Now a new photo has surfaced. We know this has to be a Photoshop because the four missing legislators appear in this one, too. The rest of the other participants, however, may have actually been present.

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Posted by: andy at 10:20 AM | Comments (246)
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AoSHQ Prime subscribers comment for half price today.

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