Happy Friday.

Occasional guestblogger Ben Domenech linked this old "Libertarian Purity Test" on Twitter last night, which provided a couple amusing hours of discussion. I (and others) were interested to discover just how wide the range of outcomes within the GOP blogosphere and twitterverse.

Among the cobs, I scored a 65. JohnE scored a 68. Andy scored a 56. Fairly close together.

For comparison's sake, Adam Baldwin scored a 73. Kathleen McKinley, who commented here years ago as RightwingSparkle before going on to blogospheric success of her own, scored an 82. Domenech himself scored a 92.

On the low end, John Gabriel, who joined us for the podcast two weeks ago, scored a 41. Guestblogger Ben Howe, of Red State, scored a 31. And Townhall blogger and radio host Guy Benson scored a 26.

Domenech said he's going to tally last night's responses and share the results.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:49 AM | Comments (648)
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Ex-Vegans Being Outed by Website

Because they're more caring, sensitive and thoughtful than you knuckle-dragging flesh-eaters - so don't you dare ever leave their fold.

If you're no longer vegan, you're going on the list.

The spirits of the billions murdered have risen to deliver: The Vegan Sellout List - an online directory of those who have regressed from moral consistency to moral depravity.

The Vegan Sellout List is our answer to the epidemic of vegan sellouts - those who are aware of the suffering caused by meat, dairy, egg, fur, and leather production, yet choose to look away while the animals suffer.

And this is what it's like to live a life of lies deep in the meat closet.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:53 PM | Comments (856)
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I thought gloating like a lunatic monster was uncouth until I read this.

Left-wing Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi: You shouldn't hold it against Glenn Greenwald that he's a biased advocate with agenda, because all journalists are biased advocates with agendas. Some are just honest about it.

For once I agree with Matt Taibbi.

I couldn't draw you a picture of how stupid this is if I had a thousand crayons and a team of artists, 500 retards strong. Sir.

Stuxnet leak investigation turns to man who oversaw the program under Bush and then Obama, our former vice chair of the Joint Chiefs, General Cartwright.

Demented fantasist randomly chooses man on FaceBook to accuse of rape; ruins man's life, obviously.

In an act of inexplicable viciousness, 31-year-old fantasist Linsey Attridge chanced upon a photograph of Philip and his then 14-year-old brother James and used it to back up a story sheÂ’d concocted. SheÂ’d done it, apparently, in order to win some sympathy with her boyfriend, when she feared his affections were waning.

Let me note something obvious: When the loudest bloc of society has declared that it is a near-crime to suggest a woman may be lying about a rape charge, a rape charge is naturally the most attractive safe-harbor for an enterprising liar. It's almost bulletproof.

And here's some perspective for you. ("Too bloody much," David St. Hubbins just emailed me.)

Posted by: Ace at 05:09 PM | Comments (161)
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I think I post these just because it's kind of odd how vehement the reactions are sometimes -- the "Calories In Equal Calories Out" guys are pretty adamant that the human body is perfectly similar to a test tube and the effect of any food on the body can be determined simply by burning the food and measuring the heat output via a calorimeter.

Other people suspect that different food chemicals may have different effects on the complex system of glands that regulates the human metabolism, but we always but we'll be told we're wrong by the Calories In Calories Out guys.

Oh by the way:

1-Minute Muffin
1/4 cup Flax Meal (best with bleached almond flour, I think)
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 packet Splenda (Personally I like more)
few drops of vanilla extract
optional: dash of cinnamon
1 Egg
1 tablespoon Butter
I tablespoon of either sour cream or cream cheese (for heft and texture)
Other stuff for flavor, like low-carb chocolate chips or blueberries.

1.5 Carbs

Mix the dry ingredients in a large coffee cup. Add egg and pre-melted butter; mix well. Microwave for one minute, then another; you have to eye it to see when it's done. "Done" means it's risen and fallen and most liquid seems to have steamed off.

Let it cool and set for two minutes. Put butter on it.

It's not great, but if you miss bready things like muffins, it is reasonably close enough to a muffin to enjoy.

I haven't tried this in an oven. I imagine it would be better.

Damn: I know what I'm eatin' in like six minutes.

Posted by: Ace at 04:08 PM | Comments (271)
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I like the "sir" at the end. It shows respect and class.

Oh, and when (she says) Trayvon called George Zimmerman a "creepy ass cracker," he was just being "descriptive," and not racially insulting. In fact, "cracker" isn't racially insulting at all, she announces.

And speaking of retarded, cretinous low-watt Spinner of Last Resort Tommy Christopher is more than willing to jump on that particular Stupid Grenade and announce that Yes, White Southerners love being called "cracker" by outsiders. It's a source of pride, you see, to be demeaned as a "cracker."

Seems to me that if Jenteal is telling the truth about this (and who knows about that) then there was one person out that night who was racially profiling and immediately jumping to racial conclusions.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:16 PM | Comments (414)
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He's saying that if the House passes a bill on immigration, and the House and Senate get together to work the two bills into a single one, he will not bring the new conference bill is reporter to the House unless a majority of the Republican caucus agrees to do so.

Which may marginally strengthen our negotiating position.

The only fear I have about this is that it seems to preclude the very effective tactic of simply doing nothing except to tell the Senate to start over and try again.

Make your opponent negotiate with himself before he negotiates with you.

And it would be an effective gambit. Every day the calendar moves closer to the 2014 election is a day which strengthens our position, I think. More squish Republicans will get off the amnesty train, and more very hard leftwing Democrats will get off it too (Open Borders or Nada!).

So there's no downside to simply waiting and forcing the Senators to craft something more realistic.

Posted by: Ace at 02:42 PM | Comments (152)
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A left that is unashamed to speak pretty openly about simply removing decision-making from people, on the theory that thought, decisions, choice, and accountability cause anxiety and mental unwellness and that people should be told what to do, because they will be happier as children or pets.

And if you think that sounded better in the original Norse, I agree.

Posted by: Ace at 12:50 PM | Comments (358)
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They got 68 votes for cloture earlier today, not 70. Now they proceed to the bill on the merits. It will certainly pass, and possibly with 70 -- some Democrats haven't been voting. Thus they will contrive some momentum -- "from 68 to 70 in just three hours, wowsers!" -- and the Liberal Spirit Squad in the media will talk that up.

Allah has a big round-up, including this interview with Senator Hoeven on his amendment.

And even liberals at TNR are noticing that gee whiz, a big influx of low-skilled labor willing to work for low wages sort of hurts our current pool of low-skilled laborers:

All in all, I became convinced that high levels of low-skill immigration are good for wealthy Americans and bad for poor Americans. Far more important, high levels of illegal immigration—when you start to get into the millions, as we have—undermines unions and labor standards, lowers wages, heightens social tensions, strains state budgets, widens income inequality, subverts the rule of law, and exacerbates class divides. The effects go far beyond wages, because few undocumented workers earn enough to cover anything close to the cost of government services (such as education for their children) they require, and those services are most important to low-income Americans. In short, it’s an immense blow to America’s working class and poor.

Rubio gave his closing argument in favor of the bill, which consists, like so much of speechifying, as 1, My Mom and Dad Are Awesome, 2, Yay America Iz Awesome, and now 3, Amnesty iz Awesome and America Iz Awesome and They Go Together Like a Reeces'.

People (including me) have long liked the idea of Rubio while not being particularly impressed about the reality of Rubio. We gave him an Obama-like pass-- he just talked about his biography and spoke vaporously about America 'n Stuff and we all gave him some Hopey-Changey credit.

But in reality, he doesn't speak often about tangible conservative goals and there are a truckfull of specific conservative commitments on immigration he made in 2010 which he's now basically told us were all just politically-useful lies.

You can watch this betrayal on CSPAN 2 or here.

They Passed It... with 68 votes. Joey Bides claimed the vote was 68-32 but isn't that wrong? Didn't he just subtract 68 from 100? But there aren't 100 senators, right? With Lautenberg dead and not yet replaced, there are 99, right?

Update: @benk84 tells me I'm wrong and Uncle Choo-Choo is right. There is already a NJ replacement in the Senate (Chisea) and the vote is 68-32.

Okay, I'm stupid. You knew this. There isn't any unfair surprise here.

Posted by: Ace at 12:12 PM | Comments (289)
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Yeah I know, I saw the pictures.

Weiner trailed Quinn among men, 23 percent to 19 percent. But among women, they were tied for the lead, with each candidate garnering 16 percent of support.

And in a separate Wall Street Journal/NBC 4/Marist poll released Tuesday, Weiner actually leads Quinn among all Democrats by a margin of 25 percent to 20 percent, and he also bested her among women -- though by a smaller margin.

So this is really, actually going to happen, huh?

This isn't really important but I had a joke so I posted it.

The joke wasn't really that good either.

I suck.

Posted by: Ace at 01:58 PM | Comments (203)
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They bought the Globe for $1.2 billion. Seems incredible now, doesn't it? They hope to unload it for $100 million.

Making the sale more difficult is the fact that the NYT is currently on the hook for $110 million in pension liabilities, which a buyer might agree to pay for, but the New York Times wants... cash.

Let me throw my mind back in time to 1993 to see what I can remember. My memory might be wrong on this point, but I believe, at the time, there was quite a lot of belief that a company's brand recognition -- the size it occupied in "mindspace," I think was the sort of buzzword used -- was more valuable than any tangible asset.

There was a belief that all of these media companies were substantially undervalued and that they would own the future -- if "mindspace" is the big thing, then the most important companies would be not only those that cast a long shadow in the public's mindspace but whose business was actually colonizing the mindspace of their programmed drones customers.

If I'm remembering right, there were a lot of big media acquisitions and mergers between, say, 1988 and 1996. I had the feeling that a lot of companies trying to get bigger for the big Keiretsu Wars coming in the near Neuromancer-like future.

Yeah. Remember all the stupid things smart people used to believe?

I don't know how all of these mergers and acquisitions worked out. I think many of the entertainment companies are still profitable, though I don't know if particular purchases (like Sony's then-huge purchase of Columbia Studios) actually wound up making money for the purchaser.

It certainly does seem that newspapers and magazines were the big losers, and most people not named Rupert Murdoch who sunk lots of money into major "mindspace" newspaper properties took a bath.

I hear you can buy Newsweek for nickel.

I was going to say "Maybe I was just watching Rising Sun too much on cable." It turns out the movie version actually came out in 1993, when the NYT bought the Globe.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:10 AM | Comments (373)
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