The Chatanooga paper should remove the "Free" in its title and leave it at "Times."

The Speechcraft inquisition continues.

Here's the column that is officially Untruth.

Is this America?

Posted by: Ace at 10:57 AM | Comments (382)
Post contains 76 words, total size 1 kb.

And this woman's got a truckfull of it. Either that or she is possessed by a Demon who seeks to consume humanity's rhubarb.

Strong Content Warning for Profanity and General Terribleness and Extreme Rhubarb Covetousness more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:32 PM | Comments (490)
Post contains 93 words, total size 1 kb.

Male feminist? Once lauded by women for telling them Exactly What They Want To Hear, or as they know it, enlightened philosophy?

I'm as certain of this as I'm certain of gravity -- this man surely is not resigning due to any sexual peccadillo or mental defect. This choice, I'm sure, is entirely his own.

Uh, Correction. I don't know what the hell I was talking about in that last sentence. I guess I was just babbling.

This cat Schwyzer had been a writer on feminist sites like Feministe, whose idea of a title is to add a superfluous -e. He's now resigned due to past scandals and pressure from the Solidarity of Sisterhood, which did not cotton to his unwelcome presence at the No Sausage Party.

Schwyzer has been a divisive figure in the lady blogosphere since he was treated to a glowing interview on Feministe in late 2011. In response, commenters and other bloggers dug up Schwyzer's old blog posts (since deleted), in which he confessed to trying to kill himself and his ex-girlfriend with fumes from a gas stove during a period of drug and alcohol addiction fifteen years ago. Feminist bloggers took issue not just with his past (which included sleeping with many of his students), but with how they believed Schwyzer capitalized on his bad-boy redemption story.

There's an interview with him at the link. He also seems to have been driven out of "Male Feminism" by women who, brace yourselves for a shock here, detest male intrusions into their safe wymynyst space.

One reason you became a punching bag is that there just are not many men writing feminist columns online. Why is that?

Look at me. I mean, who would want to be me? If you look at the men who are writing about feminism, they toe the line very carefully. ItÂ’s almost like they take their cues from the women around them.

Almost. Almost.

Men are afraid of womenÂ’s anger. ItÂ’s very hard for men to stand up to womenÂ’s anger. I did for a long time until finally my mental health had to be a priority. I just got out of the hospital. IÂ’m not shy about that. IÂ’m sober, but I checked myself into a psych ward for a week, when I became a danger to myself.

...

ThereÂ’s this false notion in feminism that the Internet is supposed to be a safe space. ThereÂ’s this confusion of the therapeutic and the public space. Is the Internet a safe space? No. Your therapistÂ’s office is a safe space. Your local womenÂ’s center is a safe space. I do believe I can have a voice online in leading a movement about this, but that distinction has to be drawn.

Good luck with that Charlie.

You know, we used to have a name for a male feminist, or a guy who just tells women whatever they want to hear and seems in thrall to them: Either Mama's Boy or Guy Who Just Wants to Get Laid or both.

This is sexual dysfunction. I'm not saying women are supposed to defer to men -- I don't believe that crap at all.

But I also don't believe that men are supposed to go about asking "mother may I?" to anyone in an Indigo Girls t-shirt.

Leftist "Feminism," which is really nothing of the sort, has simply replaced one dysfunctional, immature, primitive cult of holy gender status with its distaff version.

Posted by: Ace at 09:19 AM | Comments (306)
Post contains 586 words, total size 3 kb.

And other amazements.

Turns out San Diego did provide an online sexual harassment lesson; Mayor McSquickfinger just didn't bother.

As you may already know, the city attorney Jerry Goldsmith has forbidden female members of the media from meeting alone with Filner. This is to avoid another harassment and another mulcting of the city's coffers.

Melissa Harris-Perry, last seen modeling feminine hygiene jewelry, embarrasses herself anew by asking if this policy, rather than Mayor Feel U Up, is discriminatory against women.

And how is the LA Times covering this? With their typical level of excellence.

Headline:

Bob Filner May Be Republicans' Best Friend

Now, in fairness, there is a much-smaller subhed:

Long starved of power, many San Diego liberals were willing to overlook Filner's reputation. That may turn out to be a colossal miscalculation.

The article does imply that Filner is a Democrat, chiefly on the second page (after the jump), but strangely, in an article about Republicans' taking advantage of the situation, they can never quite bite the bullet and explicitly identify Filner as a Democrat.

Kind of like the euphemism "the n-word." It's okay to allude to it, but incredibly rude to outright say it.

Until page 2, Filner is just the Republicans' best bud.

And strangely, in an article that touches ever-so-lightly on liberals' willingness to look the other way, they never quite get 'round to reporting the fact that Democratic assemblywoman Lori Saldana warned the party about this two years ago, and not only did they do nothing, but they threatened her into supporting Filner.

Posted by: Ace at 10:24 AM | Comments (182)
Post contains 300 words, total size 2 kb.

Via "Jones In Co" from the last thread, the story of a young Marine who gets it.

Lance Corporal Myles Kerr was competing in the annual run while home on leave in Charlevoix, Michigan when he spotted Boden Fuchs struggling to keep up.

The boy reportedly asked 19-year-old Kerr: 'Sir, will you please run with me?', after losing the group he was running with.

And that's just what Kerr did.

Just when you're out of hope for America.....

Posted by: DrewM at 08:35 AM | Comments (256)
Post contains 92 words, total size 1 kb.

Hal Rogers, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committiee says the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development bill was pulled because Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor didn't have the votes to pass it with the cuts mandated by the Ryan budget.

“The Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development funding bill that was pulled from floor consideration today was the first major attempt by the House to consider and pass an Appropriations bill that funds domestic programs under the austere level delineated under the Budget Control Act and the House budget resolution.

“The bill today reflected the best possible effort, under an open process, to fund programs important to the American people – including our highway, air and rail systems, housing for our poorest families, and improvements to local communities – while also making the deep cuts necessary under the current budget cap. In order to abide by sequestration budget levels, this bill cut $4.4 billion below the current, post-sequestration total to a level below what was approved for these programs in 2006 – over seven years ago.

“I am extremely disappointed with the decision to pull the bill from the House calendar today. The prospects for passing this bill in September are bleak at best, given the vote count on passage that was apparent this afternoon. With this action, the House has declined to proceed on the implementation of the very budget it adopted just three months ago. Thus, I believe that the House has made its choice: sequestration – and its unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary cuts – must be brought to an end. And, it is also clear that the higher funding levels advocated by the Senate are also simply not achievable in this Congress.

Emphasis mine.

And what would these no doubt draconian cuts involve?

The House bill cuts $7 billion from 2013. Hardest hit in the GOP bill is the Community Development Block Grant program, which is cut nearly in half to $1.6 billion, a cut of $1.3 billion that makes its budget lower than it was in 1975. There is no funding for high-speed rail, and Amtrak gets a 21 percent cut to its operating budget.

House leaders say they had the votes but just ran out of time, they go on their 5 week vacation later today, so who knows for sure.

Circumstantial evidence however suggests House leaders have been reluctant to bring up controversial spending bills that have actual cuts.

The House has passed bills funding Defense and Veterans Affairs at higher levels and Homeland Security and Energy and Water with relatively minor cuts. The rest of the bills contain far more controversial cuts. The most contentious, the Labor and Health and Human Services bill, would be cut 19 percent below the sequester. It was slated for release last week, but that release was canceled.

Emphasis mine.

Over in the Senate, the usual gang of Republicans is pushing for more spending in that body's version of the same bill, even if it means busting the spending caps set out in the Budget Control Act.

A lot of this is just kabuki theater since no one expects Congress to pass all the appropriation bills anyway. Why bother taking unpopular votes that cut pork, er, "vital local infrastructure projects" on a bill that's going to be rolled into a massive Continuing Resolution when they come back in September.

Still, it's almost as if people still aren't serious about cutting non-defense spending. Huh. Who knew?

Posted by: DrewM at 07:41 AM | Comments (157)
Post contains 618 words, total size 4 kb.

The "Super Committee" failed back in November of 2011, making sequester the next option. For almost two years the Department of Defense has been hoping and praying someone or something would protect it from the inevitable. Yesterday, reality hit and hit hard.

The incredibly short version:

We'll have the smallest Army since WWII, a vastly reduced Marine Corps, less tactical and cargo capability for the Air Force and the loss of two or three carrier groups for the Navy. This will mean forgoing some missions we currently plan on taking on. As Robert Caruso put it, "do less with less"

The longer version:

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel outlined a series of options he will present the President with how to move forward in meeting the cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act.

The Strategic Choices and Management Review did not produce a detailed budget blueprint. That was not the purpose of this review. It generated a menu of options, not a set of decisions, built around three potential budget scenarios:

• The President’s FY 2014 budget, which incorporates a carefully calibrated and largely back-loaded $150 billion reduction in defense spending over the next ten years;

• The Budget Control Act’s sequester-level caps, which would cut another $52 billion from defense in fiscal year 2014, with $500 billion in reductions for the DoD over the next ten years;

• An “in-between” scenario that would reduce defense spending by about $250 billion over the next ten years, but would be largely back-loaded.

How do you get there?

Cut staff and management in some areas up to 20%

These management reforms, consolidations, personnel cuts, and spending reductions will reduce the departmentÂ’s overheard and operating costs by some $10 billion over the next five years and almost $40 billion over the next decade. They will make the Department more agile and versatile.

Everyone likes that, right? Well unless you're one of the staff getting cut. After that it gets hard and controversial.

Military pay and benefits are going to be on the table (if Congress allows it, which is...doubtful)

• Changing military health care for retirees to increase use of private-sector insurance when available;

• Changing how the basic allowance for housing is calculated so that individuals are asked to pay a little more of their housing costs;

• Reducing the overseas cost of living adjustment;

• Continuing to limit military and civilian pay raises.

According the Hagel those cuts and efficiencies get you to about $150 billion of the $500 million in cuts.

And then you get into systems and capability.

Credit where it's due, Hagel's plan isn't the normal, "ok, everyone gives up x% so no feelings are hurt". Feelings will be hurt because the cuts will focus more on some branches than others to reflect the threat assessment at the moment and the existing strategies to deal with them. That means more cuts for the manpower intensive Army and Marine Corps than for the Air Force and Navy (though the latter two take some serious hits as well).

This is where the real choice is to be made. Do you go for size or technological superiority? While no final decision has been made, Hagel is leaning toward technology. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 06:24 AM | Comments (408)
Post contains 1134 words, total size 8 kb.

Sorry, I didn't have time to do a news dump today. You'll have to settle for the video below. more...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:06 AM | Comments (243)
Post contains 29 words, total size 1 kb.