ערב טוב כל and welcome to the ONT. Sorry no baconz tonight.

So Which Religions Have The Money?

Here's an interesting little graph showing the income distribution of all major religions in the US. So who has the richest members? Well it's probably not too surprising that the Jews have the highest percentage of members making over $100K (46%). So who comes in second? The Hindus at 43%. Okay that's a surprise.

Maybe it's time for people to update their conspiracy theories: the Juice are now using the Hindus as online muscle against the Baptists. And if you're looking for wealth but aren't willing to give up bacon, I suggest you start praying to Lakshmi.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:47 PM | Comments (842)
Post contains 403 words, total size 4 kb.

This should tide you over 'til Maet gets the ONT up. Saw this at DoublePlusUndead's Place.

The yokel officer reassuring his fellows "I'm gettin' it all on tape!" oughta be smacked. There's one in every workplace, I guess.

Also: I wonder how many speeding tickets it takes to pay for something like that. *buffs libertarian credential*

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:43 PM | Comments (216)
Post contains 62 words, total size 1 kb.

Democracy is a process not and event. As great as holding elections is, how the losers accept the outcome is just as important. Iraq is about to find out how the process is going to work.

Ayad Allawi's predominantly Sunni alliance has won Iraq's national election, narrowly edging out Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki's list to become the largest bloc in the country's next parliament.

The upset threatens to end the lock on power that Iraq's majority Shiites have enjoyed since the 2003 after decades of oppression under Saddam Hussein and could severely test the country's fragile institutions. Before the announcement, Shiite politicians warned of violence should their parties lose the election.

The preliminary results announced Friday night show Mr. Allawi's Iraqiya bloc winning 91 seats in the 325-member parliament to 89 seats for Mr. Maliki's State of Law.

In a hastily convened press conference, the prime minister announced he would press for a recount, citing suspicions of fraud.

Maliki has three days to file a protest, which seems likely.

Should the elections stand, Allawi, who served as interim Prime Minister under the Coalition Provincial Authority back in 04-04 before Maliki's election, will have first crack at forming a governing coalition.

People shouldn't jump to conclusions that because there's going to be a challenge or a period of instability and negotiation that this is all a failure, though you know the regular suspects will.

It also doesn't mean that all will be well.

I think one thing we've all learned about Iraq is not to jump to conclusions. It's a fluid place that works on its own time line and in its own ways. They don't have centuries of traditions with this sort of stuff to fall back on, so there will be fits and starts. This will be one of those 'seems' that the forces of instability (on both sides and from outside) will try to exploit. They will likely have some spectacular success in terms of attacks but the big thing will be the general trends.

I'd feel better if we have the old Bush, Crocker, Petraeus team there to support the Iraqis but life moves on and so too will the Iraqis.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:36 AM | Comments (522)
Post contains 387 words, total size 2 kb.

Like most states, Arizona is facing tremendous financial pressures. Unlike most states, they were prepared to do something about it by actually cutting back on services such as Medicaid.

Thanks to ObamaCare and the state's 3 House Democrats, not only won't they be allowed to do that, they will have to spend $3.8 billion between now and 2014 when (if) the federal subsidies kick in and another $8 billion after that between 2014-2021.

Seems in our new unitary government, states aren't allowed to decrease their current levels of Medicaid benefits, else they risk losing all their federal subsidies.

Entitlements live in a universe all their own...benefits and costs always go up, never down.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:11 AM | Comments (369)
Post contains 147 words, total size 1 kb.

Obama has set up a 'deficit reduction commission' that will report back to him by the end of the year, safely after the elections. And what do you think it's going to suggest we do about all this Obama debt? Cut spending or raise taxes? Yeah, me too.

Charles Krauthammer takes a look at our very European future.

What will it recommend? What can it recommend? Sure, Social Security can be trimmed by raising the retirement age, introducing means testing and changing the indexing formula from wage growth to price inflation.

But this won't be nearly enough. As Obama has repeatedly insisted, the real money is in health-care costs -- which are locked in place by the new Obamacare mandates.

That's where the value-added tax comes in. For the politician, it has the virtue of expediency: People are used to sales taxes, and this one produces a river of revenue. Every 1 percent of VAT would yield up to $1 trillion a decade (depending on what you exclude -- if you exempt food, for example, the yield would be more like $900 billion).

...Obama set out to be a consequential president, on the order of Ronald Reagan. With the VAT, Obama's triumph will be complete. He will have succeeded in reversing Reaganism. Liberals have long complained that Reagan's strategy was to starve the (governmental) beast in order to shrink it: First, cut taxes -- then ultimately you have to reduce government spending.

Obama's strategy is exactly the opposite: Expand the beast and then feed it. Spend first -- which then forces taxation. Now that, with the institution of universal health care, we are becoming the full entitlement state, the beast will have to be fed.

And the VAT is the only trough in creation large enough.

That's a lot of money being drained from the productive, entrepreneurial economy and shoveled directly into the hands of the government. History has also shown us that a tax raised for one purpose won't go to just that use, it will be used as an excuse to raise spending overall, creating greater deficits and debt, thus leading to higher taxes and on and on and on.

Here's the nifty little trick of ObamaCare and Obama in general...he's going to try and force the Republicans into the position of being the tax collectors for his welfare state. When the bill starts coming due next year, the Democrats are going to be squabbling over who to pick as their minority leader in the House and if they are lucky, Senate Democrats will be trying to figure out how to do things with a 1 or 2 seat majority instead of the 9 they have now. If they are unlucky, they will be doing the same as their little brother in the House.

Even if Republicans can undo ObamaCare before the most disastrous elements take effect, there's still a tremendous amount of debt that's been run up thanks to the so-called 'stimulus' and other ObamaReidPelosi spending efforts.

The real question for the Republicans is, once they take over will they roll this stuff back?

The federal government uses 'base line budgeting' to set it's spending levels. That means all of Obama's spending is baked into the budget cake forever. As the bond markets are telling anyone who will listen, this isnÂ’t going to go on forever.

I honestly don't know with something as complex and large as the federal budget, with all its component parts, whether zero baseline budgeting is possible but it was part of the original Contract With America. The numbers don't lie about where we are going if we simply assume that all spending will continually grow and each larger budget is the minimum going forward.

I know this kind of root canal economic conservatism went out of favor in the 80s when we simply decided that we could grow and borrow our way to any spending we wanted but it turns out our national spending appetite was greater than our ability to grow.

We did a fine job of creating growth but we spent and borrowed at an even faster rate. Again, this is simply unsustainable.

Before I'm run out of the movement...I get that pro-growth policies are good and that we have to constrain our spending but that doesn't mean we can never roll back the budget. I oppose government spending not just on financial grounds but also on the grounds of liberty. The more the government spends, the more it becomes entwined in areas of our lives it simply has no place being. I donÂ’t want to balance the budget at current levels; I want to balance it at a lower level as a percentage of the economy.

Unfortunately, this is more popular in theory among voters than it is in reality.

Obama ran on the promise (threat to some) he was going to fundamentally change America. Sadly he is well on his way to doing that. From health care to spending to regulations, Republicans need to decide if they are going to run on tweaking at the margins or will they use this moment try and roll back statist assumptions that pre-date Obama?

I really hope itÂ’s the latter.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:59 AM | Comments (233)
Post contains 881 words, total size 6 kb.

Oh boy.

>A South Korean naval vessel with more than 100 aboard was sinking on Friday in waters near North Korea and Seoul was investigating whether it was hit in a torpedo attack by the North, South Korean media said.

Broadcaster SBS said many South Korean sailors on the stricken vessel were feared dead.

South Korea's YTN TV network said the government was investigating whether the sinking was due to a torpedo attack by the North, and Yonhap news agency said the Seoul government had convened an emergency meeting of security-related ministers.

Yonhap also reported a South Korean navy ship firing towards an unidentified vessel to the north.

We have about 30,000 troops stationed in South Korea so if anything starts, we are in it.

Thanks to Dave In Texas for the heads up.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:34 AM | Comments (349)
Post contains 154 words, total size 1 kb.

Hugo's got his own "fairness doctrine".

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- The owner of Venezuela's only remaining TV channel that takes a critical line against President Hugo Chavez was arrested Thursday, raising concerns the government is carrying out a widening crackdown aimed at silencing opponents.

Guillermo Zuloaga, owner of Globovision, was arrested on a warrant for remarks that were deemed "offensive" to the president, Attorney General Luisa Ortega said...

The Attorney General's Office said in a statement that prosecutors are investigating Zuloaga for allegedly violating a law prohibiting Venezuelans from spreading "false information through any medium," including newspapers, radio, television, e-mails or leaflets, "that cause public panic."

Full-blown socialism has a tendency to hand the advantage to the despot regardless of the will of the people (go figure), including control of the media. Make it a crime .

Which is why I fully expect this to happen here can't imagine this ever happening here.

They will use the word "fairness", which will confuse you because you thought you knew what that word meant.

more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 06:38 AM | Comments (139)
Post contains 213 words, total size 2 kb.

FRIDAY!!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:30 AM | Comments (177)
Post contains 9 words, total size 1 kb.

You OWN IT NOW Democrats, ALL OF IT - including ahem, taxpayer subsidized Viagra for convicted sex offenders.

They really might have wanted to do some focus group kinda thing before voting on that Viagra deal. I'm just saying...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 08:08 PM | Comments (271)
Post contains 75 words, total size 1 kb.

Happy Thursday M&Ms.

Ford's New Police Interceptor for North America

And if it seems familiar, that's because Robocop also used a Taurus-based cruiser. I guess Ford will be coming out with the SUX 6000 next.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:41 PM | Comments (961)
Post contains 330 words, total size 4 kb.