CBS poll: 54% don't think Obama deserves re-election
— Purple Avenger

As Emeril would say - BAM!

Even 19% of Dems don't think he deserves a second term. The indies are against a second term by 55%.

If even 5% of Dems stay home out of disgust its over - Sponge Bob could win running on the R side.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 09:22 AM | Comments (182)
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Time's Newest Ridiculous Person of the Year: Occupy
— Ace

Time claims they're honoring "The Protester," not Occupy per se, and this general-purpose protester includes all protesters.

It just so happens Time decides protesting is cool when a bunch of car-shitters are doing it.

Ed Morrissey isn't buying it.

In 2009, Time had the same opportunity to pick “the protester” when the protests were the Tea Party and Iran’s Green Revolution, which followed from Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, and so on. Who did they pick? Ben Bernanke. When the Tea Party movement actually delivered results at the ballot box in 2010 in a historic midterm drubbing of Barack Obama’s Democrats — they lost 68 seats, the worst outing since 1938 — they could have hailed The Protester then, too. Who did they pick? Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

So they’re a little late to “the protester” story in terms of real impact. And what impact has “the protester” actually had in 2011? Has the Occupy Movement, such as it is, had any kind of ground-breaking impact on politics in the way the Tea Party did in 2010 and still does in this cycle? Not even close...

This doesn't matter. Why do I fall for it? Why am I falling for this stupid liberal stunt by a stupid and low-influence glossy magazine?

Posted by: Ace at 09:19 AM | Comments (106)
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The Perfect Christmas Gift for the Man Who Has Everything
— Dave in Texas

That's not a Swiss Army knife. This is a Swiss Army knife.

The Wenger 16999 Giant Swiss Army Knife

Just like this smart military blog, the best stuff is in the comments.

23 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5 stars Be careful...I had it in my hip pocket, then I fell down. When I got up, I was dead. Other than that, it's ok.

3.0 out of 5 stars Found this...
...stuck into a stone while on vacation. I'm impressed with it, generally. Unfortunately, it turns out that removing it made me the new king of Switzerland, which is a lot of responsibility.

via Kevlarchick

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:17 AM | Comments (333)
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DOOM: Monty got a raw deal
— Monty

Paul Rahe: Is means-testing just? IÂ’m reading RaheÂ’s magisterial Republics Ancient and Modern right now, so I was interested to see what his take on this issue would be. A particularly savory bit:

Along the way, next to no one on the left or right paused to consider whether policing the lives of ordinary citizens in this fashion is not a species of tyranny. Almost everyone thought that the end – getting all Americans on health insurance – justifies the means, for the unspoken presumption of our masters in Washington and in the state capitols is that ordinary people lack the capacity to assess the risks they encounter, make their own decisions, and pay the consequences.

And more:

I am no friend to any of the entitlement programs. All of them involve a stealthy transfer of wealth. All of them discourage diligence and industry. All of them reward sloth and punish success – and it seems to me that means-testing those not yet means-tested would serve only to take bad policy and make it worse, for it would transform what presents itself as a species of social insurance (and to some degree really serves as such) into an out-and-out welfare program.

It’s all great stuff (I wish I’d written it), but I’d respond to Rahe by saying that the time for a "fair" or "just" resolution is long past. There is no “fair” outcome possible at this point. No matter what happens, someone is going to get cheated. Maybe everyone. The ultimate villains here are the politicians who have been lying to their constituents for much of the past several decades about the sustainability of these programs. I can only repeat what I’ve said before: you know you’re in a crisis when all of your options suck.

This piece is less an argument in favor of a Eurozone bailout and more an argument for not letting things come to such a pass in the first place. "Moral hazard" can't just be a conveniently-ignored abstraction when the going gets tough because if you ignore it too long, the whole edifice will fall down around your ears. Supply and demand, action and consequence -- for an economy to function, it must be allowed to work naturally. The ECB and Eurozone bureaucrats have blown right past the "two wrongs make a right" phase and have gone into the "maybe fifteen or twenty wrongs might make a right, somehow" phase. (This article also trots out the fallacy that this is a liquidity crisis. It's not. It is at base a sovereign solvency crisis.)
more...

Posted by: Monty at 04:40 AM | Comments (161)
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Top Headline Comments 12-14-11
— andy

A couple of days ago, I linked this post congratulating Tim Blair on his 10-year blogiversary in the sidebar.

Tim's a great blogger in Australia who I read often, if for no other reason than his recurring affirmation that leftists are the exact same nitwits on the opposite side of the globe as they are here.

These days, the rightosphere is advancing on Twitter, and Tim's at the forefront of this wave. Here's his post congratulating our buddy Iowahawk on his Twitter debut.

You can follow Tim on Twitter at ... hey ... wait what? Tim's not on Twitter?

We need to rectify this great injustice, Moron Nation! Go to his blog and bombard the comments with congratulations on 10 years and a suggestion that he get with the Twittering. Or tweeting.

Pick the top post. Or all posts.

Go!

Posted by: andy at 02:49 AM | Comments (135)
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On the Ben Howe Podcast
— Ace

Over Now.

Basically we discuss how we are politically doomed and there's no way out.

I recorded this between 4:30 and 6 today. It's on now, the Ben Howe show. There's a Listen & Chat button at the top left. It's working now. It gives you a sign-in page, but you don't have to sign in.

Posted by: Ace at 07:06 PM | Comments (439)
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When a Young Man's Fancy Turns to Week 14
— Dave in Texas

Yes. I made you wait all day. I know, I suck. A thousand pardons. I am the 99 percent of people who are late with pickem updates.

Arranged Marriages

Muletrain2016 119
Country Blumkins 116
Aristomenes from da 54301: 114
scott: 114
Lord Nazh 112

Guys Your Mom Said "Stay Away From"

rd brewer: 109
Russ from Winter set: 108
Gabe Malor 107
DrewM 106
Andy 101
Ben 100
DiT 94 (and my best week ever)

As always, thanks to Ben and CDR M and their abacuses.

Also, for no reason at all, here's the most popular family portrait Christmas card on the internets this evening. Feliz Navidad.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:24 PM | Comments (12)
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Overnight Open Thread - Extended Boredom Mix
— Maetenloch

How To Really Choose Your Candidate

Just ask yourself which of these possible First Ladies you'd prefer to be nagged by over the next four years.

See - that wasn't so hard

Anti-Semitism and FAIL

Anti-Semitism isn't just the socialism of fools - it's also a reliable marker for societies that suck.

As IÂ’ve observed before in this space, countries where vicious anti-Semitism is rife are almost always backward and poor. This isnÂ’t, as anti-Semites believe, because the Elders of Zion are plotting to keep Uz-beki-beki-beki-stan poor. It is because the inability to see the world clearly and discern cause and effect relations in complex social settings is linked to many other failures in economic and political life. Anti-Semitism isnÂ’t just the socialism of fools; it is the sociology of the befuddled. The anti-Semite fails to grasp how the world works, and that failure condemns him to endless frustration. Naturally, this is the fault of the Jews.

more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:11 PM | Comments (801)
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Grave New Worry of the Bien Pensant Left: If Tim Tebow Wins The Super Bowl, There Could Be a Christian Wildfire Resulting In Riots and Mayhem
— Ace

Let me assure you this isn't a worry; this is a fact.

If the Broncos, 8-5 and not really what you'd call a dominant football team, not only make the playoffs but defeat the Patriots and/or the Ravens and then go on to defeat Green Bay, 13-0 and likely one of the all-time best teams to ever play the game, that heralds the Rapture and then the End of Days tribulations.

In any event, enjoy the ravings of a religious bigot straining mightily to explain, like a Klansman might, that his bigotry and hatred are rational, man.

Next Sunday, the Broncos host the New England Patriots in a game coveted so much by the networks that NBC and CBS sparred in unprecedented fashion over who would get to broadcast it. And why not? While the Patriots are adored by their fans (myself included), to many nationwide they are regarded as the Sons of Darkness, with their perfectly coiffed Hollywood quarterback and their brilliant – one might say diabolical – hoodie-clad coach.

And, oh yes, the most identifiably Jewish owner in sports. Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and Bob Kraft are all upstanding citizens, moral exemplars in their home communities, but in this Oberammergau of the Rockies, they are playing the role of Pilate.

People are always looking for signs of God’s beneficence, and a victory by the Orange Crush over the blue-clad Patriots, from the bluest of blue states, will give fodder to a Christian revivalism that has already turned the Republican presidential race into a pander-thon to social conservatives, rekindling memories of those cultural icons of the ‘80s, the Moral Majority and “Hee Haw.” The culture wars are alive and well, and, if the current climate in Washington is any indicator, the motors are being revved up for what will undoubtedly be the most cantankerous Presidential campaign ever. When supposedly well-educated candidates publicly question overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change and evolution and then gain electoral traction by fabricating conspiracies about a war on Christmas, these are not rational times.

I'm bolding that to note that while this guy is coming from the Jewish perspective, he is more crucially coming from a liberal perspective, and he's been taught, as many liberals have been, that Hatred is a powerful and useful weapon, and can be righteously wielded against the Unworthy.

Us, I mean.

Into the middle of it all rides Tebow. Absolutely confident that God is on his side, he comes across as a humbler version of the biblical Joseph, who, in this weekÂ’s Torah portion, audaciously lays claim to being the Chosen One, and then goes out and proves it. TebowÂ’s sanctimonious God-talk has led even pious peers like Kurt Warner to suggest that he cool it. Joseph could have used the same coaching.

If Tebow wins the Super Bowl, against all odds, it will buoy his faithful, and emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants. While America has become more inclusive since Jerry FalwellÂ’s first political forays, a Tebow triumph could set those efforts back considerably.

My daughter Che-Che just started crying.

Little of this insanity, mind you, has to do with Tebow himself. I admire much of what he stands for. His mom’s decision to risk her own life rather than abort her fetus flies against my own – and Judaism’s – values, but neither am I pro-choice in all cases. His story is so improbable that if he were to win it all, a part of me would be wondering whether there is a Purpose behind it, just as I saw a divine hand in the equally unbelievable Red Sox victory of 2004. And it makes me wonder whether other Jews, the ones who don’t happen to have advanced degrees in religion and a few decades of rabbinic experience, might be even more seduced by this unfolding drama....

For me, only one thing is certain. On Sunday, IÂ’ll be praying for the Patriots.

This guy is Jewish. I have to call out some Jews a bit on this point: There are some Jews -- quite good people -- who nevertheless feel free to indulge in a retrograde fear of the Christian religion which they would regard as horrific were it directed at their own.

Certainly there is a history of pogroms in Europe, and, in America, discrimination. Such fears are not entirely unfounded.

But the idea of a new age of pogrom based upon the Tim Tebow throwing a football seems to be a reactionary one, conceived in hatred, executed in bitterness.

It just seems to be dressing up a tribalistic hatred in some socially-acceptable clothing. Oh it's not that I hate Christians and their false god or anything. It's just that I fear they are monsters who will go insane in religious ecstasy if a football hero wins a big game.

Look, I really do believe in tolerance and acceptance and... well, amity, especially among Jews and Christians, who seem to be getting along pretty well.

But tolerance is a two-way street. Those who desire tolerance of the practice of their own religion are hypocrites if they do not permit others to practice their own.

And dreaming up fantastical Protocols of the Elders of Bethlehem murder scenarios doesn't sound very tolerant to me. It seems to suggest it is inherently evil to proclaim the Christian faith.

I'm not even a Christian by belief (by birth, but not by belief), and I find the idea of that offensive: You're really instructing me that if I chose to become Christian, I would be required to hide that fact, lest I be accused of inciting a domestic disturbance?

Or at the very least behaving in an incivil manner?

Would any Jew accept the claim that the wearing of yarmulke in public is inherently incivil and offensive to non-Jews? Of course not.

Any Christian "offended" to see a Jew unashamed to be counted as a Jew would be branded as a bigot -- and rightly so.

What is the difference here?

Oh, right. The riots.

This idea is inculcated on the left, which on one hand preaches against Hate, where politically useful to do so, but on the other hand crafts Special Exceptions and Secret Caveats to explain why their own hatreds are not only permissible, but god-damned civic minded. Even righteous.

At the end of the piece he claims he doesn't hate Christians; he just hates certainty.

I would suggest it requires a certain level of certainty in the ill-will and violent temperament of Christians to spin this sort of piece.

There's an old saying, easily adapted to this situation: Bigotry is like a fart. Only your own smell acceptable.

Well, with all due respect: No, a fart is odious in all circumstances. No one's farts are super-special-sweet-smelling.

People need to grow the hell up. Religion is inherently exclusionary. If you believe, you're part of that religion. If you don't, you're not.

That's the point of it. There are no religions that I am aware of that make no distinctions between believer and nonbeliever.

"But you're making me feel like an outsider" is not a strong enough reason to demand that millions of people either give up their faith or at least refrain from being so uncouth to proclaim it (as they believe their religion demands).

We are all outsiders to some. No one is going to give up their beliefs to spare anyone of the pain of momentarily thinking "Well I don't agree with that or subscribe to that," and the whole project to mau-mau people into doing so should be abandoned as futile-- and obnoxious.

Via @bdomenech

Posted by: Ace at 02:43 PM | Comments (754)
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Don't Click On This Picture
— Ace

You're going to click, and then you're going to complain, like I'm the bad guy.

I am not the bad guy. I'm the guy telling you not to click.

And yet you will.

Don't click. I'm tellin' ya.

More like that here, and don't click on this either.

Via @starchambermaid.

You Can Click On This One: You won't be happy you clicked on it, but you can click on it.

Posted by: Ace at 12:25 PM | Comments (363)
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