This was from last week, but I didn't notice.

I posted what I think was an update by Yuval Levin. This earlier post by Andrew Stiles makes the big points.

The whole thing is worth reading. The point is, though, that based on unrealistic scenarios (Doc Fix repealed, and Medicare starts paying Medicare doctors 30% less immediately, etc.), Medicare goes bankrupt in 2024.

But realistically, it will go bankrupt in eight years or something like that.

And what happens then?

Immediate, automatic cuts in payments made.

Seniors need to wake the hell up. In eight years or so they're going to be facing doctors unwilling to treat because Medicare will, by law, pay doctors even less than the below-market-rates it's paying now.

That's the current plan. That's the system seniors are rallying to protect.

If the trust funds are exhausted, immediate benefits cuts would go into effect. Starting in 2024, Medicare could pay about 90 percent of benefits, but that would drop to about 75 percent in 2045. In other words, despite Democratic attempts to savage the Ryan/GOP budget for “ending Medicare as we know it” (starting in 2022), the fact is that “Medicare as we know it” simply won’t be around much longer anyway on it’s current path. Social Security benefits, meanwhile, would receive an immediate 25 percent cut. This is exactly what Paul Ryan is talking about when he stresses to need to address entitlement spending now, on our terms, before cuts are imposed swiftly and indiscriminately.

Starting in eight years (or less), the death panels spring into effect automatically.

And honestly, I have to say this: Don't count on my vote for pouring more money into the system. You won't have it. And while pouring more money into a broken system to bail out those who stood against reforming it will have some political support, I don't know if you'll have the 60 votes necessary to end a filibuster on this in the Senate.

As a conservative, I believe in personal responsibility. The information is available. The mathematics are inevitable. The conclusion is unavoidable.

If, faced with these facts, seniors not only acquiesce to this outcome, but in fact affirmatively choose it, then they'll have no one to blame but themselves, and they can cry to someone else when they can't get coverage.

Sorry, that's the way it is.

People make their own choices. And they have to live with those choices.

If the choice is calamity and collapse, so be it, but no one will be able to say "I wasn't warned."

More: Collapse as a Feature, Not a Bug: Collapse as part of a scheme for universal government health care? At least that makes some sense. More sense than collapse for the sake of collapse.

Thanks to Monty.

H/t to Robtr: He's been trying to tell me for ages the cuts are automatic; that when we hit the limit, cuts go into effect automatically. I didn't know that. I thought he was probably right (he sounded like someone who knew what he was talking about) but really didn't know it for certain.

There's only one way out of this mess, and it's not this.

Posted by: Ace at 01:23 PM | Comments (136)
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Drudge counted; I don't see an article noting this. Drudge notes it in a headline.

As for that "helped" in in the headline, that's how Reuters/Yahoo headline it:

Obama thanks CIA for helping track down Bin Laden

Guys? Thanks for the assist. Seriously. You really helped.

Other quotes can be mocked here:

"I put my bet on you," he said. "Now the whole world knows that that faith in you was justified."

Not "our country" bet on you? Nah. This is resume padding bullshit from an asshole who's done zero in his life. Anyone without real credentials does this -- they write their resume with deliberately nebulous semi-verbs to somehow insert themselves into the center of the action.

Mere presence at a meeting (but not decisionmaking or leadership) becomes "interfaced and facilitated high-level decisions" or whatnot.

Obama didn't do anything, but can't say so. So he uses ACTION WORDS!!! to grab some credit from someone else. I "bet" on you, whatever "bet" means.

I can do this too:

I was instrumental in facilitating a punking designed by my reader for my primary benefit. I put my faith in Average Joe, and you can all see now my faith was justified.

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Posted by: Ace at 12:44 PM | Comments (154)
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Video up. Netanyahu treats Obama like Obama treated Ryan.

Except Ryan didn't have a microphone; he couldn't talk back. Obama did have a microphone. He just got shut up.

Man, you can tell Obama does not like getting lectured. He can dish 'em out but he is not happy to get 'em.

Public Sodomy

It's scary and wrong but you can't look away.

An Ewok: Quick one. All I got.

Posted by: Ace at 12:32 PM | Comments (281)
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Of course you can't say "black hole of voter fraud," because, you know.

It's a clumsy analogy, but whatever. In fact, by the video's end, she doesn't even call Detroit a black hole. She calls it a blue hole, blue for Democratic voter fraud.

But of course the left, looking for anything to talk about apart from Obama's failures, are seizing upon it.

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Posted by: Ace at 11:49 AM | Comments (291)
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Says here Conoco Phillips and the DOE will have a test project to extract Methane from Methane Clathrate in Alaska this winter.


Why is this important?


"the energy content of methane occurring in hydrate form is immense, possibly exceeding the combined energy content of all other known fossil fuels"

Methane Hydrate looks like ice. But there's gobs of Methane locked up in that ice - so much that you can set a block of it on fire! Problem is coming up with a practical way to grab hold of that sweet, sweet CH4. Besides the absurd amounds of Clathrate lying all over the ocean floor, there's gigatons of it under the tundra in the arctic areas of Alaska, Canada and Siberia. This new technique involves injecting CO2 which liberates and replaces the Methane in the ice. Yeah, that's right. It'll keep the greenies happy* because there's CO2 sequestration involved!

*Not really. They'll just bitch about something else.

This plausible Methane Hydrate exploitation is in addition to the stupidly humoungous amounts of shale Methane just starting to come on line. Too bad it's still expensive to fly a jet or drive a truck around...

What's this!? Royal Dutch Shell has a pilot project to convert Methane into jet fuel and diesel. Whee! Science and Free Enterprise work well together.

Thanks to the May 20th, 2011 edition of the CCNet newsletter. Here's the web page with most of the same info

Posted by: Open Blogger at 11:12 AM | Comments (80)
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Obama kisses up to our enemies, which does us no good, and makes us seem weak and ready to cut deals if they just kill more of us, and meanwhile vindicates their strategy of murder by demanding that allies give in to terrorism.

Neither front is won in this Offensive Offensive, but, f.y.i. Obama NEVER makes a mistake.

Netanyahu said that while the refugee issue needed to be resolved, it could not be resolved within Israel's borders.

Obama reiterated that Israel's security would be "paramount" in any likely peace deal with the Palestinians.

Yes, Israel's security is so "paramount" he discounts it and dismisses it every opportunity he has. Israel says "We cannot have the 67 borders, they are indefensible, we could be overrun (as we almost were in the war that won us those borders)," Obama says "I don't care."

"Paramount"

It's just a word you say to get what you want, like "post-partisan" or "herpes-free."

More Quotes: Isn't there a horse you road in on? And aren't both of you feeling a little frisky?

Speaking after an Oval Office meeting that went nearly two hours longer than scheduled, Netanyahu said any deal "cannot go back to the 1967 lines, because these lines are indefensible, because they don't take into account certain changes that have taken place on the ground."

Between 1948 and 1967, Netanyahu said, "These were not the boundaries of peace. They were the boundaries of repeated wars."

His comments represented a setback for Obama, who proposed in a speech Thursday that Israeli-Palestinian peace talks resume with the 1967 lines -- plus agreed-upon "swaps" -- forming the basis for a deal. Less than 24 hours later, the leader of Israel had rejected the U.S. president's proposal.

Compare and Contrast: Netanyahu as a young man, and the princeling Obama.

Yeah, I don't think Bam-Bam's gonna bullrush BiBi.

Posted by: Ace at 10:40 AM | Comments (236)
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I just got this.

I had no idea there were so many hopelessly ignorant people in the U.S.A. until I came across your website. Usually profanity indicates a serious lack of vocabulary, and that is very present on Spades HQ, but even worse, they do not seem to recognize sincerity and integrity (or even brains) when they see it.



Obama's Cario speech two years ago gave those masses a reason to regain self-respect and, I believe, was the inspiration for their uprising. Further, Obama NEVER makes a mistake. Each time he speaks or acts, the criticism runs high until a week or so later (to those really paying attention and able to get past their anger based on ignorance) it becomes abundantly clear what he was up to, and EVERY TIME, "it works".... so get behind him and give him a chance to clear up the mess left behind by George Bush.



Bush's policies caused severe problems for the USA - far beyond financial, and human suffering and loss in his immoral war, but also problems for the whole world, a recovery from which will take generations, not one Presidential term.

I repeat - CALM DOWN give the guy a chance.





I dare you to publish this on your website.

You dare me?

To put up easy content? To put up comedy I didn't even have to write?

To put up a five-second post which will probably result in 500+ comments and maybe some classic jokes?

To publish the sad ramblings of a pathetic cultist?

To publish something that reveals you as desperately seeking validation for beliefs you are clearly starting to strongly doubt?

Dare accepted, Judy.

No, I'm Not Making It Up: I forwarded it to cobloggers.
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Posted by: Ace at 09:28 AM | Comments (754)
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I hear the guy who wrote this is a great guy. So hopefully this won't follow him around too much.

But, as damaging as Gingrich's original statements were, this is actually what's going to drive him out of the race: The ridicule. You can get pretty far in American politics being wrong (hi President Obama!), but you can't get anywhere being ridiculous.

So this is damaging to Gingrich.

But it's also generally helpful to us. The more Gingrich looks absurd, the less respectable his comments about the Ryan's plan will be. The Democrats will still use his comments of course, to damage all those Republican congressmen who took substantial political risk to support a course of wisdom and restraint, but there will be at least some mitigation available, as Republican talking-heads can just roll their eyes and say, "Yes, that comes from the Hero who Emerges Unscathed from the Hail of Elite Bullets."

It doesn't undo the damage. It just makes it a little bit less.

I sorta like Gingrich and I even feel a little bad. But this is necessary for the good of the party. The guy basically put his own ambitions above party and principle and tried a Democrat style pitch in the Republican primary, to differentiate his brand and advance himself. (And then he tried that whole immigration-boards thing.)

He's playing for real, genuine Republican voters --- a lot of our voters do not like the Ryan plan and would like very much to pretend along with the Democrats that the plan is already fixed -- and that's a constituency, certainly.

But Gingrich was already shoulder-to-shoulder with Pelosi on cap-and-trade; he now stands shoulder-to-shoulder with her on Medicare.

"It is a flag we’ve planted that we will protect and defend. We have a plan. It’s called Medicare.”

Yes, that plan involves death panels for granny in ten years or less, or huge taxes on the young to support a bankrupt system, and all I can say is if the old plan on being unreasonable now they shouldn't plan on the young being reasonable later.

And yes, Gingrich wants some reforms here and there but he also wishes to pander, along with Nancy Pelosi, and perpetuate the fiction that this is all just a minor accounting thing that can be corrected with a band-aid here or there.

But none of that intergenerational warfare stuff is funny, while that press release is a scream.

Done Before and Better By James Lileks: Lileks already did this in a podcast. At around 3:45.

Thanks to Whatever.

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Posted by: Ace at 09:03 AM | Comments (109)
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And it didn't just lead to bin Ladin, but to other terrorists, and other plots.

Before the interrogations, the U.S. knew little about al Qaeda in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Years later, the CIA and military had accumulated a large database of ongoing plots and the identities of terrorists, the WikiLeaks files show.

“The WikiLeaks documents provide still additional evidence that intelligence gained from CIA detainees not only helped lead us to Osama bin Laden, it helped us disrupt a number of follow-on attacks that had been set in motion after 9/11,” said Marc Thiessen, a former Bush speechwriter.

“Without this program, we would not have gone nearly 10 years without another catastrophic attack on the homeland. This is quite possibly the most important, and most successful, intelligence program in modern times. But instead of medals, the people behind this program have been given subpoenas.”

He was referring to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s launch of a criminal investigation of CIA officers who conducted the “enhanced” interrogations, some of which the Obama administration has dubbed “torture.”

That's the Washington Times making those conclusions, a conservative-leaning paper, and Marc Thiessen, conservative-leaning as well, but the evidence is the evidence.

John McCain recently wrote an op-ed claiming exactly none of the information necessary to get bin Ladin came from enhanced interrogations. The story is a little muddled, but Andrew McCarthy catches him misleading his audience, and basically rewriting Leon Panetta's statement to get to that conclusion.

Apparently a terrorist, not subject to Enhanced Interrogation, gave up the real name of al-Kuwaiti in 2002. But this was apparently overlooked, as no one really understood how important al-Kuwaiti was.

Only later did enhanced interrogation reveal al-Kuwaiti was crucial, and get his real name. For the second time, but the first time it was noticed. Apparently we only even know of the 2002 disclosure because the CIA, after getting that information in 2004, searched all its files for additional mentions of the name, and discovered they had actually had a reference to the name from a couple of years back.

But McCain casts this as if the CIA knew, as an organization, who al-Kuwaiti was, all from standard q-and-a interrogation. Not so. They had a stray mention of the name whose value eluded them. It was enhanced interrogation that generated both the name and the importance of the name.

So, casting back through old files, with lots of bits and pieces which weren't acted on, McCain now seizes on this unappreciated mention and says we knew the name from 2002, without EIT.

Not so. Or at least that's how it appears. It looks like McCain is doing what all of these jackasses do, simply changing the facts to support an untenable conclusion they need to be true.

Posted by: Ace at 08:42 AM | Comments (87)
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So, maybe that South Carolina thing wasn't just a thing after all.

"I think my problem is that I do have the fire in my belly," Palin said when Susteren asked if she’d run. "I am so adamantly supportive of the good, traditional things about America and our free enterprise system and I want to make sure America is put back on the right track and we will do that by defeating Obama in 2012. I have that fire in my belly.”

As sheÂ’s done in recent interviews, Palin cited her family as one of her main concerns in launching a political campaign.

“With a large family, understanding the huge amount of scrutiny and sacrifices that have to be made on my children’s part in order to see their mama run for president. But yeah, the fire in the belly, that’s there,” she said.

Andrew Sullivan emails to say, "Is Palin really that stupid that she thinks it's possible for combustion to take place inside one's stomach? Still, with this crazy woman there's no way to be sure until we see her gastrointestinal medical records. Will anyone be brave enough to join me in this call? I doubt it."

Palin has always said she wouldn't run if there was another solid, constitutional conservative in the field. What about Herman Cain?

From Kos' pollsters at PPP.

Herman Cain out polled Pawlenty and obliterated Huntsman on the first night of our Ohio GOP poll...may be more than a sideshow

Cain also narrowly outpolled Gingrich on the first night of our Wisconsin poll...candidates headed in different directions

In somewhat less exciting news...Tim Pawlenty is running for President.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:16 AM | Comments (387)
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