See, here's the problem: a spending limit isn't a limit unless it actually functions as a bar to further spending. As Abraham Lincoln himself once said about the proverbial five-legged dog: calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one. In short, reality will assert itself.

Yes, Mister President, we are a nation of takers. And the makers are getting pretty fed up.

Remember back when people were ashamed to be layabouts and leeches? My advice to the slackers: enjoy the easy life while you can, because the gravy train is just about to run out of track. And you may find life in the aftermath of the crash extremely unpleasant, because your fellow citizens are going to remember who was pulling the cart and who was just sitting on it.

Why 30-year-olds need to start saving now. Actually, if you're 30 or over, should have been saving for awhile already. That goes double if you're married. That goes triple if you have kids. Yes, it's difficult to save much when you're young because you don't make much, but every little bit helps, and even twenty or thirty bucks a month adds up after a while. In fact, the poorer you are, the more vital saving your own money becomes because you live on a much thinner cushion.

Scenes from the terminal phase of the welfare state. Somehow, when I hear welfare-state advocates talking about concepts like "dignity" and "self-respect", I don't think this is the kind of thing they're thinking about. Yet it is the inevitable outcome. First on the small scale, then on the large.

My government spent $180 Billion on this program and all I got was traumatic memories of some mean little girl named Kendra wiping a booger on my new corduroy pants. You ever try to get snot out of corduroy? You can't do it, man.

Some scary chart-fu from the fun-loving guys at ZeroHedge. Just remember that when politicians use the word "recovery", they're using it in a way that not many people in the real economy would recognize.

Obamacare: The gift that keeps on giving, even when you wish to God it would stop. Even the most ardent partisans of ObamaCare are beginning to feel the sting of regret.

Remember that wonderful boost in housing everybody was rhapsodizing about a week or two ago? Yeah, about that....

Unemployment -- in real terms -- at 14.4%, four years after Obama first took office. Forward!

Japanese Finance Ministar Taro Aso urges elderly people to show their patriotic spirit by dying more quickly. They're costing the government a fortune, apparently, and Minister Aso finds this the easiest and fairest solution.

Unions versus our kids. This whole "war of the old against the young" is going to get hotter as time goes by and public spending becomes ever more constrained.

"Staying the Course" from the inimitable Steyn. Our culture is incubating the virus that will end up killing us.

Japanese banks and the central government will start "coordinating policy". For all the vaunted benefits of an independent central bank, sovereign imperative will always trump economics. This is just another step in Japan's descent into fiscal chaos; it was as inevitable as the tides. The Japanese saw that Teh Bernank pulled off QE in the United States with no runaway inflation, but we have two advantages the Japanese don't: 1) We issue the world's reserve currency; and 2) we have a positive (if only slightly so) growth profile. But the Japanese will inflate, and reap the whirlwind. (On another note, I've never been sold on the so-called "independence" of central banks, mainly because these so-called "iindependent" banks have proven to be just as prone to political pressure as any other government entity.)

As it turns out, Minnesota is boned as well.

I've said it many times: the Federal fiscal cirsis is bad, but rather abstract. The real fiscal crisis -- the one you're going to feel, the one that will affect your daily life, the one that will probably preciptate the final reckoning, whatever that is -- is the one confronting cities and states. The major driver of that crisis -- as always -- is the skyrocketing costs of employee and retiree benefits: pensions and healthcare.

How do you measure economic growth in the modern economy?

Next on "Hedge Fund Gladiators", the in-your-face new reality series from CNBC: Carl "The Yankee Doodle Dandy" Icahn vs Bill "The Hit-man" Ackman! Two men enter, one man leaves!

We really didn't need more proof that the traditional defined-benefit pension plan is dying out, but here's more data from the BLS that underscores the point. In the private sector, defined-benefit pensions have been on the way out since the late 1980's, and the public sector is increasingly moving that way as pension benefits threaten to eat city and state governments alive.

The pension bomb already exploded. Once a bomb has exploded, all you can do is scramble for cover, try to contain the blast, and then clean up the mess as best you can when it's all over.

Taggart should tell the boys to work up a number six on them: California landowners won't sell the land for the new high-speed rail line, which by the way is supposed to start in July. more...

Posted by: Monty at 04:00 AM | Comments (13)
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All the stories coming out in the last week or so about immigration shows that the narrative is being set up. Today, John McCain did his part to further the Democrat's agenda.

McCain said on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday that a group of bipartisan senators would be announcing “principles” on immigration reform this week, which he said was similar to a plan unveiled during President George W. Bush’s second term that ultimately failed.

...

McCain said thereÂ’s one big reason that his party has to loosen its opposition to providing a path to citizenship.

“Look at the last election,” he said. “We are losing dramatically the Hispanic vote, which we think should be ours for a variety of reasons, and we’ve got to understand that.”

President Obama is making his own immigration push this week with a speech in Las Vegas. McCain, one of the president’s harshest critics in Congress, said he thinks Obama’s proposals will be “helpful” to the effort in the Senate.

Ok John, let's look at the last election.

Quick question...if amnesty will lead to GOP victories, why are the Democrats so insistent on it? Seems to me if Republicans pushing for this are right, the Democrats would be raising holy hell to stop it.

The Washington Posts allegedly conservative blogger (who loved her some Mitt Romney) is touting Rubio's part in all of this.

On Wednesday he was pitching his plan on staunch conservative Mark Levin’s radio show. At one point (at the 4:30 mark) Rubio called the current system “de facto immigration,” meaning that by not enforcing current law we are already giving those here illegally a free pass. For Levin, this was compelling. (“We have de facto amnesty right now. When he said it, it set a light bulb off. Maybe I am a little slow. I said, ‘Well he’s right, we do have de facto amnesty.’ Which is exactly why Obama wants to really do nothing.”)

That's idiotic. Supposedly the reason we have to do this (aside from all the new "Republican" voters) is that it's unfair to make these people "live in the shadows".

Well, if we have "de facto amnesty" now, what difference will actual amnesty make to illegals? If the answer is none, what the hell is all the fuss about? Obviously there are tremendous benefits to legalizing people currently here illegally. What's missing is the upside to the country and people who have waited years and years to come here legally.

Oh and for all the talk of legal immigration reform as part of this, considering how backed up and slow the current system is, what's going to happen to wait times for legal immigrants while ICE is busy processing 10+ million illegals? Sure the illegals may not go to the head of the citizenship line but they will go to the head of the background check and processing of their new visas line. As always, the illegals will screw over the suckers who played by the rules.

This is just more of the double talk, fact free bs the pro-amnesty side is always putting out. We beat it back in 2007 with a liberal in the White House and Democrats in the Senate and House, we'll have to do it again. At least this time, we'll have the House as a base of sanity. Oh right, Boehner's for it too.

If amnesty does pass this time, will fiscal conservatives who opposed this type of immigration reform finally wise up and leave the GOP?

UPDATE: My God, they want to kill the GOP. And by "they" I mean Republicans.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:17 AM | Comments (464)
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The Battle Lines Are Being Drawn

Since gun control is working so well in Chicago ...

This is a hold up: Rahm Emanuel takes gun battle to banks

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is taking his gun control push to private banks and asking major lenders in Chicago to stop doing business with firearms manufacturers.

In a letter to TD Bank and Bank of America on Thursday, Mr. Emanuel asked the CEOs to force gun manufacturers they do business with to “find common ground with the vast majority of Americans who support a military weapons and ammunition ban.”

Meanwhile ...

Gun range prohibits police after city considers ban

A rural Vermont firing range has told the police department in Burlington that its officers are unwelcome to train at the facility because the City Council has advanced a measure to ban semi-automatic rifles and large-capacity magazines in the state's largest city.

Diane Feinstein introduced her ridiculous gun control bill this week, and people across the political spectrum pretty well laughed it off. But make no mistake, the left will continue this push for gun control using all means at their disposal. It must be resisted at every turn, so hats off to that Vermont gun range and every business like it that stands solidly behind our second amendment rights.

I credit Ronnie Barrett of Barrett Firearms with setting the gold standard for telling gun grabbing politicians to get bent. Follow that link to read Barrett's letter in its entirety. It can't really be excerpted well and I don't want to copy the whole thing into the thread.

Related: Australian Whinemaker Seeks To Pull Wine From NRA Wine Club, Gun Show Sponsor Feeds Crocodile, Gets Eaten First

Note: I'm going to do the good guy/bad guy list mentioned in the "Australian Whinemaker" post as a separate post that I'll update as people line up for or against us.

While we're in the neighborhood ...

Moron Milblogger XBradTC has a must-see video on his blog of the mayor of Oak Harbor, Washington, standing up for a citizen's second amendment rights. Go, right now, and watch the whole thing of you haven't seen it. Kudos to Mayor Scott Dudley.

If you find yourself in a postion to address your elected officials or the press on second amendment issues, GunFacts.info is chock-full of eBook learnin' you'd do well to know in advance.

Gun Of The Week

more...

Posted by: andy at 12:33 PM | Comments (675)
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From Vic in the morning thread comes this piece:

“Chase Power … has opted to suspend efforts to further permit the facility and is seeking alternative investors as part of a plan of dissolution for the parent company,” Chase CEO Dave Freysinger told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

Freysinger made it very clear who was responsible for the projects death. “The (Las Brisas Energy Center) is a victim of EPA’s concerted effort to stifle solid-fuel energy facilities in the U.S., including EPA’s carbon-permitting requirements and EPA’s New Source Performance Standards for new power plants,” he said.

...

“These costly rules exceeded the bounds of EPA authority, incur tremendous costs, and produce no real benefits related to climate change,” Freysinger commented

As a reminder, the executive branch, Obama's EPA, took these actions unilaterally after congress wouldn't cut the economy's throat by passing cap & trade. Who could have possibly predicted the outcome of such a policy?

TFG, that's who.

The only thing I've said with respect to coal, I haven't been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as a (sic) ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can.

It's just that it will bankrupt them.

And bankrupt them it did. Well done, low-info voters. more...

Posted by: andy at 05:25 AM | Comments (285)
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You boys could use a little churchin' up.

Posted by: andy at 04:11 AM | Comments (245)
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I Love The Grumpy Cat Meme

They're all funny.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:15 PM | Comments (1077)
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Behind the Scenes At AoSHQ (Pixy's Office)

Good morning morons and moronettes and welcome to this week's Sunday Morning Book Thread.

Before we get into the good stuff, I want to take advantage of my position as an AoSHQ sub-cob-logger and say one thing:

A Public Appeal To Pixy To Fix This Blog

Dear Pixy:

I know that being inundated by spam comments is a real problem for blogs and I know that you have to take aggressive measures to deal with it, and believe me, I thank you for all your efforts to keep AoSHQ free of these barnacles. But the fact is, I have been unable to post comments in any thread for over a month. From home, I mean. I can post from my work computer just fine.

The problem is that the standard solution of sending in the IP address to ace to forward to you to put on a white list doesn't work, at least not for me. Here is why:

63.155.153.173
71.34.241.110
71.215.190.131
63.155.151.76
75.170.16.163
75.170.29.201
71.215.181.48
75.170.29.57
71.34.247.225

See these IP addresses? They have all been my external IP address at some time during the last couple of weeks. I know this because I have been keeping track using http://whatismyipaddress.com. My ISP is CenturyLink, and for whatever reason, my computer is assigned a new IP address every day or two. I have no idea why they do it this way, but there's nothing I can do to change it. So by the time I contact ace to contact you with another IP address to whitelist, it's already been changed to something else, and I'm back in the same boat.

I am unable to comment on threads that I create. I can modify or delete existing comments, but I can't add a new one, not even with my super sub-cob-logger posting powers. Ironic, that.

So please, Pixy, I beg you to look into this to see if there's something you can do. Because if it's happening to me, chances are there are other morons who are being affected by this as well.

Thank you.

-OregonMuse more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:06 AM | Comments (193)
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Speaking truth to those who don't want to hear it. He knows when seconds count the police are only minutes away. If you got the vile flash enabled, there's a PodBean with the audio clip.

"With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option," he adds. "You can beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back. ... Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there."

Posted by: Open Blogger at 02:31 PM | Comments (361)
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Wait. What?

The NRA has a wine club?

After discovering that the NRA was selling four of its wines on the clubÂ’s international list, winemaker Yalumba is seeking to detach itself from the NRA, Fox News reports.

“Philosophically, I’m not disposed towards the NRA, which runs counter to my family’s, and I would think all my employees’, positions on gun laws,” Yalumba founder Robert Hill Smith said. “We will act to withdraw our stock or at least not service the account any longer.”

As one who is partial to the grape (but just the red ones), I will be joining the NRA Wine Club today. And I encourage you to as well.

Tomorrow's Guns & Hunting Thread will include a list of companies like Buffalo Wild Wings, Intuit and Yalumba winery (whose wine, I'm sure, sucks) that you should consider steering your dollars away from.

Wine club story via @BamaPachyderm's FB page.

Posted by: andy at 12:01 PM | Comments (370)
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Whenever you hear about a "A Bi-partisan Senate Gang of X" you can be sure of one thing, Republicans are about to get screwed.

Also included in the new Senate group are Schumer, who chairs the key Senate subcommittee where legislative action will begin; Graham; Robert Menendez (D-N.J.); and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Two others, Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.), have also been involved in some talks.

Their timetable would aim for a bill to be written by March or April and potentially considered for final passage in the Senate as early as the summer. Proponents believe adoption in the GOP-held House would be made easier with a strong bipartisan vote in the Senate.

Naturally all the usual stuff is on the menu, "guest worker" visa and amnesty of one sort of another naturally topping the list.

Just a reminder Hispanics who we are endlessly told are "natural Republicans and conservatives" have NEVER voted for Republicans as a bloc. The challenge for the GOP now isn't that it isn't getting more or less the same share of the Hispanic vote, it's that Hispanics are increasing as a percentage of voters.

I'm still unclear on how making more of something (in this case legal voters of Hispanic origin) will lead to Republican gains with that cohort.

There are certainly other reasons to support amnesty but amnesty supporters withing the GOP/conservative movement don't seem to be making them. They mostly rely on the fanciful notion that amnesty will miraculously lead to gains for the GOP. The history of the 1986 amnesty says otherwise.

The bigger question is why in the fallout of an electoral drubbing and internal fights over the various fiscal fights in Congress the GOP would willing take on a divisive issue like immigration.

It boggles the mind that supposed party "leaders" are ready to pitch a wounded party into yet another major internal fight.

(For the record using the term "Hispanic" is wildly inaccurate since there are major cultural and political differences between many groups caught up in that catchall term. Still, it's the one that's used in the debate so we're stuck using it.)

Posted by: DrewM at 10:54 AM | Comments (386)
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