220 ... 221. Whatever it takes.

Posted by: andy at 02:59 AM | Comments (266)
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Red Alert Media spells the tactic out.

Does this sound familiar?

1) There is an important problem that requires Congress and the President to act. (entitlement reform, viable budget, sequestration, fiscal cliff, debt limit hike, etc.)

2) House Republicans propose and pass a bill with what they consider a good solution to the problem.

3) President Obama and Senate Democrats realize it is easier to attack the Republican plan than propose their own, so they refuse to propose a real bill.

4) President Obama delivers several campaign-like speeches filled with strawmen portraying Republicans as unreasonable, uncaring and somehow responsible for a lack of solution.

5) No permanent solution is achieved.

It should. This cycle has been repeated on every major issue that has come up since Republicans took over the House in 2011.

Even a liberal like Ron Fourier, while, of course, mostly blaming Republicans, actually notices that Obama is president and the buck should, at some point, stop with him.

If itÂ’s all about politics, bully for Obama. A majority of voters will likely side with the president over Republicans in a budget dispute because of his popularity and the GOPÂ’s pathetic approval ratings.

If it’s about governing, the story changes: In any enterprise, the chief executive is ultimately accountable for success and failure. Sure, blame Congress — castigate all 535 lawmakers, or the roughly half you hate. But there is only one president.

But did he beat Tiger? That's the main thing.

[Update - Andy] Rather than pushing the boss's post down with this like I almost did, I'll just graft it on.

Obama on sequestration: "I don't know why it is in this town, folks leave stuff until the last minute"

Posted by: Ace at 04:36 PM | Comments (402)
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I hope I may be forgiven for some light blasphemy here in invoking the name of a Jew: Jesus.

Apparently, um, per the straight-shooter Chuck Schumer (who is certainly not mendaciously using his own ethnic cred to sell this trainwreck to his fellow Jews), Hagel actually cried when he discovered that Jews had previously been accused of all sorts of conspiracies against the gentiles of the state, and also debarred from working in a large number of professions.

But now Chuck Hagel rented Fiddler on the Roof so he's up to speed now.

Confirm Chuck Hagel!

He's no anti-semite. He's just a simpleton.

Posted by: Ace at 03:28 PM | Comments (240)
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Up to three hours, in total, as apparently some lines currently take two hours. (??!!)

Customs furloughs will hit especially hard in international passenger areas where check-ins for those returning to or visiting the United States can experience two hour waits already. "Wait times getting back into the country projected at three or more hours," said a travel industry source. A Democratic review of sequester cuts added, "At the busiest airports, the increase in peak airport wait times would regularly reach three or more hours. These delays would dramatically impact air travel, potentially causing thousands of missed passenger connections daily, and negatively impact our economy."

I'm not sure if this is at all true-- or a bureaucracy attempting to create alarmism to protect their share of the Federal Tax Pie.

If we don't have the money to fund the NEA's newest rage, Security Theater, how about we cut back on some of the theatricality?

But those defense layoffs Obama said wouldn't happen? The layoffs he instructed employers to not warn about, as they were required to under the law? So that he wouldn't have 800,000 layoff letters going out before an election?

Yeah they're happening, just as everyone thought they would.

Obama wanted to cut these jobs-- he just didn't want people to know they were being cut before the election.

I'd like to see some prosecutions of all those who rolled under Obama and disobeyed the law because a man without the power to suspend the law told them to.

Let people know there are consequences for obeying illegal orders. As there are in the Army.

Posted by: Ace at 02:38 PM | Comments (184)
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I think it's live.

I know many don't care but as I posted the first story yesterday, I sort of now have to finish the thing and post this link to their livestream.

I know, I know, I'm a bad blogger today (seriously). I'll put something more broadly interesting right on top of this thing.

Posted by: Ace at 02:28 PM | Comments (63)
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You can read a digest of the review at Althouse, or the full review (by leftwing collectivist legal critic and Obama crony) Cass Sunstein.

If the benefits justify the costs, [the wrytyr] is willing to eliminate freedom of choice, not to prevent people from obtaining their own goals but to ensure that they do so....

A natural objection is that autonomy is an end in itself and not merely a means. On this view, people should be entitled to choose as they like, even if they end up choosing poorly. In a free society, people must be allowed to make their own mistakes, and to the extent possible learn from them, rather than facing correction and punishment from bureaucratic meddlers. Conly responds that when government makes (some) decisions for us, we gain not only in personal welfare but also in autonomy, if only because our time is freed up to deal with what most concerns us....

Chew on that.

Inspector @sshole:

...So, tell me again the difference between (1) living under such a far-left regime and (2) being a monk of a religious order that imposes harsh discipline 24 hours a day, or (3) being a dog trained to kill other dogs in a kennel, or (4) being a slave of an autocratic ruler who delights in controlling every aspect of every subject including death?

Actually, #2 provides much, much more freedom in that you are allowed to leave freely (non-Islamic, since Islam demands death for leaving it) and #3, the dog can always lick its own balls in the off time.

So basically being a slave is the same as being a slave - one is by committee, and one is by birth.

The totalitarians have a lot of Five-Year Plans and schemes to organize us and direct our actions like bees in a hive.

They seem to forget the first principle, the Human Principle: We are humans, we are not bees. We are humans, we are not things. We are humans, we are not gears to be flattened and ground to fit the Machine.

C.S. Lewis should always be quoted here:

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baronÂ’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

A commenter said they want a monarch, and another said they want to be monarch.

This understates their ambition dramatically. At the end of the day all a monarch really wants is for his subjects to pay for his upkeep, not rebel against him, and take military duty when he decides he should go to war. And of course he'd like fancy gowns and jewels.

But beyond that, the king does not care all that much about interfering in the lives of his subjects. Treason and taxes are the extent of his real emotional investment in them.

But the totalitarian...? Oh my, do they want to do so much more to for you.

Posted by: Ace at 01:15 PM | Comments (459)
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Ah, that was cheap, and so's this zero-content post.

ItÂ’s the highest job approval Governor Chris Christie has ever had. At 74 percent, itÂ’s the highest of any New Jersey Governor in the 17 years that Quinnipiac has been polling the state, and the highest of any Governor in the seven states that Quinnipiac polls now.

...

“If the Democrat was Andrew Cuomo or Hillary Clinton, Clinton beats him 49 percent to 45 percent — within the margin of error — and Cuomo trails him 54 percent to 36 percent in New Jersey,” Carroll explains.

I'll find something more important in a second.

Posted by: Ace at 12:59 PM | Comments (142)
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Is this real?

It's so... undiplomatic I wasn't sure. (And the letter itself has lapses in grammar, as if written by a non-native speaker.)

But it does seem to check out, at least as far as superficial background-- Marice M. Taylor is the head of Titan Tires.

Per the letter: A French minister of Industrial Redevelopment tried to interest Titan tires in opening an operation in a shuttered plant in Amien.

Here's a snippet of the letter; more at the link.

Dear Mr. Montebourg:

...

I appreciate your thinking that your Ministry is protecting industrial activities and jobs in France. I and Titan have a 40-year history of buying closed factories and companies, losing millions of dollars and turning them around to create a good business, paying good wages. Goodyear tried for over four years to save part of the Amiens jobs that are some of the highest paid, but the French unions and French government did nothing but talk.

I have visited the factory a couple of times. The French workforce gets paid high wages but works only three hours. They get one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three, and work for three. I told this to the French union workers to their faces. They told me thatÂ’s the French way!

The Chinese are shipping tires into France - really all over Europe - and yet you do nothing. In five years, Michelin wonÂ’t be able to produce tire in France. France will lose its industrial business because government is more government.

Sir, your letter states you want Titan to start a discussion. How stupid do you think we are?

Update: Tasker found the CEO's blog, but I can't find it. However, I found this article which establishes the take-away here: Morry Taylor is called "The Grizz" owing to his negotiating style, which is all Flying Bearclaws and Hibernation Holds and Honey Bottom Seatdrops.

Tasker shoots me his blog -- "GrizzTalk."

Posted by: Ace at 11:31 AM | Comments (387)
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Welp! Looks like it's fallen to me to weave together another puerile tapestry of the sophomoric and spectacular for the viewing pleasure of the Moron Horde. Not that it's an especially unpleasant task, mind you. It's actually kind of refreshing for a person of my refined tastes and sensibilities to rub elbows with the hoi-polloi from time to time. It helps to keep me grounded, you see. Otherwise, I'd be missing out on all the latest internet crazes like Rick-Rolling and ICQ.

Finding material to share on the ONT is more difficult than one might imagine. After all, the Horde is a diverse and eclectic bunch, rather more hep to the internet scene than your typical group of blog commenters. Odds are, even if you do find something humorous or intriguing, a fairly large contingent has seen it before. But, no matter how erudite a person might be, it's impossible for them to have seen everything. That's why I like to use compilations of extraordinary video clips cobbled together from multiple sources. The one below, for example, contains a few clips that I'd already seen in addition to some that caused my reproductive organs to seek shelter inside my torso -- an unambiguous indicator of high quality entertainment.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:00 PM | Comments (568)
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I think people in the party have resigned themselves to being a minority party for 8-16 years. Since they do not entertain any hopes of having actual political power, what's left is interparty jockeying for position in the pecking order.

We're obviously not going to win in this state. The smartest guys in the party, at least as regards retail politics, are broadcasting this to me. As they plainly believe it, I must take this seriously.

And I have. Apparently this is going to be a philosophical period, the political equivalent of a "rebuilding season" (well, like four to eight rebuilding seasons in a row).

We're not interested in going after Democrats, not really; that seems too out of our grasp. Victories over each other seem more manageable, more winnable. We've decided, collectively, that we can't go to market (that is, the greater political contest of Republicans vs. Democrats) until we've finished our playoffs of Grassroots vs. Establishment for 8-16 years.

Given that the party doesn't want to win, I don't see the point of pretending otherwise.

Kind of hard to get interested when we already know the results are failure.

The Plus Side: Because we're not seriously contending in politics for a while, we don't have to counterfeit our beliefs any longer as regards compromise with each other and team unity.

That's actually very liberating, and very useful. If you've got lemons, make lemonade, after all.

So I will stop whining about it and just embrace it. But of course I get to play to. If we're going to have a Festivus Airing of Grievances, I've got some myself.

Here's one: I think a lot of people are in this party because it provides an intellectual and therefore socially acceptable basis for Judging and Scolding.

I'm sick of it. I'm sick to death of it. I'm sick of making excuses for it. I'm sick of pretending I don't think it's weird that people are still wigging out over the idea that some people are attracted to the same sex, and are still pushing some sort of "political" agenda about this, like we need a governmental fix to discourage homosexuality.

If we're going to have a war of all against all, let's have it, honestly.

Posted by: Ace at 10:26 AM | Comments (1041)
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