He became quite a scourge of anything Not Arch-Liberal in his later years.

Posted by: Ace at 11:47 AM | Comments (683)
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The other countries have already fallen into contraction.

Germany's economy slowed to "near stagnation" last month, while France's recorded its biggest contraction for four years, according to a closely watched survey.

...

Mr Williamson added that the weak showing from Germany "suggests that the only source of bright light in an otherwise gloomy region has once again begun to fade".

Japan's got the solution to their own Endless Recession: Stimulus Money.

The Bank of Japan unleashed the world's most intense burst of monetary stimulus on Thursday, promising to inject about $1.4 trillion into the economy in less than two years, a radical gamble that sent the yen reeling and bond yields to record lows.

I'm sure that will work.

Posted by: Ace at 11:22 AM | Comments (228)
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He didn't like the "direction" of it and butted heads with Lena Dunham.

In other showbiz news, there's chatter that old bitter cranky Dave Letterman will be put to pasture next year and replaced by Jon Stewart, who is already under contract with CBS' owning entity, Viacom.

I like this bubbly Youth Over Alles part of the article:

Age is also an issue. Stewart is 50 years old, which would make him a decade older than Fallon and Kimmel. But he’s also 15 years younger than Letterman and a dozen years younger than Leno. And at 50, he’s more than ready for his shining moment on the big network. He would bring the considerable “The Daily Show” audience with him, plus the allegiance of many celebrities who adore him. Imagine a three way network contest in September 2014 of Stewart-Fallon-Kimmel. Audiences will get no sleep!

We'll sleep just fine, but thank you for your concern.

Oh, and unrelated: You know how we always say, "Gee, wish those Naked Feminist Protesters would protest one day against hardcore Islam"?

Well... they have. A Tunisian activist posted pictures of her naked body with the words "My body is owned by myself and is not anyone else's honor," and was arrested. (I think that part about "honor" refers to the idea in Islam that women must be covered up to protect the honor of Islam and Islamic men. But I don't know.)

So the Feminist group "Femen" is protesting that, nakedly, and are protesting Islam generally. They burned a Salfist flag, for example. Corrected: I said they were Ukranian, because one picture was captioned as being from Ukraine; in fact they are Europe-wide, and demonstrated in front of the Tunisian embassy in many European capitals.

Content Warning for nudity, profanity, and, worst of all, the hate crime of anti-Islamist blasphemy.

Second look at Femen & topless protests?

Posted by: Ace at 10:25 AM | Comments (382)
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Good. So let's ban fully automatic weapons like we did for virtually all persons as we already have done since 1933.

Now, over the next couple of months, weÂ’ve got a couple of issues: gun control. (Applause.) I just came from Denver, where the issue of gun violence is something that has haunted families for way too long, and it is possible for us to create common-sense gun safety measures that respect the traditions of gun ownership in this country and hunters and sportsmen, but also make sure that we donÂ’t have another 20 children in a classroom gunned down by a semiautomatic weapon -- by a fully automatic weapon in that case, sadly.

Posted by: Ace at 09:42 AM | Comments (291)
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One of the debates during the ObamaCare fight and the recent campaign was the impact of Medicare cuts on recipients. ObamaCare supporters denied that the cuts would affect seniors since the cuts were on "providers" and not on "benefits".

The Washington Posts' healthcare writer Sarah Kliff last August.

The Medicare Advantage cut gets the most attention, but it only accounts for about a third of the Affordable Care ActÂ’s spending reduction. Another big chunk comes from the hospitals. The health law changed how Medicare calculates what they get reimbursed for various services, slightly lowering their rates over time. Hospitals agreed to these cuts because they knew, at the same time, they would likely see an influx of paying patients with the Affordable Care ActÂ’s insurance expansion.

...

ItÂ’s worth noting that thereÂ’s one area these cuts donÂ’t touch: Medicare benefits. The Affordable Care Act rolls back payment rates for hospitals and insurers. It does not, however, change the basket of benefits that patients have access to. And, as Ezra pointed out earlier today, the Ryan budget would keep these cuts in place.

(Emphasis mine)

See, cutting payments to providers doesn't affect benefits, apparently because providers will make it up in volume by seeing more loss leading patients or something

That sounds ridiculous to most people with any real world experience but that was the case ObamaCare supporters made. Now, if only there were a real world way to test who is right.

And thanks to the very same Sarah Kliff on the Post's website we do have a real world test case. Shockingly, the ObamaCare promises fall apart when faced with reality.

Cancer clinics across the country have begun turning away thousands of Medicare patients, blaming the sequester budget cuts.

Oncologists say the reduced funding, which took effect for Medicare on April 1, makes it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy drugs while staying afloat financially.

Patients at these clinics would need to seek treatment elsewhere, such as at hospitals that might not have the capacity to accommodate them.

“If we treated the patients receiving the most expensive drugs, we’d be out of business in six months to a year,” said Jeff Vacirca, chief executive of North Shore Hematology Oncology Associates in New York. “The drugs we’re going to lose money on we’re not going to administer right now.”

...

“If you get cut on the service side, you can either absorb it or make do with fewer nurses,” said Ted Okon, director of the Community Oncology Alliance, which advocates for hundreds of cancer clinics nationwide. “This is a drug that we’re purchasing. The costs don’t change and you can’t do without it. There isn’t really wiggle room.”

(Emphasis mine)

Wait what? Cutting payments for services leads to less...services? Economics...how does it work?

Of course Medicare recipients will have the same "benefits" as liberals always promise, they just won't have anywhere to redeem them.

Related; Ben Domenich has a back and forth with Ezra Klein over ObamaCare vs. Republican health plans with predictable results.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:36 AM | Comments (568)
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• Obama, "I Am Constrained By A System Our Founders Put In Place"
  
• 700 Million In Taxpayer Funds For Hurricane Katrina Recovery Gone Missing
  
• Female Marines Fail Infantry Officers Course
  
• Dem Rep Mocks Pro-Gun Senior
  
• Tony Romo Is The Highest Paid NFL QB After Taxes
  
• Terrible April Fool's Prank Idea
  
• Subprime Auto Loans Too?
  
• Home Run Ball Smacks Woman In The Face After Pansy Boyfriend Jumps Out Of The Way
  
• George Will: Schools Push A Curriculum Of Propaganda
  
• Coming Out As A Conservative On Campus
  
• North Korea Could Be Moving New Missile To East Coast
  
• Cancer Clinics Turn Away Thousands Of Medicare Patients
  
• Conn Governor Set To Sign Gun Control Law
  
• A Chilly Look Into The Economic Future Of Cyprus
  
• New Arrested Development Season Available On May 26th
  
• Obamacare Trouble, Exchange Provision Delayed
  
• German Economic Output Near Stagnation
  
• The New House Republican Web Strategy
  

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Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:04 AM | Comments (150)
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This story about the current job environment for twenty-somethings is a good jumping-off point to talk about one of the dangers our society faces in the coming years: we're eating our seed corn.

It's not just the size of the Gen-Y/Millennial demographic, or what their job skills (or lack thereof) are when they're young -- everybody has crappy jobs when they're young. That's part of the process. The bigger problem is the lack of upward mobility and a mismatch between the demands of a high-tech workplace and the skills in the adult workforce.

The problem is rooted in the failures of our educational system. Primary and secondary education is mired in the same wasteful bureaucratic morass as other public entities these days, and the university system has pretty much transformed itself into a collection of Marxist political seminaries dedicated not to promoting knowledge, but to advancing the "progressive" cause. Businesses, who had turned the college degree as a stand-in for the aptitude tests they were forbidden to administer, now find that even a degree is a poor signifier for a job-applicant's knowledge, skills, and talents. It's quite possible for a young person to pass through twenty years of schooling (or more) and come out the other side nearly as unsuited for the working world as when they entered the school system.

But still: most young people can adapt and learn, given the proper motivation. I'm not worried about a 25-year-old who can't figure out what he or she really wants to do for the next 20 years. I am worried about a 35-year-old who can't figure it out. I am worried about an unmarried 35-year-old who still has a mountain of debt from school loans, two or three useless liberal arts or humanities degrees, and still lives with his mom and dad.

Part of the problem is the skills mismatch -- a poli-sci or humanities major isn't much use in a world that is demanding ever more engineers and computer programmers. The world can only absorb so many social workers and latina studies majors and even astrophysicists.

But ithe issue is bigger than not having enough SQL database administrators or mobile-app developers or engineers. The entire work environment is changing as technology relentlessly drives forward. The old model where you drove to a building and worked the same job for 8 hours a day and then went home has been dying out for a long time now. Forget working for the same company for your entire career except in a very few cases. You probably won't even do the same kind of job for your entire career. (I've been, at various times, a shipping clerk, a line cook, a laborer, a cowboy, a computer repairman, a software developer, a technical writer, a teacher, and a farmhand. And that's only the paying jobs that required filling out a W-2.)

The problem with America's (and Europe's) workforce is twofold: it is unsuited for the workforce now, and will probably be even more ill-prepared for the future workforce. To be successful from here on out is going to require a broad-based set of skills, a high level of mobility and flexibility, and a willingness to do hard and unpleasant work for relatively little pay. That's the "new normal" that everybody's talking about. Freelance and short-term gigs are going to be far more common as firms strive to keep their core payrolls low. As automation and other forms of technology continue to drive down materials and manufacturing costs, the price of human labor is going to continue to fall -- not just in the low end of the job market, but in the trades and professions as well.

The reality is that we've chosen the European social model of social welfare at the cost of high structural unemployment at just the time when this model is failing all over the world: in Japan, in Europe, and here. At exactly the time young people need to be entrepreneurs, jacks-of-all-trades, and self-starters, we're turning them into under-educated, over-entitled, helpless, unskilled wards of the State.

All is not lost. The world still needs people who can carry a plate of food from the kitchen to the table.

I've often said that "follow your dreams" is, in most cases, bad career advice for young people (or anyone, really). Find a job that you can make a decent living at and that you don't hate. You don't have to love it -- if it was fun they wouldn't call it work. If you are one of the lucky ones who can find a paying job doing something you love, then be happy, because most people don't have that option.

Ultimately, the core truth is that the world doesn't owe anyone a living. We all have to go out there and find one. It may not be the one we want, but that too is just reality asserting itself.

----

UPDATE: Gee, it seems like only a week ago that all the news outlets were trumpeting that we had turned the corner on jobs. As it turns out...not so much.

Posted by: Monty at 04:49 AM | Comments (322)
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Happy Thursday.

Some email correspondents made an interesting observation. Top news stories yesterday were (1) South Carolina's Mark Sanford, admitted adulterer and confessed misuser of taxpayer money, won the SC1 GOP primary; (2) North Carolina Republicans are trying to pass a nullification law so they can (putatively, but really not, bless their hearts) ignore the federal courts telling them to stop favoring Christianity over other religions; and (3) Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is fighting to uphold the state's "Crimes Against Nature" law, which makes it unlawful for adults of either sex to have oral or anal sex. How's that rebranding going?

You might have seen on twitter a bit of dust-up over Ben Howe's column about poorly-made conservative art. John Nolte, for example, is a bit het up about it. I agree with Dana Loesch.

And, just because I spent all night drooling all over it, take a look at this.

Finally, there are some moron meetups being planned by commenters that ya'll are invited to. Sean Bannion is planning a get-together in the NoVA/DC region sometime in June. If you're interested in that, you can contact him at novadcmoronmeetup [at] gmail. I'm aware of another meetup being planned for NYC next week, you can email CBD at nynjmeet [at] optimum [dot] net for info on that.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:55 AM | Comments (381)
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Got $300?

Then you can get you some matching bubbly for living the AoSHQ Gangsta Lifestyle.

there is a section separated by chain-link. This is where the most valued items are temporarily housed, including a Melchizidek (30 liters) of Ace of Spades, the Jay-Z champagne of choice. The cost: $44,000.

And don't forget the rest of your accessories:

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:45 PM | Comments (780)
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Obviously a copyright violation but whatev's. I didn't do it. I'm an innocent here.

It's a Michael Crichton movie. As usual, he jams a bunch of neat ideas into the thing. In this case, it's all about digital manipulation of images/computer generated avatars replacing actors/the fusion of entertainment and sex and politics/and television's power as the greatest propaganda system in the history of the world.

Plus, a really neat gun. I really want the LOOKER gun.

This was made in 1981, so some of this stuff was actually science fiction when it was made. How time flies. A lot of is, of course, no longer science fiction, but rather stuff that's so commonplace we hardly notice it now.

So I don't know how that would make the movie feel to a new viewer.

But even though we don't notice it... maybe we ought to.

Eh, I used to love this movie. Still do. It's slow in parts, doesn't quite all fit together (I suspect some important connective tissue of the movie was left on the cutting room floor), and is very 80s. Albert Finney's Casual Business wardrobe is kind of funny.

It's also got that Michael Crichton vibe, where you can tell he's just using a Thriller format as a vehicle to talk about the stuff he wants to talk about but really doesn't care all that much about the characters or story. The Murders and Suspense and Sexy Things are just there as bait to get you in the door, so he can talk about futuristic ideas in advertising.

But it's got Albert Finney as the Good Guy and James Coburn as the Bad Guy and some graphic violence and a great shootout at the end that achieves a very strange effect-- balancing somewhere between horror and hilarity.

Anyway, it's free, until they yank it, so enjoy Looker if you're bored.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:44 PM | Comments (371)
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