"A balanced plan"

President Obama has presented to Republicans his plan to avert a fiscal cliff. The Foundry blog has this chart.

"The “plan,” presented to Republican leaders yesterday, consists of $1.6 trillion in tax hikes over 10 years and unspecified spending cuts that “could total” $400 billion over the same period. So estimating liberally, the package consists of at least $4 of tax increases to $1 of spending cuts—and that’s if the promised spending reductions do materialize (which is far from certain). This is the Obama definition of “a balanced plan.”

Read more here: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/11/30/chart-of-the-week-obamas-fiscal-cliff-plan-has-4-of-tax-hikes-to-1-of-cuts/

Victim: the most coveted status anyone can attain in our society

Is General Petraeus a victim? Stephanie D. Edelman writes in The Daily Caller that he may have attained that status.

"This lukewarm, boys-will-be-boys excuse mongering not only condones such behavior, it flies in the face of conservative sensibilities. This is not to suggest that Petraeus should be branded with a figurative scarlet letter or barred from ever holding public office again, or that conservatives should not mourn the loss of such a tremendous leader. Yet Petraeus’ extramarital affair is essentially a betrayal of classic, cherished conservative American values: the institution of the family, and the importance of fidelity and commitment."

"As Doyle McManus noted in the Los Angeles Times, “Petraeus appears likely to go down in history as a beneficiary of what you might call the Bill Clinton rule: Adultery is no longer a disqualifier in American politics.” This normalizing of infidelity should be anathema to conservatives. It is corrosive of the family unit and of the institution of marriage — values which, given their decline in recent years, conservatives should be championing, not undermining."

"Many have opined that the loss of Petraeus’ extraordinary contributions to the nation trumps his personal conduct. Others seek to re-allocate the blame: we can fault the CIA, whose standards regarding extramarital affairs are “artifacts of the Cold War era and the social and political mores of that time” (John Prados, The Washington Post). We can claim that “when a lonely late-middle-aged married man with a stressful job falls into bed (or under the desk) with an attractive and adoring younger woman, it’s not excusable, perhaps, but it’s certainly understandable — and really none of the country’s business”

"Better yet, we can let the general off the hook by deriding the physical appearance of his devoted wife of 38 years, described in a USA Today article as “dowdy Holly Petraeus,” who is “shorter, grayer, broader and way less va-va-voom than the busty other women in this confounding and confusing tale,” and by blogger Christelyn Karazin as “like a 50-something Peppermint Patty. … Holly, if she so chose, could easily improve herself in the looks department. A little hair dye, a date with a gal at the MAC makeup counter, a gym membership and a girdle can do wonders.”

"Such rationalizations vindicate General Petraeus, recasting him in the role of a victim — the most coveted status anyone can attain in our society — who cannot really be held accountable for a moral lapse because he is merely a hapless pawn who has fallen prey to circumstances beyond his control. One expects this sort of spin from the left, but what is truly shocking is the relative lack of outrage from conservatives, many of whom have joined liberals in trivializing the sex scandal.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/26/the-petraeus-broadwell-affair-the-real-scandal-is-the-lack-of-outrage/#ixzz2Dg8Yf7ri

Where are the Libyan weapons?

Forget about Susan Rice. Peter Irsanow asks at The Corner "what about the 20,000 heat seeking surface-to-air missiles that were left unsecured after the rebel takeover last year?”

"The urgency of securing Libyan weaponry after the president’s campaign to depose Qaddafi was plain from the outset. Shortly after the dictator was deposed, scores of al-Qaeda and Islamist flags were raised throughout Benghazi, including the rebel headquarters in that city. According to rebel leader Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, a significant number of Libyan rebels were al-Qaeda fighters, many of whom had fought U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. That would have alerted even a casual observer to the possibility that Qaddafi’s massive weapons stockpiles might end up in the hands of some bad actors."

"Soon afterwards, however, a U.N. envoy reported that Libyan weapons depots were left unguarded after Qaddafi’s overthrow. Since “leading from behind” meant a light or non-existent American footprint in Libya, securing Libya’s vast munitions stockpiles was left in large part to the rebels — that is, the same folks who couldn’t wait to raise the aforementioned flags."

"The weapons depots contained, among other things, chemical and radiological material, including an estimated 7,000 drums of uranium. At the time, assistant secretary of state Andrew Shapiro stated that terrorist groups were interested in obtaining Libyan anti-aircraft missiles which “could pose a threat to civil aviation.” Furthermore, the Washington Post’s David Ignatius reported last May that former CIA officers, apoplectic about the missing weapons, stated that the missiles included Russian-made SA-7 and SA-24 missiles."

"This is just one of the reasons it’s not time to “move on” from questions about Benghazi . If the administration couldn’t competently handle security at our diplomatic facilities in Libya, it raises legitimate questions about its competency in securing the Libyan missiles as well."

Read more here: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/334357/beyond-benghazi-where-are-libyan-missiles-peter-kirsanow

"Our choir keeps getting smaller"

Jon Caldera at The Cauldron writes that he thinks those of us on "team liberty" stink at entertainment. Why? "Our team is prudish, stale, peevish and as easy to be offended as a Women’s Studies professor. We are great in communicating within our own team. We like to sing to our choir. News flash: our choir keeps getting smaller. And we keep losing."

So what does Mr. Smarty Pants Caldera recommend as a solution? That we follow the lead of the left! "The Left knows how to lead with entertainment first, not message. The humor and jokes, the compelling tale, and the great music come first. Then they slip in the message, insults and whiny lyrics."

Not only that, but then Caldera links us to the top ten South Park episodes promoting liberty! I watched the one on "Wallmart," where I learned what will happen when I die, and where the heart of "Wallmart" can be found.

Read more here: http://www.joncaldara.com/2012/11/28/south-parks-top-10-greatest-free-market-hits/

We're Number One

But, wait. The trend does not seem to be in our favor.

Found here: http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=44419

We are so good at fooling ourselves!

Jimmy Kimmel's staff interviewed people off the street to see if they could tell the difference between a regular Starbucks four dollar cup of coffee and the new super premium cup.

Sexual tyranny

Robert Oscar Lopez writes persuasively at The American Thinker blog that gay rights activists need to stay out of other people's bedrooms and out of other people's therapy sessions.

Read more here: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/11/the_latest_sexual_tyranny_from_the_southern_poverty_law_center.html

Sneering away

Peter Berger writes in The American Interest that superstitions abound on all sides of the political map. "The same individuals who sneer at the beliefs of Bible-thumping Republicans believe that all differences between men and women are social conventions, that an eight-month embryo is as much a part of the mother’s body as her appendix, that racism can be abolished by the government allotting privileges by way of racial quotas, that wealth can be distributed without being produced, that homicidal regimes can be influenced by moral persuasion… Need I go on?"

Read more here: http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/berger/2012/11/07/creationism-on-capitol-hill/

The Deadly Crusade Against E-Cigarettes

Here is one doctor who believes that e-cigarettes are a good way for smokers to quit smoking. Dr. Gilbert Ross recommends e-cigarettes and laments the fact that many public health officals are against them. The e-cigarettes deliver the nicotine, which smokers become addicted to, while avoiding the deadly toxins in cigarettes that people smoke. Experts predict the global death toll of cigarettes will approach 1 billion lives lost this century.

"An important fact, rarely discussed by “public health” gurus, is that the patches, gums, and drugs they recommend as “safe and effective” are all-too-often neither. Among the 46 million smokers in the United States, well over half say they want to quit, and more than one-third attempt to do so each year — but less than one-tenth succeed."

"Prohibiting the safest form of nicotine delivery will increase, not stem, cigarette-related deaths. Truly informing smokers about reduced-risk nicotine products, such as e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, and increasing access to these products is a good way to save millions of lives."

Read more here: http://www.american.com/archive/2012/november/the-deadly-crusade-against-e-cigarettes

Christmas holiday trees

According to Laura Ingraham's staff, a community college in North Carolina has forbidden the use of the word "Christmas" in a Christmas Tree Sale by a student group. They have to refer to the trees as "holiday" trees.

Read more here: http://www.lauraingraham.com/b/College-tells-students-they-can-only-sell-holiday-trees/974660307169886472.html

Like Michael Savage, Laura has decided to end her relationship with Talk Radio Network. Our local stations did not pick up Savage on whatever his new syndicator is, but I hope someone will pick up Laura.

War, not peace, is the answer!

Daniel Greenberg writes about war and peace. I include excerpts here, but I urge you to read the whole thing at the Sultan Knish blog.

"Since the League of Nations folded, the warring peoples of the world have added the atom bomb, the suicide bomber, the jet plane, the remotely guided missile, the rape squad, the IED, the child soldier and the stealth fighter to their arsenals. And the humanitarians have murdered a few billion trees printing out more useless treaties, conventions and condemnations; more dead trees than accounted for by every piece of human literature written until the 19th Century.

There is no moral technology to prevent war. Or rather war is the moral technology, that when properly applied, ensures peace.

The humanitarian impulse makes the anti-humanitarian impulse inevitable. The more precisely we try to kill terrorists, the more ingeniously the terrorists blend into the civilian population and employ human shields. The more we try not to kill civilians, the more civilians we are forced to kill. That is the equal and opposite reaction of the humanitarian formula.

In Afghanistan, the Rules of Engagement were overhauled to minimize Afghan civilian casualties. This was so successful that not only did the casualty rate for American soldiers dramatically increase because they were not allowed to fire unless they were being fired at, but the number of Afghan civilian casualties killed by American forces also fell dramatically. It was a great triumph. But sadly the number of Afghan civilians killed by the Taliban increased dramatically and more than made up for the shortfall.

When the Taliban have won the war, the number of civilian casualties will be tremendous once Obama pulls the troops out and the cheerful bearded boys march into Kabul and start killing every woman who can read. But it was still a better thing than the unacceptable levels of civilian casualties under Bush. It was a better thing that the Taliban have free reign to kill as many Afghans as they want than that American soldiers should have been able to fight the Taliban without the humanitarian handcuffs.

And yet for all this monumental effort, for all the soldiers dead because they weren't sure if the man planting an IED in the road was a terrorist or just a decent upstanding poppy farmer checking the soil composition, for all the Afghan civilians killed by the moral technology of inaction, your unfriendly neighborhood peace-shouter is about as satisfied as a cannibal at a vegan banquet. Give him, her or it five valuable minutes of your time and it will begin shrieking about drone strikes, kill lists and the murderous rampage of a technology that is as far from Shock and Awe as you could possibly imagine without going completely Gandhi. If anything it hates drone strikes more than it hates Hiroshima. Mass killing justifies its smug contempt for the machinery of war, but anything that smacks of an attempt to moralize warfare challenges its principles and urges it on to greater displays of outrage.

For decades, every time that Israel was on the verge of finishing off the terrorists, there came a call for a ceasefire or a peace agreement. The call was heeded and the violence continued because all the peace agreements and ceasefires were just prolonged unfinished wars. They were a game of baseball that never ended because no home run was ever scored. Instead the New York Yankees were being forced to play the Martyrs of Muslimtown for thirty years with the umpire stepping in every time the hometown team was on the verge of winning the game. Each peace agreement did not mean peace, it meant that the Muslimtown Martyrs would have another few years to go on killing and being killed.

The business of peace is the industry of death. Behind the peace sign is a field of flowers with a grave for every one. Behind the peace agreement and the ceasefire is another war that will be worse than the last."

Please read the whole thing here: http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2012/11/war-is-answer.html

Losing

"With total ad sales sliding 5.1% in the third quarter of this year, newspapers have set what must be some sort of record in the annals of American business by having their primary revenue stream fall for 25 quarters in a row. On the plus side, the NAA, a publisher-funded trade organization, reported that digital revenues advanced by 3.6% in the third quarter to a bit under $759 million. But the $23.5 million year-to-year gain in digital sales was too small to offset the $311 million year-to-year drop in print revenues. Thus, newspapers in the quarter lost more than $13 in print revenue for every $1 they gained in digital sales.

Read more here: http://newsosaur.blogspot.ca/2012/11/online-sales-are-flat-lining-at.html

Piss off a frog? Probably not such a good idea.

via Kate at small dead animals

Should marijuana be legalized?

How can you tell when your addictions are out of control? When you rationalize by convincing yourself that they are not harmful to you!

Reaching the bottom of the slippery slope

Christian Adams writes at PJ Media about how "erotic zoos" are proliferating in Germany and Denmark. In “erotic zoos,” customers pay to have sex with farm animals. A barnyard pimp collects money from the customers. The Telegraph reports that "Bestiality was legalised in Germany in 1969, the same year that gay sex was also removed from the criminal code. After that, sex with animals was only punishable if the animal was severely injured." There is a new proposal in Germany to charge barnyard pimps with a crime when one of Germany's 100,000 zoophiles pays for sex with animals. Read more here: http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2012/11/27/european-disintegration-animal-prostitution/?singlepage=true

If the media had been doing its job...

Zombie at PJ Media makes a list of reasons Obama should have lost re-election. Readers add to the list. To read the endless list, go here: http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2012/11/02/why-was-there-no-october-surprise/

The opposite of diversity: university!

Kate, the blogger at small dead animals asks, what is the opposite of diversity? The answer: university! Case in point is Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Vancouver, British Columbia, where the student association has rejected a request from a group of students to form a pro life group on campus. Read the story here: http://www.ncln.ca/blog/press-release-b-c-pro-life-student-group-denied-right-to-exist-on-their-university-campus/

The Privacy Illusion

The right to privacy. Does it even exist any more? On election day Scott Adams wrote an absolutely brilliant blog post entitled The Privacy Illusion. Adams asserts that we have almost no real privacy left. But, be of good cheer, he ends his post with this advice: "Just relax, enjoy the promise of technology, and stop worrying about Big Brother. Realistically, he's been ass-raping you for years, and apparently he's not sufficiently endowed for you to have noticed. I don't see that situation changing."

Read it in full here: dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_privacy_illusion

Israel's survival chances

How long will it take before it is unsafe for any Israeli to live above ground? Scott Adams guesses it will happen within ten years. "My assumption is that the coming inevitable wave of hobby-sized suicide drones will be unstoppable because they will fly low to their target and be so numerous that no defense will be effective," writes Adams. What could stop this trend? Or, do you believe as one of Adams' commenters asserts, "Israel will stay right where it is until Armaggedon." http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/predicting_israel/

Final electoral map

via http://saberpoint.blogspot.com/2012/11/obama-wins-re-election.html

Fantasies die hard

Since 1999 there has been a case winding its way through our nations courts, like a tortoise carrying scores of lawyers on its back. It is about making tobacco companies liable for the damage their products inflict. Now, the federal judge hearing the case has ordered the companies to admit that they have been lying to people all these years about the health hazards of smoking. Some of the corrective actions include the companies having to admit in their ads and packaging that “Tobacco companies intentionally designed cigarettes to make them more addictive.” Another says: “All cigarettes cause cancer, lung disease, heart attacks, and premature death.” The judge says the corrective actions are "directed at preventing and restraining the defendants from deceiving the American public in the future.”

Each of the five categories of statements begins with a similar introduction stating that “a federal court has ruled that the defendant tobacco companies deliberately deceived the American public” then says “here is the truth” before going into specifics on the dangers of smoking, health effects of exposure to secondhand smoke, the addictiveness of nicotine and the manipulation of cigarette design and composition.

One statement among those on adverse health effects reads: “More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined.”

Judge Kessler previously ordered the companies to stop marketing cigarettes as “light” and “low-tar” and to make statements about the health effects of smoking in newspapers and magazines and on materials attached to cigarette packages.

People will still believe that they are the exceptions. Yes, cigarettes will kill you, but not me. The most popular brand where I work is Marlboro Light. The package no longer says "Light," but that is still how customers refer to it. Fantasies die hard.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-27/altria-group-corrective-ad-statements-decided-by-u-s-judge.html

Gross Negligence?

Do you want to hear an example of gross negligence? It has been revealed that the law enforcement person who searched the computer at Casey Anthony's house searched the Internet Explorer browser, but not the Mozilla Firefox browser! If he would have searched the Firefox browser, he would have learned that someone did a search on "foolproof suffication" (mispelling suffocation) on the day Caylee was last seen alive!

Update: Jose Baez, Casey's attorney in the criminal case, says that what is being reported is not true. He says that law enforcement scanned the entire computer, and he was surprised that they did not bring up the suffocation search, which the defense team knew about, Baez believes it was related to Casey's father's thoughts about committing suicide. George Anthony is the father, who Casey claims sexually abused Casey when Casey was a child, and who did try to commit suicide a few months after the trial of Casey.

How did the information about the computer searches come out? Because Baez has written a book entitled Presumed Guilty in which he brings up the issue, and says he believes the state had the information, but did not bring it up because it would have actually helped Casey's defense. Why? Because George Anthony claimed that Casey left the house at 12:50, and the search was done more than one hour later. Did Casey Anthony help cover up a murder committed by her father? You don't think a man who sexually abuses his own daughter is capable of murdering his grandaughter?

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/11/27/casey-anthony-lawyer-jose-baez-new-searches-were-suicide-related/

"Forward:" from full-time to part-time

Obamacare requires employers who have more than fifty employees to provide health insurance coverage for any employee who works 30 hours or more per week. This is causing many employers to fill departing full-time employee positions with part-time employees who will work 29 hours or less per week.

John Hawkins writes, "In other words, Obamacare is now giving a lot of companies a powerful incentive NOT to hire full-time workers. Furthermore, imagine yourself in the place of the front office staff Metz has just been forced to make part-time employees. The article doesn’t say whether or not they already have insurance, but if so, they’re about to lose it. They’re also going to lose hours which will mean that they have to get by on greatly reduced paychecks or alternately, get a second part-time job and then juggle schedules at two different places of employment, which may mean more time lost in transit, odd working hours and increased daycare costs. Additionally, full time employees are more likely to get ahead at work. If you promote from within, you’re more likely to look at everyone working full-time before considering the part-timers."

read more here: http://tpnn.com/forward-ehr-from-a-full-time-job-to-part-time-work-thanks-to-obamacare/

If you see no reason for giving thanks...

Cajun truck driver Dave Carter brings us this thought at Ricochet, "When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light. For your life and strength, give thanks for your food and the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies with yourself." - Tecumseh Shawnee

He also offered these and more things to be thankful for: For the gift of liberty which, while currently in disrepute, holds the key to America's past and future glory.

For the insipidly terrible, metaphysically gawd-awful, cosmically stupid rap "music" that is currently destroying the restaurant's speaker system, for it will remain here while I walk to the truck, having gained a new appreciation and reverence for silence. Also, I pray the lead "singer" recovers from his (apparently) strenuous battle with Tourette Syndrome.

read more here: http://ricochet.com/main-feed/For-These-Things

Obamacare is creating a very ugly employment picture

Obamacare is creating a very ugly scenario for our nation's employment picture, according to this post by Pejman Yousefzadeh at Ricochet and Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.

"I have noted this story of a community college that is going to cut work hours for its adjunct faculty and temporary workers in order to avoid the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that the community college pay for health insurance for all of its employees. As anyone might have guessed, this is all just the beginnings of a trend:

Shortly after Nov. 6, Zane Tankel, who runs 40 Applebee’s restaurants in the New York City area, announced that his company was freezing employment and would not build any new restaurants. President Obama’s re-election, Tankel explained, meant that ObamaCare was likely to be fully implemented, costing his company millions of dollars and significantly raising the cost of hiring a worker.

Tankel’s statement prompted outrage and threats of a boycott, but he was far from alone. Already John Schnatter, CEO of Papa John’s Pizza, has announced that he would likely lay off some workers. Earlier, Schnatter said that ObamaCare would cost his business $5 billion to $8 billion annually, forcing him to increase the price of pizzas.

Meanwhile, two other restaurant chains, Olive Garden and Red Lobster, are moving many of their employees from full- to part-time work in order to avoid the law’s mandate that anyone working more than 30 hours must have insurance. An owner of 40 Denny’s in Florida, meanwhile, says he’ll add a 5% surcharge to customer bills in 2014 to cover his increased costs.

While restaurants, with traditionally low profit margins and large numbers of low-skilled, low-wage workers, are exceptionally vulnerable to ObamaCare’s costs, other business are being hit too. For example, Boston Scientific has announced that it will now lay off up to 1,400 workers and shift some jobs to China.

And Dana Holdings, an auto-parts manufacturer with more than 25,000 employees, says it to is exploring ObamaCare-related layoffs.

These, and countless other employers across the country, are not doing an impression of Montgomery Burns. They are simply responding to economic reality.

(Via InstaPundit.) Of course, it ought to go without saying that no one with the least bit of understanding when it comes to economics should be surprised by any of this."

http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Obamacare-A-Very-Ugly-Employment-Picture