I Have Lived In Your Future, And It Didn't Work

Bukovsky's warning - YouTube: "Bukovsky's warning"

And the USSA is no different.

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The Search For The Ginormous Teaspoon

Cox and Archer: Why $16 Trillion Only Hints at the True U.S. Debt - WSJ.com: "When the accrued expenses of the government's entitlement programs are counted, it becomes clear that to collect enough tax revenue just to avoid going deeper into debt would require over $8 trillion in tax collections annually. That is the total of the average annual accrued liabilities of just the two largest entitlement programs, plus the annual cash deficit.

Nothing like that $8 trillion amount is available for the IRS to target. According to the most recent tax data, all individuals filing tax returns in America and earning more than $66,193 per year have a total adjusted gross income of $5.1 trillion. In 2006, when corporate taxable income peaked before the recession, all corporations in the U.S. had total income for tax purposes of $1.6 trillion. That comes to $6.7 trillion available to tax from these individuals and corporations under existing tax laws.

In short, if the government confiscated the entire adjusted gross income of these American taxpayers, plus all of the corporate taxable income in the year before the recession, it wouldn't be nearly enough to fund the over $8 trillion per year in the growth of U.S. liabilities. Some public officials and pundits claim we can dig our way out through tax increases on upper-income earners, or even all taxpayers. In reality, that would amount to bailing out the Pacific Ocean with a teaspoon. Only by addressing these unsustainable spending commitments can the nation's debt and deficit problems be solved."

We have a better chance of finding Obama's college transcripts than we do of finding a large enough teaspoon to solve this problem.

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Saving Lives

Bookworm Room » Armed civilians save lives: "Armed civilians save lives"

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Laws Are For The Little People

Instapundit » Blog Archive » LAW, JOURNALISM, AND DOUBLE STANDARDS: David Gregory, Meet James O’Keefe. Howard Kurtz dismisses…: "ANOTHER UPDATE: Guns And Posers: Why Isn’t David Gregory In Jail?

MORE: The David Gregory meme started at Legal Insurrection with this post: Feds and media jump to David Gregory’s defense as race card goes missing.

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 10:05 am"

Well, yeah.

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Democrats And Guns: Things Never Change

Dred Scott Would Have Been Better Off If He’d Had a Gun | Power Line: "Opponents of gun rights have often misrepresented the manner in which the Second Amendment has been understood through American history. In fact, the amendment has generally been understood to protect the right of individuals (not just state-organized militias) to own and to carry firearms. Much has been written about this since the Newtown murders; one such commentary that I ran across noted that in the Dred Scott decision, Chief Justice Taney wrote that if Negroes had the rights of citizens, it would entail the ability to bear arms–a frightful prospect to Taney, a loyal Democrat. This piqued my interest, as I hadn’t read the Dred Scott decision in decades, and had no memory of the passage cited. So I looked it up."

RTWT.

And why do they never change?  Well, to point this out is verboten of course.  Keep the slave's numbers down with eugenics abortion and create a situation where they're kept so ignorant and manipulated by a violence worshipping culture that they end up killing each other instead of their masters.  And worse yet, so brainwashed that they actually vote for their masters!

Huxley and Orwell are rolling in their graves.

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Have Yourself A (Magical Thinking) Merry Christmas!

Let’s not forget knife control | Power Line: "One of my 2013 predictions — coming soon! — is that rifles will trail knives as murder weapons of choice in the coming year as they have in the most recent five-year period for which statistics are available. Magical thinking underlies the calls for gun control in the wake of the slaughter of the innocents at the Sandy Hook school, but a relentless logic is at work in this anecdote of modern life in the Britain formerly known as Great:

A disabled caravanner who kept a penknife in his glove compartment to use on picnics has blasted the authorities after being dragged through court for possessing an offensive weapon.

Rodney Knowles, 61, walks with the aid of a stick and had used the Swiss Army knife to cut up fruit on picnics with his wife.

Knowles yesterday admitted possessing an offensive weapon at Torquay Magistrates Court. He was given a conditional discharge."

And to all a very, very dark approaching night.

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Are You A "Digital Maoist"?

What Turned Jaron Lanier Against the Web? | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Magazine: "And so it is with Jaron Lanier and the ideology he helped create, Web 2.0 futurism, digital utopianism, which he now calls “digital Maoism,” indicting “internet intellectuals,” accusing giants like Facebook and Google of being “spy agencies.” Lanier was one of the creators of our current digital reality and now he wants to subvert the “hive mind,” as the web world’s been called, before it engulfs us all, destroys political discourse, economic stability, the dignity of personhood and leads to “social catastrophe.” Jaron Lanier is the spy who came in from the cold 2.0.

To understand what an important defector Lanier is, you have to know his dossier. As a pioneer and publicizer of virtual-reality technology (computer-simulated experiences) in the ’80s, he became a Silicon Valley digital-guru rock star, later renowned for his giant bushel-basket-size headful of dreadlocks and Falstaffian belly, his obsession with exotic Asian musical instruments, and even a big-label recording contract for his modernist classical music. (As he later told me, he once “opened for Dylan.” )

The colorful, prodigy-like persona of Jaron Lanier—he was in his early 20s when he helped make virtual reality a reality—was born among a small circle of first-generation Silicon Valley utopians and artificial-intelligence visionaries."

Methinks so... RTWT doesn't even begin to describe this one. And if you have the attention span of a fruit fly like most drones you should at least read the last page of this Smithsonian article if you think you're speechless now.  Lanier presents the penultimate example of what it really means to be speechless.

Did I forget to mention that the Maoist's have just re-iterated their call for Americans to be disarmed?

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Their Lips Keep Moving

The truth is that politicians are telling lies - Telegraph: "Was 2012 the year when the democratic world lost its grip on reality? Must we assume now that no party that speaks the truth about the economic future has a chance of winning power in a national election? With the results of presidential contests in the United States and France as evidence, this would seem to be the only possible conclusion. Any political leader prepared to deceive the electorate into believing that government spending, and the vast system of services that it provides, can go on as before – or that they will be able to resume as soon as this momentary emergency is over – was propelled into office virtually by acclamation.

So universal has this rule turned out to be that parties and leaders who know better – whose economic literacy is beyond question – are now afraid even to hint at the fact which must eventually be faced. The promises that governments are making to their electorates are not just misleading: they are unforgivably dishonest."

RTWT. Via Glenn.

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ZIRPED

Instapundit » Blog Archive » WE’VE BEEN ZIRPED: Father-son talks are always difficult, but it was time to teach my teenager ab…: "WE’VE BEEN ZIRPED:

Father-son talks are always difficult, but it was time to teach my teenager about how things work. I dragged him to our local branch of Wells Fargo and opened a checking account with ATM card privileges and a savings account where he deposited his hard-earned umpiring cash. Having worked on Wall Street for 25 years, I stroked my chin and provided some sage advice: Checking accounts don’t pay interest, so keep your money in the savings account and just move it to checking when you need it. None other than Albert Einstein, I noted, said, “compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe.”

His first bank statement showed interest income of $0.01​—​and a series of $35 fees for insufficient funds, wiping out all his money. I got a “You’re a financial genius, Dad,” dripping with sarcasm."

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What's Old Is New Again This Christmas

¡No Pasarán!: 卐mas Caroling: The Extremes Hitler Wanted to Go To in Order to Replace Christianity with the "Religion" of National Socialism: "Now, should the need for more confirmation really exist, we have the 75 Years Ago section in the International Herald Tribune.

It is edifying — to say the least.

1937 — ‘Neo-Pagans’ Target Carols
BERLIN — De-Christianization of famous German Christmas hymns, such as “Silent Night, Holy Night,” is the outstanding contribution to the current holiday season of the rapidly spreading German faith movement or “religion” of National Socialism. In the new versions of the old songs reference to Nazi tenets of race, blood and soil replace familiar words concerning Christ, Child and the like. The accepted English translation of Mohr’s “Silent Night,” stanza three lines two and three is: “The Son of God loves pure light, radiant beams from thy Holy faith.” Equivalent lines in the Nazified version are “German blood, O how laugh the lips of thy children, blessed with joy.”

Of course, another reason a Nazi leader might meet with a religious leader might be for reasons of diplomacy with an ally — but again, no pictures seem to exist with any Catholic priest or Protestant preacher, German or foreign.

As it happens, this photo and this video seem to show the only time Adolf Hitler has met any religious leader of note."

And I wonder what "religion" that might be? One that also glorifies blood perhaps?

And you've noticed all those pictures of Obama attending church the links just like there were of the hated W, no? Wait, what?

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Obama's Protection Racket

Ramirez on protecting children « Hot Air: "Over the last week, Barack Obama and many in Washington talked about the need to protect kids — a vital subject, to be sure.  However, while the political and media class seized on a horrific but exceedingly rare event to climb on a few hobby horses of their own, the biggest and most ubiquitous threat to the next few generations continued to get ignored.  Michael Ramirez puts that in perspective in his editorial cartoon for Investors Business Daily:"

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All But One

An opinion on gun control « Monster Hunter Nation: "So now that there is a new tragedy the president wants to have a “national conversation on guns”. Here’s the thing. Until this national conversation is willing to entertain allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons, then it isn’t a conversation at all, it is a lecture.

Now when I say teachers carrying concealed weapons on Facebook I immediately get a bunch of emotional freak out responses. You can’t mandate teachers be armed! Guns in every classroom! Emotional response! Blood in the streets!

No. Hear me out. The single best way to respond to a mass shooter is with an immediate, violent response. The vast majority of the time, as soon as a mass shooter meets serious resistance, it bursts their fantasy world bubble. Then they kill themselves or surrender. This has happened over and over again.

Police are awesome. I love working with cops. However any honest cop will tell you that when seconds count they are only minutes away."

RTWT³. Click over and read it right now. It's long but I'll wait for you...

Dear Che-Libs: When you start rolling back the current near complete implementation of Marx' 10 Point plan from the "Communist Manifesto" then we can talk about guns.

And isn't it interesting that one of Marx' points that has already been fully implemented ("10. Free education for all children in public schools.") gets used as "sitting ducks" to lever implementation of one of the few that isn't fully completed yet ("4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.")?

As one of my dear friends would have put it: "But they're for the children, doncha' know?"  At least as long as the children can be used as bloody tools for aggrandizing more power to the Che-Libs anyway...

Oh, and that guy Che that the Che-Libs love to walk around with on their T-Shirts? As I recall he did not have an aversion to the use of guns of any type never mind an aversion to blood and brains spattered on the floor in front of him after shooting people in the back of the head.  I don't know how else to put this to you but these largely drugged up idiots we have murdering innocents today are gentle and incompetent sheep compared to the hero of the Che-Libs -- much less Che's heroes and more.

As I pointed out in that last link, it was Lenin who said: "One man with a gun can control 100 without one." And it was Stalin who said: "One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic."

The genius of the Che-Libs is to create the conditions of the latter tragedies by purposefully leveraging the former (creating the conditions for one man with a gun to control others).

No I'm not accusing the vast majority of Libs of being complicit in this -- they are simply the manipulated, emotion-wracked sheep soaking in the constant voyeurism of these tragedies as just one control element of  many in the hands of the lackeys in the truly complicit media.  The vast majority of libs are in fact part of nothing more than the "Proles" as Eric Blair would say.

But their handlers at Obama's level and above are laughing at the sheep with great glee this Christmas ... which they're also busily working to destroy.

And to all a good night.

And just in case I still haven't convinced you to read this piece, you might want to check this quote out:

"And here is the nail in the coffin for Gun Free Zones. Over the last fifty years, with only one single exception (Gabby Giffords), every single mass shooting event with more than four casualties has taken place in a place where guns were supposedly not allowed."

Which I had also pointed out here.

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Not Just Unconstitutional...

Instapundit » Blog Archive » BRIDGET JOHNSON: ‘Travesty of Justice’: Limits on President’s Detention Powers Stripped from …: "BRIDGET JOHNSON: ‘Travesty of Justice’: Limits on President’s Detention Powers Stripped from Final Defense Bill. “The amendment from Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) to block the president’s broad power to hold American citizens without trial was stripped from the final defense authorization bill in conference, prompting a ‘no’ vote on the entire bill from Lee and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). . . . In a speech on the Senate floor, Paul called the exclusion of the provision ‘so fundamentally wrong and goes against everything we stand for as a country that it can’t go unnoticed and should be pointed out.’”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 10:22 pm"

...but part of Obama's plan. But he has a very deep and melodious voice so everything will be just fine.

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Apocalypse fOevah...

Instapundit » Blog Archive » HEH: “Preview of Obama remarks at 5pm: Narcissistic diatribe followed by casting blame, false state…: "HEH: “Preview of Obama remarks at 5pm: Narcissistic diatribe followed by casting blame, false statements of unity, then taxpayer paid trip to HI.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 4:38 pm"

I know it's bad -- but you voted for it...

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Big Money

Instapundit » Blog Archive » SEEN ON FACEBOOK: Original source here….: "SEEN ON FACEBOOK:"

Move along now ... nothing to see here...

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Every Blade Of Grass

Moonbattery » In Wake of Newtown Massacre, ChiComs Demand We Disarm: "Why do you suppose the Chinese government (which has killed well over 70 million of its own people) would want our people disarmed? Maybe they have figured out that Obama et al. have no intention of paying off the debt."

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Mental Illness Today

» Communist Chinese Government Calls For Americans to be Disarmed Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!: "The Communist Chinese government, via its state-run media front Xinhua, has called for Americans to be disarmed, arguing that the Sandy Hook school massacre demands “no delay for U.S. gun control.”

Xinhua is virtually the press agency for the Communist Chinese government. The organization, “is subordinate to the State Council and reports to the Communist Party of China’s Propaganda and Public Information Departments.” In other words, Xinhua represents the pinnacle of Chinese state-run media. Whatever is printed in its editorial pages represents the opinion of the ruling Communist Party leaders."

Bowing to his Chinese masters...

And he would never let a good crisis go to waste now would he?

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She's IMPORTANT...

Instapundit » Blog Archive » REMINDER: Sen. Dianne Feinstein Has Concealed Carry Permit. Well, sure, because her life is import…: "REMINDER: Sen. Dianne Feinstein Has Concealed Carry Permit. Well, sure, because her life is important. Not like yours.

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 11:34 pm"

... but you, not so much...

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The Real Deaths To Avoid...

Chart Of The Day: The Death Of America's Middle Class | ZeroHedge: "There is one chart that everyone should see that is part of Reuters' must read special series: The Unequal State of America: Redistributing Up - it is the chart we have said over the past 4 years is the only one that matters for America - that showing the flattening of America's wealth distributon Gaussian curve, aka the plunder and accelerating destruction of America's middle class, at the expense of the poorest and the wealthiest. This is nothing but the inevitable outcome of a co-opted, conflicted and controlled marionette government, which does the bidding of the wealthiest lobby powers (read corporate shareholders and Wall Street), partitioning the bulk of the wealth to the richest, while sending the scraps to the poorest in order to keep itself in power due to the power of the ever poorer, democratic majority."

...are now a fait-accompli. Yes, that would be your financial death. And possibly worse.

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History

Gun-Control Ignorance - Thomas Sowell - National Review Online: "The few counter-examples offered by gun-control zealots do not stand up under scrutiny. Perhaps their strongest talking point is that Britain has stronger gun-control laws than the United States and lower murder rates.

But, if you look back through history, you will find that Britain has had a lower murder rate than the United States for more than two centuries — and, for most of that time, the British had no more stringent gun-control laws than the United States. Indeed, neither country had stringent gun control for most of that time.

In the middle of the 20th century, you could buy a shotgun in London with no questions asked. New York, which at that time had had the stringent Sullivan Law restricting gun ownership since 1911, still had several times the gun-murder rate of London, as well as several times the London murder rate with other weapons."

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O Stadiums And Killjoys

Belmont Club » Joe and the Volcano: "One side sees “rights” as the ability to do anything they want and be free of the consequences. The Universal Right is the right to a free lunch which gives rise to derived rights like the right to wear any kind of pants they like and to stab any parents who may object. And if it actually comes to stabbing it will be the knife’s fault. That it should be a person’s responsibility is unthinkable. The opposite side sees a transactional universe in which everything has a cost and nobody has a reasonable expectation to a free lunch.

They are killjoys. Individual responsibility — as opposed to the duty to the deity — is an old and incredibly secular point of view. We live in a new age of Faith. Only the old gods are dead but religion itself is doing a land office business. The psychological appeal of Barack Obama and Steve Jobs lies precisely in having taken over the places formerly occupied by Jesus, Moses and the Buddha. Some teenagers seriously believe “they have made a paradise on earth right now” so that celestial place bands like Coldplay can blast out their angelic melodies on the Ipad, of course.

Religion hasn’t declined in the modern world as much as changed its business address from the traditional churches to the event stadiums."

And what a killjoy I am...

RTWT -- W knocks this one out O the park ;)

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Literal Sitting Ducks

The Facts about Mass Shootings - John Fund - National Review Online: "Economists John Lott and William Landes conducted a groundbreaking study in 1999, and found that a common theme of mass shootings is that they occur in places where guns are banned and killers know everyone will be unarmed, such as shopping malls and schools.

I spoke with Lott after the Newtown shooting, and he confirmed that nothing has changed to alter his findings. He noted that the Aurora shooter, who killed twelve people earlier this year, had a choice of seven movie theaters that were showing the Batman movie he was obsessed with. All were within a 20-minute drive of his home. The Cinemark Theater the killer ultimately chose wasn’t the closest, but it was the only one that posted signs saying it banned concealed handguns carried by law-abiding individuals. All of the other theaters allowed the approximately 4 percent of Colorado adults who have a concealed-handgun permit to enter with their weapons.

“Disarming law-abiding citizens leaves them as sitting ducks,” Lott told me. “A couple hundred people were in the Cinemark Theater when the killer arrived. There is an extremely high probability that one or more of them would have had a legal concealed handgun with him if they had not been banned.”

Lott offers a final damning statistic: “With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.”"

Ugh.

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The Real COTD: On Banning Democrats From Holding Public Office

Dr. Helen » If the Second Amendment is to Blame for Mass Murder, Then the First is to Blame as Well: Do We Get Rid of Both?: "tdiinva

Suicides rates are independent of means. There are no guns in Japan and few homicides yet their suicide rate is twice as high as our combined murder plus suicide rate.

Murder and violent crime are not uniformly distributed among the population. 50% of America’s murders occurs in a subset of 10% of the population. The remaining 90% has a murder and violent crime rate as low as Canada. Our most violent cities, places where civil society has broken down, are run by Democrats. We would be better off banning Democrats from holding public office than banning guns.

December 16, 2012 - 12:06 pm "

Even closer to the truth.

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COTD: On Bad And Worse Choices

Dr. Helen » If the Second Amendment is to Blame for Mass Murder, Then the First is to Blame as Well: Do We Get Rid of Both?: "Gloria

Yes, it is about mental illness and especially the fact that families have no place to safely house mentally-ill adult children. I discovered when I taught a large-enrollment introductory university course that there were always one or two severely disturbed students in the course. The graduate Teaching Assistants (TAs) would have problems in their weekly tutorial sessions with these disturbed individuals acting out and frightening both other students and the TAs. The TAs would bring their concerns to me and I would contact the university’s counselling centre for advice on how to handle the situations. I learned from the counselling centre that these students would remain enrolled in whatever courses they could get into on campus NOT to get a degree, but because their parents had no other place to put these young disturbed adults and felt they would be safe on a public university campus. It is the complete de-institutionalization movement that began in the 1970s which has caused the public health problem of mentally-disturbed murderers today.

Confining mentally-disturbed people who have violent tendencies is not an evil thing to do. Confinement in a humane and safe setting would provide security for both the mentally-ill people (who seem to be quite confused and frightened by the “regular” world) and for the public in general.

December 16, 2012 - 10:03 am "

Clearly, we do not want to create the new Soviet Gulag that becomes an excuse to imprison political dissidents. But mainstreaming everything is not the world's best answer either, is it? The wonder is that the results of our current policy aren't much worse, isn't it?

Liberals live in Orwell's "bourgeoise illusion bred of money and security" and will never escape it until their bubbles are burst with cold reality -- if then.

In the meantime, they will use Stalin's "the death of one man is a tragedy" to manipulate the sheep knowingly or not.  The sad part is that most of them think they are "high's" when they are (by statistical definition) in fact middles or lows being manipulated by the highs -- and mostly the crippling memes just run on autopilot in a positive feedback loop amplified by often-drug-fueled emotion...

Will they allow us sheep to have the kind of debate we should?  Here's another powerful article on the subject with some real first person information.  Yes, it's on HuffPo, but is this mother Stalin's executor?  I think not.

Bad choices and worse choices.  That is the reality.

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Stalin On Tragedy, Guns And More

Joseph Stalin Quotes - BrainyQuote:

"One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic."

"We don't let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?"

"If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves. "

"The only real power comes out of a long rifle."

"Death solves all problems - no man, no problem. "

"You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves."

"Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed."

"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."

"When we hang the capitalists they will sell us the rope we use."

-- Joseph Stalin

Why did I put that "One death is a tragedy" quote first? Because that's exactly the technique that our pols and their pals in the media use on you every day whether it's about guns or anything else. They're always trying to personalize events to play on your emotions in way that reinforces their preferred narratives.

In short, to them you're a moronic serf to be milked an manipulated. If it's not about making you happy to march down like a happy 1930's German Jew to turn in your guns it will be another completely insane manipulation.

And note carefully Stalin's comments about counting the votes. Now why would he care about voting at all given he was one of the most powerful and violent thugs ever to walk the planet?  Because he was a student of his predecessor V.I. Lenin who famously said: "Democracy is indispensable to Socialism".  Sound familiar?

And, oh yes, Lenin also said: "One man with a gun can control 100 without one."

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The Cold Sun

More WUWT.TV: Interview and presentation with Dr. Sebastian Lüning | Watts Up With That?: "From our WUWT.TV 24 hour broadcast answer to Al Gore’s dirty weather on November 14-15, 2012. Dr. Sebastian Lüning of Dr. Franz Vahrenholt are co-authors of the book “Die Kalt Sonne” which we previously reviewed here and here on WUWT. Here, in this interview and presentation, Lüning, who is a geologist by trade, explains how he was converted to climate skepticism by his own research.

It is a powerful demonstration of how people can come to understand just how flimsy the evidence is for catastrophic global warming, and is well worth your time to watch."

WTWT.

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Wait...

Instapundit » Blog Archive » TWEET OF THE DAY: “Wait. So Eric Holder isn’t to blame for Fast and Furious, but the NRA is to blam…: "TWEET OF THE DAY: “Wait. So Eric Holder isn’t to blame for Fast and Furious, but the NRA is to blame for school shootings? Got it.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 11:02 pm"

What?

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If It Saves Just One Life It's Worth It

Column: Gun-free zones provide false sense of security: "Gun-free zones are premised on a lie: that murderers will follow rules, and that people like my student are a greater danger to those around them than crazed killers. That's an insult to honest people. Sometimes, it's a deadly one. The notion that more guns mean more crime is wrong. In fact, as gun ownership has expanded over the past decade, crime has gone down.

Fortunately, the efforts to punish "the people who didn't do it" are getting less traction these days. The Supreme Court, of course, has recognized that under the Constitution, honest people have a right to defend themselves with firearms, inside and outside the home, something that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit recently acknowledged in striking down Illinois' gun-carry ban. Given that gun-free zones seem to be a magnet for mass shooters, maybe we should be working to shrink or eliminate them, rather than expand them. As they say, if it saves just one life, it's worth it."

And if we banned automobiles, they wouldn't have had to have run the breathless story that was in all the headlines about 89 helpless victims including 8 children and pre-driving age teens killed today. Wait, ...what?

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Put That On A Turnip Roll

Editorial : Implement A Gun Ban | Real Science: "Lefties tell us that banning marijuana and other drugs is pointless, because people will obtain them anyway and because Mexican cartels become rich and powerful as a result.

In their next breath they tell us that we should ban guns, because most lefties have the IQ of a turnip – and have no respect for the US Constitution, US history or any common sense."

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Turnip IQ Required

Understanding Climate Model Forecasts | Real Science: "Climate models are accurate to 0.1 degrees 100 years in the future, but you are not allowed to quote forecasts more than two years old – because the science has improved.

*** Turnip IQ required ***"

That high? Really?

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1938 : "Gun Control"

1938 : Socialists Understood The Importance Of Gun Control | Real Science: "On Nov. 8, The New York Times reported from Berlin, “Berlin Police Head Announces ‘Disarming’ of Jews,” explaining: “The Berlin Police President, Count Wolf Heinrich von Helldorf, announced that as a result of a police activity in the last few weeks the entire Jewish population of Berlin had been ‘disarmed’ with the confiscation of 2,569 hand weapons, 1,702 firearms and 20,000 rounds of ammunition.

Nov. 9, Adolph Hitler, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and other Nazi chiefs planned the attack. Orders went out to Nazi security forces: “All Jewish stores are to be destroyed immediately . Jewish synagogues are to be set on fire . The Führer wishes that the police does not intervene. All Jews are to be disarmed. In the event of resistance they are to be shot immediately.”"

Jawohl Mein Fuhrer! Or was that mass Jew killing? Ah, well. Jewish liberals will think it's all for a good cause.

Un. Freakin. Believable.

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You Need An Education On Global Economics

So here it is:

Marc Faber: "Paul Krugman Should Go And Live In North Korea" | ZeroHedge: "If there is one thing better than Marc Faber providing a free, must-watch (and listen) 50 minute lecture on virtually everything that has transpired in the end days of modern capitalism, starting with who caused it, adjustable rate mortgages, leverage, why did the Fed let Lehman fail, why was AIG bailed out, quantitative easing, Operation Twist, where the interest on the debt is going, which bubbles he is most concerned about, a discussion of gold and silver, and culminating with his views on a world reserve currency, is him saying the following: "The views of the Keynesians like Mr. Krugman is that the fiscal deficits are far too small. One of the problems of the crisis is that it was caused by government intervention with fiscal and monetary measures. Now they tells us we didn't intervene enough. If they really believe that they should go and live in North Korea where you have a communist system. There the government intervenes into every aspect of the economy. And look at the economic performance of North Korea." Priceless."

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Those Are Our Planes!

An Administration That Will Live In Infamy | Power Line: "There was a time when people assumed that if America’s future was under attack, it must come from a foreign source–like, say, Japan at Pearl Harbor. Those days are long gone. Now, our decline is no one’s fault but our own. We elect leaders who are ignorant of America’s history and contemptuous of its values."

Oof.

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Doofus Update

Instapundit » Blog Archive » ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC: Hoffa Predicts ‘Civil War’ in Michigan. Related: IowaHawk: “I’ve …: "ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC: Hoffa Predicts ‘Civil War’ in Michigan.

Related: IowaHawk: “I’ve now become oddly accustomed to fat violent paramilitary thugs attempting to take state capitols by force.” Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 10:04 pm"

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Whoops! Shhhhhhhhhh!

Presenting The Fund-tastic Four: Ireland, Greece, Spain And... The U.S. | ZeroHedge: "Behold the fund-tastic four: Ireland, Greece, Spain and... the US? These are the four countries that in the past four years have accumulated the greatest deficit as a % of GDP (and yes, at just under 50%, the US is worse than Spain whose cumulative deficit has been over 40% of GDP), which in turn they have had to fund with what else: new debt."

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Today's USSA: Paying To Work

Instapundit » Blog Archive » IT’S NOT A WAR ON WOMEN: It’s a war on married women. “As our lawmakers​—​newly reminded of …: "IT’S NOT A WAR ON WOMEN: It’s a war on married women. “As our lawmakers​—​newly reminded of the power of female voters​—​huddle to strategize about the ‘fiscal cliff,’ they have an opportunity to address a real threat to female prosperity: a tax code that is disproportionately burdensome to married women, especially working moms.”

UPDATE: Reader Andrea Sanford writes:

Thank you for posting the article on how the tax code is unfair to married women.That is exactly our situation. My husband is a Ph.d chemical engineer and I work part time as an RN. There were years it cost us money to work ,but I have always wanted to work part time since I do do a useful job for society and it has always been “insurance” if something were to happen to my husband. So my reward is that I will have to give up a 30 year career this year because my husband’s income fluctuates enough that we could easily go over the 250k mark and suddenly be RICH! Of course “they” know that if you try and protest people will think you are whining and people don’t want to reveal their incomes.It really is not a lot of money."

Well I know I'm shocked -- how about you?  We're not quite there in our family but we can spit at it...

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The Bunny Snuff Race

Bunny snuff: Syrian rebels have chemical weapons too « Hot Air: "With Al-Nusra and the new opposition coalition duking it out for Syria against Iran and Assad, Greenfield puts it this way: “Syria is coming down to a race between the Iranian allied Syrian government, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda.”

That’s, er, a comforting thought – and one the Russians had a long time ago.  There is no such option as leaving the Syrians to their own devices.  There is only leaving them to the Muslim Brotherhood, to a cadre of Salafi terrorists, or to the brutal ministrations of Iran and Assad.  At least we can probably count on the Muslims Brotherhood to refrain from making bunny-snuff videos."

RTWT. Soon to be even larger scale people snuffing of course. Israelis on deck, natch.

 Thanks Barack.

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Sheep To Be Lead

Via Ace:

Small Craft Advisory: The Fiscal Cliff And The Alinsky President: "When one strictly adheres to the principles of Saul Alinsky, you don't negotiate, you intimidate. You don't take a stand, but make the other guy take a stand and then you demonize it. You create so much static with class warfare rhetoric that it drowns out reason and fact. A good case in point is the President's insistence that the wealthy do not pay their fair share. He has been saying this for so long, it is almost an accepted fact by some. The real truth is that the top one percent of wage earners have gone from paying 20% of the total tax burden in the 1980s to 40% today. The percentage of the total income they earn is around 25%. If one extrapolates out the tax burden to include the top 10% of wage earners, the total share of the tax burden paid by that group is 70%. Their total percentage of the income earned is around 38%. These facts come straight from current IRS data.

No fair-minded person could conclude from the empirical evidence laid out in the previous paragraph, that the wealthy in this country are not paying their fair share. And yet, the President spews out this categorically false narrative and a certain percentage of the population laps it up like kittens lapping milk from a bowl. This is also what followers of Saul Alinsky practice, repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth in the minds of the masses. This concept is best illustrated by the incident in Bob Woodward's recent book about the debt limit negotiations in August of 2011. President Obama placed his hand on John Boehner's arm and said, "John, I have complete confidence in my ability to sway the American people." This statement shows not only the President's complete contempt for the truth, but for the American people who he looks at as sheep to be lead, not free people to be governed."

This is a RTWT.

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Surprise!

Moonbattery » Obama May Have Provided Weapons Used to Kill Ambassador Chris Stevens: "Surprise!

Fears are being raised in Washington that a secret delivery of arms shipments to Libyan rebels, Okayed by the Obama administration, might have gotten into the hands of Islamic terrorists, and may very well be the weapons used by Al Qaeda linked terrorists to kill U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens."

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Due To The Stupidity Of The U.S. Electorate...

Moonbattery » Rent Rise for Obamunists: "John Obringer sent out a letter to his tenants at the Casa Adobe Apartments on Wednesday. The letter was addressing cutbacks on staff and maintenance issues.

“Due to the stupidity of the U.S. electorate, the Obama-administration’s continued assault on small business is resulting in increased taxes, regulations and mandates that are forcing the management company (B&J Enterprises, Inc.) for Casa Adobe Apartments to modify its operation to survive. This has resulted in layoffs, work-time reductions and decreased pay for workers. Consequently, the business hours are now Monday and Tuesday from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Please plan accordingly … We are working hard to maintain the field, cleaning and maintenance personnel in place without raising rents, but that too is inevitable due to the upcoming inflation and market forces,” writes Obringer."

Perfect.

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Architect of ObamaCare Jumps Ship To Johnson & Johnson

Meet Liz Fowler: Architect of ObamaCare Jumps Ship To Johnson & Johnson | ZeroHedge: "Following the passage of ObamaCare, several of the smartest people I know claimed that the bill was actually written by and for the drug and insurance companies rather than “the people” as Obama had claimed.  My friend and orthopedic surgeon Dave Janda wrote an excellent piece that I published titled: Thoughts on Obamacare from a Surgeon and Friend.

In recent days it has emerged that Liz Fowler, who is said to have been one of the key architects of ObamaCare, is doing what any good revolving door crony capitalist would do.  She is moving to the private sector to receive her payoff. "

I know you're shocked.

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COTD: Huffpo Hypocrisy

I just love this -- and it's not the only comment like this:

Rogue Squirrel: There is one way the average citizen can force their: "“There is one way the average citizen can force their opinion on the Federal courts: Jury Nullification. Any court in the country has to uphold any decision that the jury makes, even if it contradicts current law.

No prosecutors or judges will openly tell the jurors that they have that power. So the Feds going to court could backfire. By costing court and prosecutors money and time they will have to justify defying the voters will. With Obama being way behind in appointing new judges, court time is limited which is perfect for no plea bargains and jury nullification. Again, the Feds are depending on bullying tactics and public ignorance about our legal system."

You know all that ranting about being "wing-nuts" the right endures whenever jury nullification comes up regarding a conservative cause? So can't you just hear the deafening condemnations about the call for its use against Obama should he overrule Colorado and Washington on legalizing marijuana?

Yeah, me neither.

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A CAROL FOR OUR TIMES

Instapundit » Blog Archive » A CAROL FOR OUR TIMES: Deck The Halls With Macro Follies. …: "A CAROL FOR OUR TIMES: Deck The Halls With Macro Follies."

This is great. Share it with everyone.

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Adult!

Friendly reminder from GAO: You’re about to hit the entitlement iceberg, people « Hot Air: "Meanwhile, we have one party in Washington utterly unwilling to touch entitlements (aside from this weird peep from Hoyer today), which rejects even Simpson-Bowles-inspired plans to address them out of hand, yet is lauded in the press as the reasonable and adult of the two parties. We have another party that put the guy who risked his entire political career on a good-faith effort to reform entitlements on its national ticket (and by the way, still won senior citizens) being scolded for offering too few details by the party that hasn’t passed a budget in three years. Any guess which party the naked protesters and hecklers belong to? Adult! I don’t claim that Republicans don’t play their share of smoke-and-mirrors games on cuts, but let’s not pretend Democrats are paragons of putting pen to paper when the most talked-about papers were coming from Paul Ryan, who of course was roundly punished in the press for his work."

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Cliff Diving

Obama’s Bad Faith: The Cartoon | Power Line: "Does Obama really want to jump off the fiscal cliff? That is what many observers think–what left-winger wouldn’t be happy to collect trillions in new tax revenue, and pretend it’s his political opponents’ fault? The inimitable Michael Ramirez illustrates Obama’s eagerness to take the plunge into higher taxes:"

Obama proposed the fiscal cliff definition according to Woodward. Does it really take a genius to figure this out?

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Regime Uncertainty (Part 7,839,941)

Instapundit » Blog Archive » ERIC CANTOR DENOUNCES the Imperial Presidency. And the ensuing economic depression caused by “regim…: "ERIC CANTOR DENOUNCES the Imperial Presidency. And the ensuing economic depression caused by “regime uncertainty.”

When “laws” are created without going through Congress; when laws are selectively executed; when an administration intervenes into the normal judicial process and diminishes an individual’s property rights; and when the normal regulatory process is circumvented, the rule of law is eroded.

All of this increases uncertainty. Individuals, families, and businesses now not only face uncertainty with respect to the policy decisions made by government, but they face uncertainty as to how those decisions will even be made, Numerous economic studies and surveys indicate that uncertainty itself (which is certainly increased with the breakdown in the rule of law) also hinders economic growth.

While Administrations of both political parties have been known to test the bounds of the limits of their power, the breadth of the breakdown in the rule of law in recent years has reached new levels."

What's even worse than state planning? A state of uncertainty and arbitrary targeting of organizations and individuals.

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Oof

Instapundit » Blog Archive » HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: A Shocking Chart On Tuition vs. Earnings For College Grads. “While…: "HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: A Shocking Chart On Tuition vs. Earnings For College Grads. “While President Obama has supported increasing the availability of student loans, others are questioning if student loans are becoming too easy to obtain, putting those who have no hope of paying off the loan into crushing life-long debt.” Ya think?"

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Well, There You Are Then...

Instapundit » Blog Archive » FRANK J. FLEMING: The Biggest Lesson the GOP Should Learn from the Election. “Republicans need to …: "FRANK J. FLEMING: The Biggest Lesson the GOP Should Learn from the Election. “Republicans need to stop nominating right-wing extremists like John McCain and Mitt Romney.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 6:50 pm"

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The Obama "Care" Preview Underway Across The Pond

The Sadistic Brutality of England’s Government-Run Healthcare « International Liberty: "One doctor has admitted starving and dehydrating ten babies to death in the neonatal unit of one hospital alone. Writing in a leading medical journal, the physician revealed the process can take an average of ten days during which a  baby becomes ‘smaller and shrunken’. The LCP – on which 130,000 elderly and terminally-ill adult patients die each year – is now the subject of an independent inquiry ordered by ministers. …Earlier this month, an un-named doctor wrote of the agony of watching the protracted deaths of babies. …‘I know, as they cannot, the unique horror of witnessing a child become smaller and shrunken, as the only route out of a life that has become excruciating to the patient or to the parents who love their baby.’ …Bernadette Lloyd, a hospice paediatric nurse, has written to the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health to criticise the use of death pathways for children."

As Glenn pointed out in the link that lead me here: "Governments exist, historically, for only one reason: Because they’re really, really good at killing people. So “sadistic brutality” shouldn’t come as a complete surprise." Somewhere in Hell, Margaret Sanger is smiling.

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Uniformity

Quote by Friedrich August von Hayek: Everything which might cause doubt about the wi...: "“Everything which might cause doubt about the wisdom of the government or create discontent will be kept from the people. The basis of unfavorable comparisons with elsewhere, the knowledge of possible alternatives to the course actually taken, information which might suggest failure on the part of the government to live up to its promises or to take advantage of opportunities to improve conditions--all will be suppressed. There is consequently no field where the systematic control of information will not be practiced and uniformity of views not enforced.”

― Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom"

Smile for the drones. Both in front of and above you.

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Feeling Protected Yet?

Benghazi Blowback - By Michael Walsh - The Corner - National Review Online: "But unless this country has completely gone to the dogs, it’s inconceivable to me that a majority can stomach the notion that four Americans were murdered on sovereign American territory while the president of the United States took note, then rolled over and went to bed before flying to Las Vegas on a campaign swing, secure in the knowledge that the truth would never come out because it didn’t fit his media protectors’ beloved “narrative” that GM was alive and Osama bin Laden was dead.

But it’s not supposed to be the IC’s function to protect the executive’s reputation — it’s supposed to protect the country."

Binders, Big Bird, birth control and blame Bush. Those are the most important things...

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Surrender Your Dignity

Moonbattery » Open Thread: "Via The People’s Cube, on a tip from TED."

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The Welfare Cliff

It Doesn’t Pay to Work | Power Line: "[I]t is now more lucrative – in the form of actual disposable income – to sit, do nothing, and collect various welfare entitlements, than to work. This is graphically, and very painfully confirmed, in the below chart from Gary Alexander, Secretary of Public Welfare, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (a state best known for its broke capital Harrisburg). As quantitied, and explained by Alexander, “the single mom is better off earning gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045.“

This chart, created by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, explains the calculation:"

We are constantly told that it is difficult to find any state or federal spending that can possibly be cut. This suggestion is, I think, ludicrous. Let’s start by cutting welfare, and cutting it deeply. Not only because it is wasteful, but because by devaluing work it threatens to cripple not merely our economy, but our culture. An America where you are better off cashing welfare checks than working is an America that cannot long survive.

And we won't.

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You're Being Gamed

Column: Are we living in the Hunger Games?: "Washington is rich not because it makes valuable things, but because it is powerful. With virtually everything subject to regulation, it pays to spend money influencing the regulators. As P.J. O'Rourke famously observed: "When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators." But it's not just bags-of-cash style corruption. Most of the D.C. boom is from lobbyists and PR people, and others who are retained to influence what the government does. It's a cold calculation: You're likely to get a much better return from an investment of $1 million on lobbying than on a similar investment in, say, a new factory or better worker training.

So Washington gets fat, and it does so on money taken from the rest of the country: Either directly, in the form of taxes, or indirectly in the form of money that otherwise would have gone to that factory or training program.

I'm not the only one to notice this, or even to make the Hunger Games analogy. As Ross Douthat wrote, "There aren't tributes from Michigan and New Mexico fighting to the death in Dupont Circle just yet. But it doesn't seem like a sign of national health that America's political capital is suddenly richer than our capitals of manufacturing and technology and finance, or that our leaders are more insulated than ever from the trends buffeting the people they're supposed to serve.""

Du'O. RTWT.

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Those Stupid Wingnuts ... Not

Does this mean it’s now okay to say that Obama is a redistributionist? | Power Line: "With the reelection of President Obama secured, Washington Post economics reporter Zachary Goldfarb finally identifies “the bedrock belief that has driven the president for decade” (or Obama’s “driving force,” per the web edition). That bedrock belief is that the power of the federal government must be used reduce income inequality in America. According to Goldfarb, Obama formed this belief as a child and young adult living abroad, where he observed, in Obama’s words, “the vast disparity in wealth between those who are part of the power structure and those who are outside of it.” (Apparently, Obama has been unable to distinguish the situation in the U.S. from that of Indonesia in the 1970s)."

RTWT. The liar behind the curtain revealed.

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From My Inbox: Ode To The Welfare State

Click to enlarge and read:

Plus ca change...

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That Stupid Gipper

Ace of Spades HQ: "Missile defense systems 1, liberal scientist critics 0. Advantage: Reality."

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Kyle Bass On The End Of The Debt Super-Cycle

Kyle Bass On The End Of The Debt Super-Cycle | ZeroHedge: "From his belief in the possibility of ongoing rate compression in developed nations and negative nominal yields in more than just Germany and Switzerland, Bass expounds on the structure of his fund (funding via low-duration 'high'-yield vehicles along with a long-short equity book and the core 'convex' Japan credit book) and how his template is playing out... must watch"

Super. And super ugly.

Oh. And if you work at it for the next 100 years you could never have the financial mastery he has in his little finger.

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With "Friends" Like This...

Senate bill rewrite lets feds read your e-mail without warrants | Politics and Law - CNET News: "Leahy's rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies -- including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission -- to access Americans' e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge.

It's an abrupt departure from Leahy's earlier approach, which required police to obtain a search warrant backed by probable cause before they could read the contents of e-mail or other communications. The Vermont Democrat boasted last year that his bill "provides enhanced privacy protections for American consumers by... requiring that the government obtain a search warrant.""

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Best Buds

AP’s Lee Eviscerates State Department - By Nathaniel Botwinick - The Corner - National Review Online: "Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee had a spirited argument with the State Department’s Victoria Nuland today over the administration’s refusal to condemn Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s labeling of Israel a “terrorist state.”"

And who would be one of Obama's few best buds among world leaders? Why, yes, that would be Recip of course.

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Relegated To Time's Investment Section Of Course...

Investment Advice as the U.S. Approaches a Fiscal Cliff | TIME.com: "If a country runs a deficit (as a percentage of GDP) that is equal to its growth rate, the debt level will remain constant. This year U.S. GDP will be a little less than $16 trillion, and its historical growth rate is 3.25%. That works out to what we might call a “safe” deficit of $520 billion, or even $600 billion if you allow for a little inflation. Last year, however, the U.S. deficit was $1.1 trillion — or roughly $500 billion too much.

That gap could be closed by ending all tax cuts, tax breaks and stimulus payments for everyone, according to the Tax Policy Center. But two-thirds of the burden would fall on the middle class — something both political parties want to avoid. All the proposed tax increases on the wealthy, however, even combined with the end of the payroll-tax cut, would raise only $295 billion. So unless there were spending cuts twice as big as the ones currently scheduled, the deficit would still be too large."

... so it will remain unread by libs! Did I forget to mention Haavaad Maath?

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Graham: The Parrot Is Dead

One and One-Half Cheers For Lindsey Graham (with comment by Paul) | Power Line: "SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC; Armed Services Committee): Well, I think one of the reasons that Susan Rice told the story she did, if the truth came out a few weeks before the election that our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, had been overrun by an al Qaeda sponsored or affiliated militia, that destroys the narrative we’ve been hearing for months that al Qaeda has been dismantled, bin Laden is dead, we’re safer. And Susan Rice just did not say it was a result of a mob spawned by a video like Cairo. She actually said on Face The Nation, “I want to remind the American people this president promised to go after bin Laden, refocus on al Qaeda. He got bin Laden. Al Qaeda has been dismantled.” And the truth of the matter is nothing could’ve been further from the truth, and the story she told reinforced a political narrative helpful to the president, but disconnected from reality."

Dead, dead, dead. Dead.

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Forgive Us For Not Arresting Those Truly Responsible For This Crisis: Bankers & Politicians

Protesting Spanish Cops: "Forgive Us For Not Arresting Those Truly Responsible For This Crisis: Bankers & Politicians" | ZeroHedge: "Yesterday, in what is an appetizer to the great 2013 convergence trade (that, between the now thoroughly dead Greek and the Spanish economy, which is rapidly getting there, of course), several thousand Spanish policemen took the streets of Madrid protesting the latest round of austerity, which included frozen pensions and the elimination of the Christmas bonus (they will have many more opportunities to protest not only the loss of any future upside, but the eventual cut of existing wages and entitlements). As RT reports, protesters blew whistles, shouted slogans, and carried anti-austerity banners as they marched through the city centre to the interior ministry. But perhaps the most telling message read on one of the slogans, was the following: "Citizens! Forgive us for not arresting those truly responsible for this crisis: bankers and politicians."

And there you have the entire current clusterfuck summarized in one simple sentence: because as long as those responsible for the ongoing economic collapse, which will inevitably end in war as many have observed, Kyle Bass most recently, are not only not arrested but preserve their positions of power, any and all change will merely be cosmetic and any real change will only affect the bank accounts of the global middle class which are slowly but surely drained to zero."

Yeppers. They don't call him Zero for nothing.  As in the middle class will end up with zero by the time that he's done.  And will still be voting for him gladly from their mud huts.  Because, well, he so coooool!

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It Begins

Rockets over Tel Aviv - YouTube: "Watch the sky as the Iron Dome shoots down a rocket over Tel Aviv."

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ZerO

Newsalert: In 37 Chicago Precincts, Romney Received No Votes: "In critical swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois there are a lot of precincts in Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Chicago which reported 100% of their votes cast for Obama. These add up to many 10's of thousands of votes for Obama and 0 for Romney. I repeat, 0 for Romney. I have read a number of articles about this and people knowlegable in Political Science and Statistics are starting to take notice of this.Statistically, even if among 10's of thousands of voters all wanted to vote for Obama, it would not be possible to receive 100% of the vote because at least a few would make a mistake and vote incorrectly for Romney. Not to mention the fact that a least a few of those 10's of thousands might actually disagree with Obama. These types of election returns are only seen in countries run by dictators."

Nada. Zip. Zilch. ZerO. Move along folks, nothing to see here...

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Goats Have The Last Laffer

RealClearMarkets - Goat Economics: Why the Laffer Curve Is No Joke: "Since raising goats is a rather simple economic activity, it is easy to model the impact of taxation on goat farming. Assuming the government comes and takes various numbers of the new goats (income) each year in goat taxes, one can easily calculate the impact of the size of the herd, and ultimately how much total revenue the government would receive over 10 years at various tax rates. It turns out that the optimum tax rate is in the 20-30% range to maximize total 10 year revenue. The reason the tax revenue drops above a 30% rate is simple. If the government takes more new goats in taxes, the goat farmer has fewer goats to breed the following year."

It's rocket science I tell ya...

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COTD: Shrugging

Belmont Club » Osama bin Laden is Dead and So Are Ho Hos: "9. Doug Fed Ex Driver calls Miller show to tell his story of following Dennis’s advice to “Shrug:”

After delivering an Obamaphone to a home sporting a High-End BMW for their mode of transport, he signed up for foodstamps to buy all the high-end items he was heretofore unable to afford.

…A gift to and from our children. (esp those who yearn to live in Greece.)"

Why not when you can get $60K a year -- minus the bureaucratic graft O course...

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Breaking The NYeT News Blockade

A picture you will never see.. | Power Line: "A PICTURE YOU WILL NEVER SEE.. …on BBC or CNN. Found on Twitter’s #Gaza hashtag, the photo below of “Israeli soldiers helping Palestinian kids escape the rockets from Gaza.”"

And normal humans know what would happen to Israeli children unlucky enough to be in Gaza. It makes me shiver.

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Wall Street Dumb

Human Beings Are Getting Dumber, Says Study | TIME.com: "The urbanization that followed the development of agriculture simplified survival by removing some of its challenges, which likely weakened natural selection’s ability to eliminate mutations associated with deficiencies in intelligence. Crabtree estimates that over the last 3,000 years (about 120 generations), humans have sustained at least two mutations that have eroded our intellectual and emotional intelligence. “A hunter-gatherer who did not correctly conceive a solution to providing food or shelter probably died, along with his or her progeny, whereas a modern Wall Street executive that made a similar conceptual mistake would receive a substantial bonus and be a more attractive mate,” Crabtree wrote in the paper. He also noted that the average Athenian from 1000 B.C. would rank among the smartest and most emotionally stable in today’s society."

Ain't that the truth.

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Let It Burn...

Ace of Spades HQ: "I'd sure like to see this "balanced approach" Obama talks about so much, on paper. An equal amount of tax hikes and spending cuts would in fact be a far more right wing proposal than he's actually put forward. His actual plan is about as balanced as, say, France's Socialists are implementing.

The French economy has been stuck at zero percent growth for months, while unemployment has climbed to above 10 percent — and all signs point to an oncoming recession. Sounds like a plan. Let's do that.

I'm finding the gravitational pull of the Let It Burn caucus growing increasingly strong and increasingly irresistible."

... with a "liberal" and unavoidable helping of "going Galt".

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The Eternal Return O Haavaad Maath (Part Googolplex)

The Obama lemmings [Reader Post] | Flopping Aces: "The deficit this year is projected to be $1.25 trillion. Repealing the Bush tax rates for the “wealthy” would net approximately $70 billion per year. That’s it. Allowing all the Bush tax rates to expire would net approximately $380 billion per year. That begins to take a bite out of the deficit. What is obvious is that the big money comes from the 98%, not the 2% or the 1%. And still Obama supporters think that $70 billion will erase a $1.25 trillion deficit. Because Obama said so. Lemmings."

But what do I know -- it's all a new development to me. Not. Googolplex? Much?

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nO Change

Obama’s Three Strikes - By Elliott Abrams - The Corner - National Review Online: "Add up these comments and it seems the president’s second-term foreign policy will not change at all. Never admit error, obfuscate, change the subject, talk and talk and talk, “engage,” and claim all is well. Mr. Obama noted that in Syria the situation has “deteriorated” since he demanded that Assad go — in the summer of 2011. That’s the truest thing he said: There are now 40,000 dead, 400,000 refugees, many more displaced persons, and a really dangerous jihadi presence. As Mr. Obama might say, that’s not optimal — and he remains unable to draw the connection between his own policies and those disastrous developments. "

Du'O.

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Innumerate In Chief

America's CEO: Obama Can't Do 7th Grade Math: "On Wednesday October 24, President Obama appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.   During a particularly hard hitting section in which viewers sent in questions for the President, Mr. Obama was blindsided by a grueling line of inquiry from Samantha in Colorado who backed him into a corner with the following: “When you help your daughters with their homework, is there a subject you struggle with?”

The President answered: “Well, the math stuff I was fine with up until 7th grade. But Malia is now a freshman in High School and I’m pretty lost. It’s tough.""

That seemingly clears up a lot of confusion as to why the President cannot balance the budget.

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bingO (Part 7,830,493)

Ace of Spades HQ: "The article doesn't say this, but reading between the lines, the Obama campaign assumed that reliable voters would show up, and that high-information voters would make up their minds based on the large amount of non-TV-ad inputs they already had, and instead played largely for those who knew so little their minds could be changed by a few TV ads."

That and playing the emotions of middle aged women. Because, you know, they're not sexist or anything...

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Nixon Was Re-Elected Too

Instapundit » Blog Archive » BENGHAZI UPDATE: Were there Libyan “militia prisoners” at the Benghazi CIA annex? UPDATE: Reade…: "BENGHAZI UPDATE: Were there Libyan “militia prisoners” at the Benghazi CIA annex?

UPDATE: Reader Tom McCobb writes: “The higher the pile of Benghazi cr*p gets, the more I think, ‘Yeah, Obama got re-elected; so did Nixon.’”

And say, does this revelation mean that the Obama Administration was operating one of those dreadful secret foreign CIA prisons?

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 8:37 pm"

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Obama's Moneyball: Treating Voters Like Hunks O Meat

Big Data Meets Big Government; It's a Moneyball World Now | Cris Sheridan | FINANCIAL SENSE: "If you haven’t read Michael Lewis’ Moneyball or seen the film on which it is based, I highly recommend picking up a copy or Netflixing the movie tonight. Why? Because this week’s behind-the-scenes glimpse of how the Obama campaign used big data to influence voters, raise vast sums of money, and achieve winning results proves one thing: It’s a Moneyball world now.

Consider Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win

On Nov. 4, a group of senior campaign advisers agreed to describe their cutting-edge efforts with TIME on the condition that they not be named and that the information not be published until after the winner was declared. What they revealed as they pulled back the curtain was a massive data effort that helped Obama raise $1 billion, remade the process of targeting TV ads and created detailed models of swing-state voters that could be used to increase the effectiveness of everything from phone calls and door knocks to direct mailings and social media."

Eye candy, as he said.

UPDATE: From the comments on the Time article (be sure to click through and RTWT):

KathleenSmithDoyle
2 days ago
Am I the only person commenting who actually worked with this data on Votebuilder and Dashboard? Seems to me you are "opinionated boys or girls who havn't done the reading". I logged 5-10 hours a week since last January working only with this data. It is here to stay, it is driven by metrics, social media and email marketing but it's also flawed. It makes no allowances for actual knowledge of the people in the communities it purports to serve. It is driven by the top, field officers get fired for not making the required number of calls or canvases no matter if the calls or canvases are effective. There really needs to be a review of this or you can count on getting 5 calls a day and 6 canvasses in the next election cycle. Now compound that if the Republicans ever wake up and learn arithmetic instead of blowing hot air on Faux News. It works, it's micro targeted but there is still a lot of room for improvement. Still, this is the future of elections people say what you will. Nate Silver and the geeks running this for Obama know what they are doing and do it well. It's about Getting Out the Vote, as long as people under 30, Latinos, the LGBT community, African Americans and Women vote in huge numbers white men and evangelicals will never win another election. It's numbers, that's all it is. The face of America has changed now and forever. Face it.

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Under President Obama, The Third World Comes To You!

Instapundit » Blog Archive » KATRINA ON THE HUDSON (CONT’D): A major disaster occurs on the outskirts of one of the most advance…: " Doctors Without Borders Tend To NY Storm Victims. Just like it was some third-world country. President Bush sent Americans to the third world. Under President Obama, the third world comes to you!

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 10:22 pm"

But what do I know?

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Financial Confidence And Food Stamps

Instapundit » Blog Archive » YESTERDAY A READER EMAILED asking me to send a link to what I regard as the best law review article …: "Oh, okay, one more irresistible passage: “But having opted for ‘mankind is the good,’ you just couldn’t stand it. It is not hard to see why. For if human nature were to be the good, then there was nothing for you or anyone else to do to change it in any way. Indeed, even as a matter of scientific curiosity, there wouldn’t be much call to find out what human nature was, for whatever it turned out to be would be what it ought to be. Now that is a loathsome idea. Under its reign, a man like you, rightly appalled at the world, would, have no role at all. That was too dreadful a possibility.”

If you like this, you might also read Leff’s Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural Law.

And give Unger credit for growing in office, or something. Though he’s one of Obama’s old professors, he recently said: “His policy is financial confidence and food stamps.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 2:00 pm"

Heh.

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Delay, Dissemble, Deny

Instapundit » Blog Archive » ON PETRAEUS, QUESTIONING THE TIMING: FBI agents on the case were aware that such a decision had b…: "FBI agents on the case were aware that such a decision had been made to hold off on forcing him out until after the election and were outraged.

“The decision was made to delay the resignation apparently to avoid potential embarrassment to the president before the election,” an FBI source says. “To leave him in such a sensitive position where he was vulnerable to potential blackmail for months compromised our security and is inexcusable.”

Indeed.

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 1:48 pm"

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How Long Before Obama Shoots 38 Under?

Americans: Fly your flag | Watts Up With That?: "There’s a great list on Listverse about the psychotic leader of North Korea: Top 10 Crazy Facts About Kim Jong Il

This one was a hoot:

The “Fact”: He is the best natural golfer in history

In 1994, it was reported by Pyongyang media outlets that Kim Jong Il shot 38 under par on a regulation 18-hole golf course – including 5 holes in one! That score is 25 shots better than the best round in history, and is made even more amazing by the fact that it was his first time playing the sport. It’s said Kim Jong Il would routinely sink 3 or 4 holes in one per round of golf, and – lucky for the PGA – he has since given it up."

Even luckier that he has given up the world. Though his slaves remain in shackles just as it always was...

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Oof

Instapundit » Blog Archive » JIM TREACHER: Petraeus resigns, and it definitely has nothing to do with Benghazi. Plus, blog co…: "Plus, blog comment of the day: Okay. Just so we’ve all got our history right:

1990′s: Use an ill-timed military exercise to divert attention from the botched handling of an extramarital affair.

2010′s: Use an ill-timed extramarital affair to divert attention from the botched handling of a military exercise.

I would say “heh,” but it’s not exactly funny.

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 11:20 pm"

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Four More Years!

Petraeus resigns, and it definitely has nothing to do with Benghazi | The Daily Caller: "Guess Petraeus didn’t have any sealed divorce records for Obama to wave around. But this’ll do in a pinch. The important thing is to remove the obstacle.

Not only doesn’t it matter that everybody can see what Obama is doing, it’s actually better for him that way. What good is abusing your power if you can’t laugh at your enemy’s futility?

Four more years!"

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Touch The Tip Of Your Nose Again

Gen. Petraeus’ affair was with his biographer | Power Line: "If so, then it seems that the affair started before Petraeus became the director of the CIA. The background check on Petraeus when he was being considered for the CIA job must have been incredibly thorough. And, since an affair with an embedded reporter would probably have been difficult to keep fully secret, even an ordinary investigation might well have uncovered word of it.

Thus, it may be that the White House knew of the General’s affair before he became the DCIA."

Doublethis.

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Perfect Timing: The War On Petraeus

Instapundit » Blog Archive » MICHAEL WALSH ON PETRAEUS: David and Bathsheba. “He needs to be called before the Intelligence Com…: "MICHAEL WALSH ON PETRAEUS: David and Bathsheba. “He needs to be called before the Intelligence Committee and to testify about the truth of what happened in Benghazi, including the real reason that ambassador Stevens was there — which, if the rumors of a gun-running operation to Syria are true (shades of both Fast and Furious and Iran-Contra) could be highly deleterious to the administration, and which might have had an effect on the election had they been publicly known. Petraeus should welcome the opportunity, and in fact insist on it. It would be his final act of patriotism — and should he be prevented by the administration and its Democratic allies in Congress from testifying, then his forced silence will speak almost as loudly and even more eloquently.”

UPDATE: Ralph Peters: “Timing is just too perfect.” “Just as the administration claimed it was purely coincidence that our Benghazi consulate was attacked on the anniversary of September 11th. Now it’s purely coincidence that this affair — extra-marital affair — surfaces right after the election, not before, but right after, but before the intelligence chiefs go to Capitol Hill to get grilled. As an old intelligence analyst, Neil, the way I read this — I could be totally wrong, this is my interpretation — is that the administration was unhappy with Petraeus not playing ball 100% on their party-line story. I think it’s getting cold feet about testifying under oath on their party-line story. And I suspect that these tough Chicago guys knew about this affair for a while, held it in their back pocket until they needed to play the card.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 9:54 pm"

Touch your nose.  This.

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Katrina On The Hudson: Samidat The Complainers

Instapundit » Blog Archive » KATRINA ON THE HUDSON: After 11 days without power, Sandy victims want answers. Related: Disast…: "KATRINA ON THE HUDSON: After 11 days without power, Sandy victims want answers.

Related: Disaster Shelter Doesn’t Protect From Bitter Cold. And a coverup: “As Sotelo tells it, when it became clear the residents were less than enamored with their new accommodations Wednesday night and were letting the outside world know about it, officials tried to stop them from taking pictures, turned off the Wi-Fi and said they couldn’t charge their cellphones because the complex didn’t have enough power.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 12:14 pm"

Obama doesn't need your votes anymore...

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Is He A Democrat?

Instapundit » Blog Archive » GENERAL PETRAEUS RESIGNS OVER AN AFFAIR, BUT . . . “Is the resignation really about the affair… or…: "ANOTHER UPDATE: “If only Petraeus was president instead of head of the CIA then sleeping around wouldn’t be an issue.” That depends. Is he a Democrat?"

This of course was the whole problem with the Clinton mess. The idea that a CIA director could be blackmailed and should resign because of an affair but that the same circumstance for a President is fine is frankly an opinion only worthy of the mentally ill. There, I've said it.

And now we have another Clinton mess -- just of another sort...

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