"Wake up America: Obama backs a fascist regime in Egypt" (a sign in Egypt)

In Tahrir square

http://www.mobypicture.com/user/BretBaier/view/15562718

"History did not end in 1965"

"Progressives resent progress when it renders anachronistic once-valid reasons for enlarging the federal government’s supervisory and coercive powers. Hence they regret Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling that progress has rendered Section 4 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act unconstitutional"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-supreme-court-is-correct-on-voting-rights-act/2013/06/26/b15c8d84-de81-11e2-b797-cbd4cb13f9c6_story.html

Krugman: Stupid, condescending idiot.

"It truly is amazing. That a Nobel prize-winning economist can believe utter nonsense, write utter nonsense, and defend utter nonsense, all in the service of a “climate” policy agenda that is remarkablyweak in terms of the underlying peer-reviewed science, and that would have virtually no effect on temperatures under any set of mainstream assumptions. I refer to the latest from Professor Paul Krugman, who actually argues, presumably with a straight face, that a forced closure of some coal-fired electric generating plants would force new investment in power plants and increase average power prices, thus yielding “an increase in spending” and a “positive effect” on the economy.

Wow. Remember the broken window fallacy? If a window is broken, the result is more employment and economic activity, because, obviously, someone has to pay someone else to replace the window. Sadly, this story leaves out the spending on something else that the first someone would have undertaken had the window not been broken in the first place. The broken window results in a reallocation of resources and not an increase in aggregate wealth; that is a reality that any student in Economics 101 should learn. The spending forgone on something else offsets the dollars spent replacing the window, but in Mr. Krugman’s world, the investments in new power plants and the higher spending on electricity represent new spending that otherwise would not have been made, because without the climate rules the dollars would have remained hidden in mattresses. Or something.

That the promulgation of new rules imposing large costs but yielding no benefits might have the indirect effect of increasing uncertainty and decreasing “spending” is a possibility not considered by Mr. Krugman. Nor is the larger effect of wealth destruction by regulation a parameter that he considers. One wonders why there is any “spending” at all in the absence of federal actions. What is clear, however, is that promises of a free lunch are as old as politics. And it is politics rather than economics that Mr. Krugman is practicing. Would the economy suffer if people spent less for access to the New York Times? The question answers itself"

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/06/paul-krugman-a-broken-window-equals-economic-strength/

What needs more water? Lawns - or Fracking?

"Objections to the amount of water used in fracking verge on trivial given that electricity generation and irrigation account for more than 70% of water used nationwide. By the time the mighty Colorado River reaches Mexico, for example, it is reduced to nearly a trickle by all the dams and irrigation outlets upstream. Clearly, food and power production are where the conservation potential is, but both industries are big, capital-intensive, essential to the economy and slow to change.

That leaves lawns way ahead of fracking in the line of ripe targets for conservation. If people in dry areas, like my neighbors in Texas, didn't insist on green lawns, the country would save trillions of gallons of water. The good, sustainability-concerned folks at Ceres, and everyone who has a lawn, should concentrate their energies on converting all that grass to something far less thirsty. To paraphrase Mao, let a million cactus gardens bloom"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324637504578568533026520790.html

A future Bill Clinton tweet: "I signed DOMA because I knew it would be overturned"

Clinton signed it


http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/06/frank-rich-gay-marriage-wins-roberts-be-damned.html

Egypt: If only we had taken action when the world listened to the US

"Egypt’s university system is particularly destructive. Year after year it turns out people with paper credentials, high expectations, and no real skills or understanding of how the world works. Those who manage to acquire real skills often go work in the Gulf, where Egyptian expats are able to have something approaching an effective professional career. But many Egyptian secondary school and university graduates end up in the worst of all possible worlds: too well-educated to accept the grinding poverty, soul-crushing drudgery and lack of status that so many jobs there entail, but not well-educated enough to build a better future for themselves or to organize effectively to remedy the ills of a society that creates such a dismal trap for youth"

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/06/29/turbulence-ahead-for-egypt/

IRS: One of the terrorist arms of the Obama White House

..."the evidence continues to show that IRS screening was politically slanted, and that IRS employees engaged in unacceptable conduct. The bottom line of this story remains unchanged"

http://www.volokh.com/2013/06/29/irs-chief-confirms-targeting-of-tea-party-groups/

Comparing "racists"

"RADLEY BALKO ON FACEBOOK: “If we punished racism by the amount of real harm it has caused, Paula Deen would get a verbal scolding. Michael Bloomberg would be homeless.” (via instapundit.com)

The Obama Thuggery

"This administration’s treatment of IGs is not conducive to active, independent, and objective inspectors general, and explains at least in part why key questions about the IRS still have not been asked or investigated"

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/350911/why-irs-ig-stopped-audit-gerald-walpin

Student Loan debts - and the value of a college degree

..."for the first time in history, student debt had the highest delinquency rate of all household debts.  This is a big deal given that Americans now carry over $1 trillion in student debt and most of it is in the hands of the young.  At the nucleus of this argument is that people are going into too much debt to finance their educational pursuits.  Collecting tips at the Olive Garden is not exactly going to payoff that $50,000 in student debt.  How is it that the Fed can subsidize big banks with zero percent rates so they can speculate in real estate and other ventures while college graduates are now faced with the doubling of interest rates?"

http://www.mybudget360.com/student-debt-amount-student-loans-and-college-graduate-employment-statistics/

Discrimination: Against whites

Time to sue Bloomberg?

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/352357/bloomberg-statistically-speaking-nypd-should-stop-more-blacks-will-allen

Men, On Strike

"We tell “men they are worthless perverts who reek of male privilege while simultaneously castrating them should they act in a manly manner, and now women are upset that men are becoming more feminized?” Smith writes. “You reap what you sow.”

"A British Airways passenger sued the airline because he was forced to change seats in accordance with the carrier’s policy that no man be allowed to sit next to a child, even one accompanied by his parents. (Don’t worry, there’s a perfectly great middle seat for you in the last row, guys. Next time, take the bus.)

In Illinois, 28-year-old Fitzroy Barnaby was convicted of “unlawful restraint of a minor,” a sex crime, and placed on a sex-offender registry after he grabbed the arm of an 14-year-old girl to lecture her on not dashing into the street in front of a moving car, as she had just done. On a blog called Parent Dish, a reader said he stopped coaching girls soccer after an 8-year-old player told him, “I don’t have to listen to you. I can get you in trouble just by telling people you touched me.” In England, a man passing by 2-year-old Abigail Rae, who later drowned, declined to help guide her to safety because he feared being labeled a pervert.

Everywhere you look, men are AWOL. Have they declined to show up or have they been kicked out?"

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/books/man_of_kneel_PHEDS6aPAczquQE4AgwTiP

The USA: Police State

Buy bottled water, get hauled off to Jail.

http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/bottled-water-purchase-leads-to-night-in-jail-for-uva/article_b5ab5f62-df9b-11e2-81c4-0019bb30f31a.html

"Progressives": Keep people down by pretending to help as they help themselves

" It is assumed to be more advantageous for a student who would have readily been accepted at, say, NC State to instead go to Duke, thanks to a preference. That assumption, I maintain, is usually mistaken. Rather than somehow making the country more socially just or at least helping the preferred student to better succeed, class preferences are apt to harm the students. Bigger, more prestigious schools do not necessarily give them a better education; often it’s the reverse. Also, “prestige” schools often have an inferior (and sometimes downright terrible) learning environment. That’s perhaps the main lesson of the recent book Paying for the Party.

“Progressives” take pleasure in thinking they can redesign society and improve upon laissez-faire. They’re almost always mistaken, and certainly so when it comes to shuffling students around to different colleges"

http://www.nationalreview.com/phi-beta-cons/352097/say-no-class-based-affirmative-action-george-leef

Advocating policies to hurt the poor: Environmentalists, Liberals

"A fascinating part of the special-interest coalition that makes up the Democratic Party is how many of its groups have aims which are at odds with another coalition partner. Environmental groups advocate a set of policies that uniformly hurt poor people. Environmental protection is essentially a luxury good. If you have enough money to provide food, clothing, and shelter for your family, then you start to care about the environment.

Poor people spend a higher percentage of their income on energy bills, so raising those costs in order to improve the environment means that the poor will feel more pain than those with higher incomes. If we were talking about tax policy, no liberal would forget to mention the poor and how the rich should carry more of the burden. Yet, somehow, on environmental policy most liberals favor policies which hurt the very people they normally want to help"

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2013/06/29/with_the_environment_paul_krugman_forgets_the_poor_100442.html

Government, centralized HealthCare aka Death Panels

"As many as 1,165 people starved to death in NHS hospitals over the past four years fuelling claims nurses are too busy to feed their patients. 

The Department of Health branded the figures 'unacceptable' and said the number of unannounced inspections by the care watchdog will increase. 

According to figures released by the Office for National Statistics following a Freedom of Information request, for every patient who dies from malnutrition, four more have dehydration mentioned on their death certificate. 

Critics say nurses are too busy to feed patients and often food and drink are placed out of reach of vulnerable people.

In 2011, 43 patients starved to death and 291 died in a state of severe malnutrition, while the number of patients discharged from hospital suffering from malnutrition doubled to 5,558.

Dianne Jeffrey, chairwoman of Malnutrition Task Force, condemned the statistics. 

She told The Sunday Express: 'Too many are paying the price with their lives while being deprived of the basic right to good nutrition, hydration and support.'"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2287332/Nearly-1-200-people-starved-death-NHS-hospitals-nurses-busy-feed-patients.html

The "tyranny" of choice? TYRANNY?

"I mean an ideology that originates in the era of post-industrial capitalism. It began with the American Dream -- the idea of the self-made man, who works his way up from rags to riches. By and by, this career concept developed into a universal life philosophy. Today we believe we should be able to choose everything: the way we live, the way we look, even when it comes to the coffee we buy, we constantly need to weigh our decision. That is extremely unhealthy"

So, rather have dictators and authoritarians?  How reprehensible indeed.

http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/06/27/Renata-Salecl-The-Tyranny-of-Choice

MA or AL?

The state with the largest gap between white and black voter turnout is ??

Massachussetts.

Why?  

MA practises Jim Crow (the left interpretation if they were consistent)

The "War" on Drugs ...

"While Americans are just 5% of the world’s population, we house almost 25% of the world’s prisoners, making us No. 1 in something, anyway. As Arianna Huffington says in the film, either we are a uniquely evil people – and let’s not rule that out, prima facie! – or we have some uniquely awful laws and social policies.

Anyone in any position of power who still supports the war on drugs today has either been corrupted by the unending flow of taxpayer billions, technological toys and bogus prestige – into local police departments, the FBI, the DEA, the Border Patrol and who knows where else – or is simply a coward. That accounts for the political elite in both parties, which with only a handful of exceptions has continued to fund the militarization of police work at an accelerating rate. Democrats may be less willing to talk tough or be perceived as racist than Republicans are, but Bill Clinton pursued the war on drugs just as avidly as either President Bush, and Obama has not notably slowed things down.

But it’s going to take large-scale publish pushback to set national drug policy on a more rational footing, and that’s where an entertaining, anecdotal package like “How to Make Money Selling Drugs” comes in, which apparently cashes in on producer Grenier’s access to celebrities. (He was the star of HBO’s “Entourage” for seven seasons.)

Does the drug trade produce all kinds of corollary crime and violence that is not victimless? Definitely. Do drugs like cocaine, heroin and crystal meth have negative public health consequences? Of course. But to state what should be glaringly obvious to anyone who’s not a total idiot, alcohol and tobacco have devastating effects on public health, almost certainly worse than all the illegal drugs put together. Regulation, heavy taxation and stigmatization have done a reasonably good job of reducing the harm from smoking. Our society remains confused about where to draw the line on alcohol abuse and how to educate young people, but at least vigorous DWI laws have stemmed the most obvious tide of booze-fueled death.

As Cooke’s film points out, cocaine and heroin were legal until our society went Prohibition-happy in the early 20th century, at least partly out of fear that such drugs encouraged white women to copulate with “Negroes and entertainers.” But the argument against the legalization or decriminalization of all drugs isn’t much more sophisticated than that today. Is it possible that in such an environment some goody-two-shoes honor student in Kansas gets hooked on coke who would never otherwise have tried it? (As opposed to the Jägermeister that person is likelier to consume today.) I guess so, but the larger point is that any negative consequences of legal drugs cannot possibly equal the social devastation and moral and financial bankruptcy of the drug war. We’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars to transform our police departments into extralegal terror squads and our society into a prison-state whose apartheid policies are largely invisible to the middle class, and are no less vicious because they’re not written down. All in the name of a Prohibition policy that, to quote former Baltimore cop and Maryland state trooper Neill Franklin, is bad for public safety and will never work"

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/06/americas-drug-war-either-we-are-a-uniquely-evil-people-or-we-have-some-uniquely-awful-laws-and-social-policies/

Return on Investment (Fracking)

"EROI is the net value of an energy source – the surplus that remains after the energy used to acquire the energy is accounted for.  EROI is an important concept – it is not a measure of the financial viability of a project, but rather of the long term societal viability.  Modern economies depend on large energy surpluses in order to grow.  Fossil fuels have strong EROIs, although they decline over time (for example, a new oil strike can be a “gusher,” requiring little additional energy to produce the oil, but as the field ages it will require more and more effort to pump the remaining oil out).  EROI is a measure fo the quality of energy, and the quality of an economy is directly related to the quality and quantity of energy available to run it"

http://energeopolitics.com/2013/06/25/eroi-projections-for-marcellus-shale-gas/

Clinton Quote (... in the future)

"I always thought DOMA would be overturned, that's why I signed it into law"
Greg Pollowitz‏@GPollowitz

Jim Crow is Dead - So the lefties are protesting

"In striking down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, the U.S. Supreme Court has restored a measure of constitutional order. Based on 40-year-old voting data that doesn’t reflect current political conditions, this provision subjected a seemingly random assortment of states and localities to onerous burdens and unusual federal oversight.

To be clear, neither minority voting rights nor the ability of the federal government to enforce those rights were at stake in Shelby County v. Holder. Both of those were, are and will be secure regardless of this case and its consequences.

Instead, the court was considering whether the “exceptional conditions” and “unique circumstances” of the Jim Crow South still exist such that an “uncommon exercise of congressional power” is still constitutionally justified -- to quote the 1966 ruling that approved Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act as an emergency measure"

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-25/jim-crow-is-dead-long-live-the-constitution-.html

On affirmative action (Megan McArdle)

"There's a certain irony in the fact that white students usually bring these affirmative action lawsuits (and that defenses of affirmative action are often framed in terms of white privilege).  The evidence seems to show that if completely race-neutral admissions policies were adopted at colleges and universities, the admissions rates for blacks and hispanic would fall dramatically . . . but the admissions rates for whites wouldn't change much.   The primary beneficiaries would be Asian students, who would fill nearly four out of five of the extra admissions slots.  

One of the oddest facts about college admissions is that everyone seems to be aware that colleges have imposed restrictive admissions quotas to keep Asians underrepresented in their student bodies, akin to the "Jewish quotas" which used to exist at Ivy League schools until the 1950s.  But no one seems particularly bothered about systemic, institutionalized racial discrimination against a large group of Americans.  I'm not even aware of any concerted effort by Asian community groups to shame universities into stopping this"

"I saw an Asian woman protesting quotas outside the UT College of Nursing last year. But there was just her; marching with signs seems kinda un-Asian doesn’t it? Is it possible that our culture of campus protest — developed since the 1960s — is itself racially discriminatory against Asians?" (instapundit)

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/24/affirmative-action-who-does-it-help-who-does-it-hurt.html

Washington DC Thuggery. Avoid Travel there.

"Aren’t crimes supposed to actually have a victim? And even in the case of the alleged crime of “ticket scalping” isn’t there supposed to be an actual transaction, and more importantly, a transaction at a price above face value? Should it really be a “crime” to offer to sell tickets below face value, or give them away for free? Unfortunately, Minnesota Joe was apparently arrested, handcuffed, jailed, and fined for the crime of “solicitation,” which doesn’t even require that a transaction take place, and with a “victim” who doesn’t actually exist"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/welcome-baseball-fan-go-directly-to-jail/2013/06/21/a34b67ee-d911-11e2-a9f2-42ee3912ae0e_story.html

Praise Bush? Bono, better watch out for a Drone to kill you

"U2 frontman Bono, who moonlights as an activist for the poor and sick in Africa, is crediting evangelical Christians and former President George W. Bush for saving 9 million from the ravages of AIDS, a campaign the musician said is blessed by God.

"This should be shouted from the rooftops. This is a heroic American story," Bono said in a remarkable radio interview with Jim Daly, the president of Focus on the Family, to be broadcast by the group Tuesday"

http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/06/24/bono-george-bush-evangelicals-saved-9-million-aids-victims

"If only our enemies were Republicans" (Obama will then destroy them)

"I cannot recall, in the last five years, Barack Obama ever identifying the Iranians, Hezbollah, or the late Hugo Chavez as among our “enemies,” in the fashion that he once urged Latino leaders to punish conservatives at the polls: “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.” If only the president would treat those who don’t like the United States in the same manner that he does those who do, he might bring great clarity to his now listless foreign policy. Indeed, why waste his rich vocabulary of teleprompted invective on fellow Americans, when there is an entire world out there that wishes the United States ill?

Imagine if Obama declaimed of the Iranians in Tehran that “those aren’t the kinds of folks who represent our core American values,”  in the manner he once attacked John McCain for calling for border security in 2008. Could not a worldly Obama at least go after the intolerant Saudis for spreading Wahhabi-hatred worldwide and for sending subsidies to radical Sunni terrorists, in the detailed way he once deconstructed rural conservative voters of Pennsylvania? He might have taken apart these dogmatic religious absolutists in the following manner: “It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” All such invective seems to sum up current Saudi society far better than it does the people of Pennsylvania. Could not the president finish by noting that their madrassas encourage divisions and discourage cooperation, just as he boldly lectured an Irish audience about the problems with Catholic parochial schools?"

http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/if-only-our-foreign-enemies-were-republicans/

The press still protecting the thugs, Obama ...

"Based on the lookout list examined by NRO, however, it is inaccurate to say that the applications of progressive and liberal groups were subjected to the same scrutiny as those of tea-party groups, or even that a surprisingly broad array of criteria was applied to screen applications for tax exemption"

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/351930/lookout-list-not-much-broader-originally-thought-contrary-reports-eliana-johnson

U.S. Surveillance Is Not Aimed at Terrorists

"The infrastructure set up by the National Security Agency, however, may only be good for gathering information on the stupidest, lowest-ranking of terrorists. The Prism surveillance program focuses on access to the servers of America’s largest Internet companies, which support such popular services as Skype, Gmail and iCloud. These are not the services that truly dangerous elements typically use.

Read More: Leonid Bershidsky on Snowden's Moscow Layover

In a January 2012 report titled “Jihadism on the Web: A Breeding Ground for Jihad in the Modern Age,” the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service drew a convincing picture of an Islamist Web underground centered around “core forums.” These websites are part of the Deep Web, or Undernet, the multitude of online resources not indexed by commonly used search engines"

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-23/u-s-surveillance-is-not-aimed-at-terrorists.html

Men on Strike.

Men on strike.

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-friends/index.html#http://video.foxnews.com/v/2503530221001/men-on-strike/?playlist_id=86912

Affirmative Action == Slavery, Segregation (Justice Thomas)

"Slaveholders argued that slavery was a 'positive good' that civilized blacks and elevated them in every dimension of life," Thomas wrote in his separate opinion on Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. "A century later, segregationists similarly asserted that segregation was not only benign, but good for black students."

Thomas cited Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case that led to the desegregation of public schools, in drawing a comparison between segregation and affirmative action.

"Following in these inauspicious footsteps, the University would have us believe that its discrimination is likewise benign. I think the lesson of history is clear enough: Racial discrimination is never benign," he wrote in the 20-page opinion. "The University’s professed good intentions cannot excuse its outright racial discrimination any more than such intentions justified the now-denounced arguments of slaveholders and segregationists."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/24/clarence-thomas-affirmative-action_n_3491433.html

Affirmative action: The corrosion of spirits.

'You probably got it because you're black."

I heard those words two years ago when I had the honor of being selected as a White House Fellow. It wasn't the first time that at a moment of proud accomplishment I had heard skeptical comments. It happened when I was promoted a year ahead of my military peers. Earning a graduate degree from Harvard University prompted a dismissive remark about admission quotas. Most troubling of all was that, each time, I wondered: "What if it's true?"

This is the ugly side of racial preferences that gets little attention. No matter what one may think of the policy, the truth is that with it comes an undercurrent of implied inferiority. Even in instances when a black or Hispanic is the best qualified and well-matched for a particular career or academic opportunity, the perception of unfair favoritism follows the person, hovering in the ether. The same suspicion often follows women who succeed.

The "affirmative action" measures that were supposed to provide new opportunities for underrepresented groups also prematurely and unfairly burdened them with the presumption that they're undeserving"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324412604578519324168805746.html

Obama: A President in name only - No one gives a damn what he thinks - so he terrorizes his own people

"

Stephens: The Age of American Impotence

As the Edward Snowden saga illustrates, the Obama administration is running out of foreign influence"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324637504578565530512048940.html

Obama White House deletes factual tweet about Hurricanes

What are they afraid of?  That people will wake up and realize the fraud that is being perpetrated by the leftists who hate poor people and want energy prices to go higher so only the elite rich can afford to live and eat?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/24/white-house-deletes-factual-tweet-about-presidential-hurricanes/

Why does the left hate free speech? (i.e. Why does Obama hate everyone except himself and his inner circle?)

Because they hate to be criticized ... ?

http://washingtonexaminer.com/why-does-the-left-want-to-suppress-free-speech/article/2532270

Obama WANTS us to fear him

"“I’m a born free American woman, wife, mother and citizen. And I’m telling my government that you’ve forgotten your place,” Gerritson testified.

In an interview with TheDC’s special correspondant Ginni Thomas, Gerritson said that it appears that the government wants its citizens to fear it.

“It’s almost as if the government has given the citizens the reason to be fearful of them, and it’s just scary to think the government is so emboldened to come down on their citizens like they have with this IRS scandal,” she said. “I don’t know if this is true, but this is what it feels like. It’s that the government wants us to fear them. They are not our friend. They want us to fear them, and they want us to come under their submission.”

http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/23/what-being-targeted-looks-like-the-human-face-of-the-irs-scandal/

So, Obama harassed and terrorized the Tea Party to win the election ...

IRS harassed the Tea Party (opposition)

http://www.aei.org/article/economics/yes-irs-harassment-blunted-the-tea-party-ground-game/

Make the extraordinary, ordinary - debase excellence

"Parents and teachers alike obsess over the negative effects of a child losing any sort of competition, ignoring the critically valuable skills of teamwork, healthy sportsmanship and, most important, learning how to lose.

“It's as if, as a society, we are embarrassed to award excellence for fear it will offend someone who is less than excellent,” said Bruce Haynes, a media partner at the bipartisan Purple Strategies consulting firm in Washington. “Rather than a drive to the top, it creates a drive to the bottom.”

In other words, if you build a better mousetrap, you might have to apologize to other mousetrap manufacturers, then to the Humane Society, for your accomplishment.

We've told our extraordinary people it's OK to be ordinary — and they've obliged us.

It would be easy to say Washington encourages this behavior. But politics usually is a mirror of the culture that exists; D.C. more often reflects reality than shapes it.

So a lot of these characteristics more reflect the culture in which politicians came up, not them driving culture in that direction."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/06/23/washington_reflects_victim_entitlement_culture_118923.html#ixzz2X36yp5ll

Did not use water? We will bill you for it.

"The Department of Environmental Protection sent a letter to residents saying they were subject to a minimum charge of $1.19 a day even if they weren't using water in their homes.

Stephanie Argento received a bill for her South Beach house, where she hasn't even been living"

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/52285428#.UcgxBlRDtq9

Global Warming: Even if true, could be good

"No matter what one thinks should be done about global warming, the fact is, it’s happening. And it’s not all bad. In the Arctic, it is turning what has traditionally been an impassible body of water ringed by remote wilderness into something dramatically different: an emerging epicenter of industry and trade akin to the Mediterranean Sea. The region’s melting ice and thawing frontier are yielding access to troves of natural resources, including nearly a quarter of the world’s estimated undiscovered oil and gas and massive deposits of valuable minerals. Since summertime Arctic sea routes save thousands of miles during a journey between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean, the Arctic also stands to become a central passageway for global maritime transportation, just as it already is for aviation"

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139456/scott-g-borgerson/the-coming-arctic-boom

What you get for your money at Columbia - Murderers.

"In the hallowed halls of Columbia University, a nest of ex-cons — who have served time for murder, attempted murder, robbery and assault — hold court on their unique brand of social justice for admiring students enrolled in the school's social work program"...

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/23/columbia-cons-ivy-league-social-work-program-run-by-team-former-prisoners/

"Greedy Africans"

"Drive Aid" - greedy africans demand food to eat which could have instead been used for making biofuel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n3uD5iSQP0

Blame evolution

"Women's growing predilection for wine has a darker side—and the only way to deal with it is to acknowledge the profound differences between how women and men abuse alcohol"

"In one sense, the rising rates of alcohol consumption by women are a sign of parity. But this is one arena in which equal treatment yields unequal outcomes. Women are more vulnerable than men to alcohol's toxic effects. Their bodies have more fat, which retains alcohol, and less water, which dilutes it, so women drinking the same amount as men their size and weight become intoxicated more quickly. Males also have more of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, which breaks down alcohol before it enters the bloodstream. This may be one reason why alcohol-related liver and brain damage appear more quickly in heavy-drinking women than men"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323893504578555270434071876.html

Global Warming Insanity (and what to do about it)

"Why not cut off power to the federal government first? Heat, a/c, and electric. That would show real leadership. Pres. Lincoln managed fine without electricity, central heating, or a/c, and he rode around town on a low-emission horse powered by biofuel. First, the gummint should cut the power to the NSA and the IRS. Then, the White House. Then Congress. Our moral and intellectual superiors should show us the way"

http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/22416-A-cooling-consensus.html

Obama and the IRS

"The notion that people who are audited are probably just "enemies of the regime," coupled with the idea that big shots get a pass -- that, as Leona Helmsley is reputed to have said, "taxes are for the little people" -- is a recipe for widespread tax evasion. That's how things work in Italy, and in many other countries around the world. But do we want things to work that way here?"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124260113149028331.html

DefSec Idiot: Hagel

I am indeed a member of the TALIBAN:

The Association of Learned Indian professionals with the Brains Against Neanderthals.

http://www.jammiewf.com/2013/hilarious-dimwit-chuck-hagel-asks-indian-professor-if-hes-a-member-of-the-taliban/

DNI Lied, Snowden told the truth

"“I do think that when history looks at this, they are going to contrast the behavior James Clapper, our national intelligence director, with Edward Snowden,” Paul told CNN’s Candy Crowley. “Mr. Clapper lied in Congress, in defiance of the law, in the name of security. Mr. Snowden told the truth in the name of privacy. So I think there will be a judgment, because both of them broke of the law.” 

Clapper was asked by Oregon senator Ron Wyden in a March congressional hearing whether the government was collecting “any type of data at all on millions of Americans.” He responded, “No, sir.”

Paul said that cozying up to Putin’s Russa will tarnish Snowden’s reputation, but that if he takes refuge in a neutral country, he may be seen in history’s eyes as an advocate for privacy"

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/351778/rand-paul-our-dni-lied-snowden-told-truth-eliana-johnson

Snitch on your friends and neighbors for talking to the press.

"“It was just a matter of time before the Department of Agriculture or the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) started implementing, ‘Hey, let’s get people to snitch on their friends.’ The only thing they haven’t done here is reward it,” said Kel McClanahan, a Washington lawyer who specializes in national security law. “I’m waiting for the time when you turn in a friend and you get a $50 reward.”

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/20/194513/obamas-crackdown-views-leaks-as.html#storylink=cpy

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/20/194513/obamas-crackdown-views-leaks-as.html#.UccM9lRDtq8

We are all law breakers

"I broke the law yesterday and again today and I will probably break the law tomorrow. Don’t mistake me, I have done nothing wrong. I don’t even know what laws I have broken. Nevertheless, I am reasonably confident that I have broken some laws, rules, or regulations recently because its hard for anyone to live today without breaking the law. Doubt me? Have you ever thrown out some junk mail that came to your house but was addressed to someone else? That’s a violation of federal law punishable by up to 5 years in prison.

Harvey Silverglate argues that a typical American commits three felonies a day. I think that number is too high but it is easy to violate the law without intent or knowledge. Most crimes used to be based on the common law and ancient understandings of wrong (murder, assault, theft and so on) but today there are thousands of federal criminal laws that bear no relation to common law or common understanding. The WSJ illustrates:

Last September (2011), retired race-car champion Bobby Unser told a congressional hearing about his 1996 misdemeanor conviction for accidentally driving a snowmobile onto protected federal land, violating the Wilderness Act, while lost in a snowstorm. Though the judge gave him only a $75 fine, the 77-year-old racing legend got a criminal record.

Mr. Unser says he was charged after he went to authorities for help finding his abandoned snowmobile. “The criminal doesn’t usually call the police for help,” he says.

Or how about this:

In 2009, Mr. Anderson loaned his son some tools to dig for arrowheads near a favorite campground of theirs. Unfortunately, they were on federal land….

There is no evidence the Andersons intended to break the law, or even knew the law existed, according to court records and interviews. But the law, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, doesn’t require criminal intent and makes it a felony punishable by up to two years in prison to attempt to take artifacts off federal land without a permit"...

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/no-one-is-innocent.html

Just remember: Harvard "educated" Lawyer.
"Barack Obama is turning into a one-man gaffe machine. "Obama repeatedly called British finance minister George Osborne 'Jeffrey' at the G8 summit." "Obama doesn't actually seem to know anything about Northern Ireland. Viewed in context, his comments are actually a homily about civil rights in America. His criticism of Catholic and Protestant "schools and buildings" is just a poorly thought out analogy: It doesn't seem to have occurred to him that while there's no good reason to segregate schools by race, there are differences in content between the education offered by Protestant, Catholic and secular schools"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324577904578557550804014908.html

Feminists "want a journalist to be punished for committing journalism--for accurately reporting the news and expressing an opinion contrary to feminist orthodoxy. It is a lovely example of the totalitarian mindset that is the core of contemporary feminism"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323393804578559583374805870.html

War On Men ... continues

Yes.  Next question?

"If the high heel was on the other pedicured foot, and women were seen as perennial boneheads in need of rescue, we'd cry sexism. Yet, we openly criticize our own "lazy, immature" husbands and fuel a stunted characterization of men in the media and pop culture"

http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2013/june/have-we-given-up-on-good-men.html?paging=off

"Now those bureaucrats yelling  “Papers, please!” are our guys.  “Communism,” said Lenin, who knew about these things, “means keeping track of everything.” How he would have envied our databases and supercomputers, our face-recognition technology and DNA testing!  A society where surveillance is universal, where every move is tracked and docketed, is a society where everyone may be guilty and certainly is a suspect. Black boxes in your car that track where you’ve been and how fast you drove to get there, cameras in taxi cabs that snap your picture every time you take a ride, drones aloft that the FBI uses to keep an eye on us. Where does it end?"

http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2013/06/22/the-dmv-as-an-allegory-of-american-decadence/

What is important is what the NSA is doing - NOT Snowden

" the questions seem to be:

• Are the two programs revealed by Snowden legal and constitutional?

• Are the programs effective? The government says yes, but most Americans don't trust government. The Obama administration claims National Security Agency spying helped foil a plot in New York, but that claim has been convincingly disputed.

• What else is the government doing to invade our privacy? Until a few days ago, paranoids were people who claimed Washington had cast a vast electronic net over our communications. Who isn't a bit paranoid now?

• Why did the U.S. government for years debunk what they called a myth about the National Security Agency seizing electronic data from millions of Americans?

• Why did the leader of the U.S. intelligence community mislead Congress in March by answering a question about the program in the "least untruthful manner" -- a phrase that would make George Orwell cringe.

• Why do Democratic lawmakers who criticized President Bush for exploiting the post-9/11 Patriot Act now defend President Obama for curbing civil liberties?

• Why do Republicans who defended Bush now chastise Obama for ruthlessly fighting terrorists?

• Rather than fierce oversight, why did the White House and congressional leaders restrict full knowledge of the programs to a few elites, and stage, for the rest of Congress, Potemkin briefings?

• Why does a secret federal court almost always side with the government's requests to seize information.

• Why didn't the president find a way before the leaks to tell the public in general terms what he was doing and why? Obama ran on a pledge of government transparency, opposed Bush-era surveillance tactics, and denounced the "false choice" between security and liberty"

http://mobile.nationaljournal.com/politics/why-i-don-t-care-about-edward-snowden-20130612

Woman gets what she wants, b*&^hes about it

http://michaelgraham.com/from-dog-bites-man-file-woman-gets-what-she-wanted-bitches-about-it-afterwards/

Nothing surprises me about feminazis ...