Ross Douthat turns over a rock.

 WE have two political parties in America, runs a saying that conservatives like to quote. One is stupid, the other is evil. And when they join forces to do something that’s both stupid and evil — well, that’s what we call “bipartisanship.”

Heh.

Read it.

Tim Egan in the Times: “The Progressives of the early 20th had an amazing run — direct elections of senators, regulation of monopolistic trusts, modernization of public schools, cleaning up the food supply — with only one major blooper: Prohibition.” I’m not a big fan of either the Seventeenth Amendment or of antitrust law, but put those aside; what about, among other things, residential segregation laws in the South and border states (fortunately invalidated by the Supreme Court, much to the dismay of Progressive commentators), eugenics legislation, hostility to the Equal Rights Amendment/support for “protective” law for women only, support for American imperialism (at least via one of the Progressives’ great champions, Theodore Roosevelt–and Woodrow Wilson didn’t exactly distinguish himself with American intervention in World War I, which may be the single greatest “blooper” in American history), and support for state legislation monopolizing certain fields on behalf of incumbent businesses (see, e.g., New State Ice v. Liebmann)? Do these count as only minor bloopers, or has Progressive support for these policies slipped down the old memory hole?

As I’ve consistently noted, today’s “Progressives” are not the same as yesteryear’s “Progressives.”  They do share a general affinity for government regulation of the economy, but modern Progressives believe in civil rights and civil liberties (albeit not exactly in the same ways that I believe in them), while those of a hundred years ago were generally hostile or indifferent to such liberties.  But if modern liberals like Egan are going to cite the old Progressives as their forebears, they should at least be cognizant of the full range of policies that were considered “Progressive” one hundred years ago.

Steve Sailer has the scoop.

The big money conservative press is starting to get alarmed by all the in-yo-face-white-boy chest-thumping since the election (much of it coming from white boys, of course).

Democrats have been trying to racialize American politics ever since they pulled the wool over the eyes of black people about who was actually responsible for segregation and Jim Crow, with notable success. As long as it keeps working, they’ll continue to do it.

Indeed, the Lamestream Media are trying to convince people that Hispanic is a ‘race’ and Muslim is somehow a ‘race’, with some success (at least among the purported victims). As with ‘white Hispanic’ in the Trayvon Martin case, if there isn’t a racial angle to a story, they’ll be happy to manufacture one. Can anyone seriously pretend that Barack Obama would be anything at all, much less President, if he wasn’t half-black?

Read it.

So now John Boehner is angry that the White House leaked a one-sided version of his latest conversation with President Obama to the press:

Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and Republican leaders are fuming after a late night phone call with President Barack Obama was leaked to the press, despite an agreement that it would not be, according to several GOP aides.

As if this should come as a surprise! It sounds as though Boehner and his aides are starting to get a clue:

Republicans believe the president is more interested in raking them over the coals publicly than striking a deal privately.

Really! They’ve figured that out, have they? I guess they noticed that the Democrats never put forth any sort of plan to deal with the nation’s collapsing finances, but instead demagogue the issue by pretending that the only thing going on is that Republicans are trying to protect rich people.

Of course the Democrats aren’t serious about “reaching a balanced deal.” Of course they don’t have any intention of cutting either discretionary spending or entitlements. Is John Boehner really the last person in the world to figure this out? Nevertheless, despite the blindingly obvious fact that the Democrats are incapable of acting in good faith, Boehner says “he remains hopeful that a deal can be reached in the coming weeks.”

Being a slow learner is almost the definition of Republican Congressman these days. One wonders when they’ll get tired of playing Charlie Brown kicking the football.

Read it.

But who cares? The ethanol lobby and the ‘progressive’ eco-nazis own more Congressmen than you do. Suck it up.

An Informative Chart.

Based on a thoroughgoing statistical analysis that would scare the crap out of you if you saw what they know about you.

I especially like #13: Lady from 1992 paying with check. WOMAN, IT’S A NEW CENTURY! GET A FARGIN DEBIT CARD!

Read it.

The Kuratas robot weighs in at 4 tonnes, and is 4 metres (13 feet) tall, so the pilot straps in at the head, ready to stride across the most desolate apocalyptic wasteland and do battle with combatants with equally disposable resources, though they’ll have to make do with ball-bearing guns for the moment – until the real apocalypse arrives at least.

We have the technology.

Read it.

Humanity has entered a new genetic era, according to a newly published study, with well over half the mutations found having occurred “recently”. Potentially troublesome genetic changes are particularly common among those of European heritage compared to those with African forebears, the research shows.

Read it.

Look at the history of most progressive charters and you’ll find they are initiated by white people who fit into one or more of the following categories:

Unnerved by the high percentage of low-achieving, low-income kids at their neighborhood school.
Unwilling to risk the lottery system for the good schools in their district.
Unable to afford private school, or a house in a homogenous suburb.
Unsure their kids are going to be able to compete with the top kids in their neighborhood school (particularly in high school)
Unhappy with the public school’s treatment of their idiosyncratic little snowflake.

These are people who would move to homogeneous environments, but can’t.

Welcome to the world of SWPL rationalization.

Using taxpayer dollars for upscale liberals (they are, usually, liberals) who don’t want their kids in the overly “diverse” local schools or have a little snowflake who just isn’t good enough to compete in a more competitive public school.

Say it ain’t so, Joe….

Rich Lowry explains that the Muslim Brotherhood are not your friends.

In the signature revolution of the Arab Spring, the country turned its back on a secular dictatorship only to fall into the arms of what looks like a budding Muslim Brotherhood dictatorship. Meet the new pharaoh, same as the old pharaoh. Except Egypt’s old form of misgovernment may soon look progressive by comparison.

Read it.

I’ve always wished I were autistic. Of course, I’ve always wished I were an only child, too, and that didn’t happen, so I guess I’ll just work with what I’ve got.

Read it.

A crack team of international boffins have done a “shotgun sequencing” of the wheat genome that will help increase wheat yields and thereby feed the world.

No, it won’t, because the ‘OMG THEY’RE MESSING WITH GENES WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE’ enviro-nazis will fight it tooth and nail.

John Derbyshire, Patron Saint of Dyspepsia, looks at elections.

It’s not issues, it’s race and religion. All those acres of print, all those months of TV time given over to talk about taxation, education, protecting small business, protecting Social Security, America’s role in the world, a path to citizenship, opportunities for women, deficits and debt, unemployment, abortion, fracking, gay marriage…nobody gives a rat’s ass about any of that—nobody but a tiny and ignorable minority on each topic. People vote based on vague, generalized images of the parties—on gestalten.

Read it.

… if, of course, what you want are long-lived mice….

William Jacobson has figured it out.

Is it possible to pay more than 100% of your last dollar of income in taxes? And if it were, would you bother to earn that last dollar?

Herein lies the key to how Democrats will obtain a permanent, economically-enslaved majority if universal income-based health care subsidies are enacted. And it is much worse and more nefarious than even the Wall Street Journal recently pointed out in Confessions of an ObamaCare Backer.

The scheme is simplicity itself. Welfare phaseouts create a huge ‘hump’ or curb that has to be gotten over before increased income will overcome the negative effect of losing benefits. Most poor people can’t get over that hump, so they’re trapped in low-income dependency on government benefits.

It isn’t until the taxpayer is making over $60,000 a year that he starts getting more net benefit than he was getting at $18,000. And there aren’t many underclass that can jump from $18,000 to over $60,000 — or would be willing to suffer through the hammering they get climbing up the hard way. They’re not that stupid.

In addition to all the other problems with highly subsidized, income-tested health care benefits, will come an even more permanent underclass which, being economically rational, will choose not to earn another dollar rather than lose more than a dollar of benefits.

Result: A locked-in permanent Democrat-voting underclass.

The Other McCain is on the case.

In terms of newsworthiness, it might be a clever idea to have, say, Brad Pitt and Anne Hathaway stage a naked protest in Harry Reid’s office, demanding action to reduce out-of-control federal spending. On the other hand, it’s hard to see the logic of sending out a bunch of ugly freaks to harass John Boehner about their pet boondoggle….

Indeed. What, exactly, do they think they’re accomplishing, other than pissing people off? Oh, and getting publicity of course, very little of which is positive.

Seven naked protesters swarmed the office of Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on Tuesday for some 20 minutes of loud chanting against cuts to AIDS funding.

Really? Are they under the delusion that this sort of thing will help prevent cuts to AIDS funding. Really?

In other words, it’s about money — tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded grants — and the people who get that money are insisting that they won’t give up one red cent of it, despite the fact that the federal government is headed toward bankruptcy.  As far as I’m concerned, HOPWA belongs in the same “Stuff We Can’t Afford Anymore” category as Big Bird and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Read it.

How about that Global Warming, eh? Aren’t you glad that The Science Is In?

‘The worst things in life are also free.’

Read it.

…where, of course, it has always felt right at home.

“Ambassador Rice is widely viewed as having either willfully or incompetently misled the American public in the Benghazi matter,” the letter states. We noted Tuesday with some amusement that Rep. Jim Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat and member of the Congressional Black Caucus, was claiming that “incompetent” was the latest code word for “black.”

I’m sure fellow lifelong Democrat Bull Connor would have agreed with him. Good to see enemies agreeing on something.

Let’s examine this argument carefully. The Post acknowledges that “we can’t know their hearts.” But it finds a (literally) prima facie reason to suspect them of invidious motives: Almost all of them are persons of pallor. The Post is casting aspersions on Duncan and his colleagues based explicitly on the color of their skin. And it is accusing them of racism!

And employees of the Post would respond to this reaction with stunned incredulity — after all, everybody knows that only white people can be racist! (Don’t you know anything?)

The trouble with a diverse coalition based on ethnic or racial identity is that solidarity within each group can easily produce conflicts among the groups. Permissive immigration policies, for example, may be good for Hispanics and Asians but bad for blacks. Racial preferences in college admissions help blacks and Hispanics at the expense of Asians.

One way of holding together such a disparate coalition is by delivering prosperity, so that everyone can feel he’s doing well. Failing that, another way is by identifying a common adversary–such as the “white male.” During Obama’s first term, the demonization of the “white male” was common among left-liberal commentators, especially MSNBC types. The Post has now lent its considerably more mainstream institutional voice to this form of bigotry.

David Horowitz wrote a very revealing book on the subject.

The danger for the country is that a racially polarized electorate will produce a hostile, balkanized culture. In 2008 Obama held out the hope of a postracial America. His re-election raises the possibility of a most-racial America.

Not that Obama cares….

Read it. And examine the chart.

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.“

Your tax dollars at work. Welcome to the Obamanation.

Bryan Caplan has some wise words.

Education teaches people to show up on time, sit down, shut up, stay awake, and follow orders.  So it’s tempting to say, “School inculcates the work ethic.”  But that’s not quite right.  School inculcates the school ethic – and while the school ethic and the work ethic overlap, the overlap is far from perfect.

At least, that’s the plan. Judging by some of the people I’ve gone to school with, it doesn’t always work out that way in real life.

Read it.

Although this isn’t the first such assertion from archaeologists and evolutionary biologists, the new studies demonstrate that it would have been biologically implausible for humans to evolve such a large brain on a raw, vegan diet and that meat-eating was a crucial element of human evolution at least a million years before the dawn of humankind.

Guess it’s time for #OccupyScience to straighten these h8ters out….

Read it.

Because, you know, Republicans are too dumb to know who to kill, so they need explicit guidelines and firm rules. The Obamassiah, not so much.

Read it.

Why do some societies maintain institutions that cause economic backwardness? This is the vital question that MIT economist Daron Acemoglu and Harvard economist James Robinson asked in their seminal 2006 article, “Economic Backwardness in Political Perspective” in the American Political Science Review. Their analysis concluded that all too many rulers have clearly calculated that it’s better to keep their people in poverty than risk losing the privileges of political power.

Or, in the case of Democrats, reduce a previously prosperous people to penury in order to pursue progressive policies and, incidentally, promote their own privileges and political power.

The answer to this puzzle is what the two economists call the “political replacement effect.” As they explain, “Political elites will block beneficial economic and institutional change when they are afraid that these changes will destabilize the existing system and make it more likely that they will lose political power and future rents.” Rent in this case is the wealth that political elites divert from the productive parts of society to themselves via taxes, corruption, exclusive licenses, import restrictions, monopoly ownership, and the like.

In other words, Democrats.

However, innovation is stifled in those regimes where the elites are somewhat entrenched but fear replacement. In such cases, the elites calculate that economic liberalization might empower rivals and end up depriving them of the looted wealth their current political position affords them.

I’m thinking Congressional Black Caucus, here; New York being the poster child, but any major metropolitan area will probably do.

Read it.

That’s because ‘purchased’ e-books are not actually bought, they’re just licensed. (Read the terms of service for B&N — or Amazon, for that matter.) And B&N are stupid people, which is why they’re going broke.

This is why you need to download, jailbreak, and back up any e-books that you ‘purchase’ if you want to keep them.

Read it.

After all, what could be more fair than sticking America’s taxpayers with the tab for cleaning up New York?

Read it.

Traded the brown shirts for purple, they have.

Read it.

A large gas tanker ship is set to sail across the arctic from Europe to Japan, now possible with changing climate conditions, officials said.

The Ob River, a large tanker carrying liquefied natural gas, left Norway Nov. 7 and has sailed north of Russia on its way to Japan, using an arctic route that will take 20 days off the regular journey and have it arrive in Japan in early December, the BBC reported Sunday.

Yeah, that Global Warming means we’re all doomed, man. Bummer.

“We have studied lots of observation data — there is an observable trend that the ice conditions are becoming more and more favorable for transiting this route,” Tony Lauritzen, commercial director of the Greek company Dynagas, said. “You are able to reach a highly profitable market by saving 40 percent of the distance, that’s 40 percent less fuel used as well.”

But what about the poor stranded-on-an-ice-floe-in-the-middle-of-nowhere polar bears?

“It’s an extraordinarily interesting adventure,” he said. “The people on board have been seeing polar bears on the route. We’ve had the plans for a long time and everything has gone well.”

Oh, right, polar bear numbers are actually increasing.

Read it.

They always have before. Why break with tradition?

Read it.

My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

As New Jersey residents without heat try to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy, new federal energy standards regarding furnaces will force them to pay thousands of dollars more to buy furnaces that are compliant.

The new rules require those purchasing furnaces after May 1 must buy “energy-efficient natural gas furnaces,” which will cost residents in New Jersey thousands of dollars; in addition to the cost of the furnace, it “must be vented directly to an outside wall rather than through the chimney, which can increase installation costs dramatically,” according to home contractors.

And the Blue States discover that the chickens do eventually come home to roost.

Read it.

 It is also no coincidence HR is once again dominated by women.  The skills women develop nitpicking minor infractions among romantic suitors is the precise exact same skills they use to nitpick infractions against job applicants.  Of course, it is no surprise their success in picking qualified romantic suitors is the same as picking qualified job applicants.  There is no data out there to prove it, but nearly EVERY HR lady I’ve personally know has been divorced, had dating problems, or at minimum had some kind of mental problem.  Sure there were a handful of relatively stable women, but the majority were not.  And I’m willing to bet their woefully inadequate ability to judge character when choosing men is equally woefully inadequate when judging job applicants (which we do have actual data for from MErcer, which shows a r-square of .14 between HR questions and actual job performance).

Tech companies are not immune to this stupidity. A lot of them are famous for asking questions that have very little relation to the position for which they’re hiring but a great deal of applicability to being on a College Bowl team.

 Not to belabor the HR angle, the larger point is that it is becoming very obvious corporations are developing a psychosis of their own.  It’s almost as if they’re becoming sentient even though they’re organizations.  An entitlement princess mentality is developing which makes the proposition of working for them not worth the risk of spending 20 years of your life getting educated, certified, qualified, licensed and CPE’d to death, only to have a job where your psychologically abused.

Probably a good idea to avoid such places. If you can.

Freeberg looks at where we’re at.

The fact is, liberalism isn’t really an objective. Conservatism might be an objective, but liberalism is merely a direction. Dog chasing the car. It doesn’t really know where it’s going, nor does it care.

So, basically, there’s no bottom to that hole. Lucky us.

Read it.

Hours after being sued by U.S. regulators for violating commodities laws, online prediction market Intrade told U.S. residents on Monday to immediately begin shutting down their accounts due to “legal and regulatory pressures.”

Your tax dollars at work.

When I was a kid, this was a free country … relatively speaking. It really hasn’t been a free country since Roosevelt (Teddy) was President.

Read it.

‘The team? Hell, they’re the team! We’re the equipment!’ — North Dallas Forty

Nick Gillespie doesn’t really like politicians much.

Read it.

Oh, really? What a novel idea….

Read it.

In an age of rising sticker prices, low graduation rates, increasing enrollment by non-traditional students, dim job prospects, and weak learning outcomes, many students, parents, academic administrators, and politicians are asking whether a degree in History or English is worth the effort and expense. The answer is not clear: to mention one complication, liberal arts graduates have higher initial unemployment rates than graduates in vocational fields, but appear to earn more at mid-career. The question itself, however, is not going to go away.

Like the term ‘liberal’, the term ‘liberal arts’ has become perverted over time.

It used to be that ‘liberal arts’ referred to familiarity with what was best in current civilization, the ability to ponder questions in the widest of contexts, informed by the accumulated wisdom of the ages and the mental tools that had been honed by thousands of years of expert use.

Nowadays, however, ‘liberal arts’ means indoctrination with the currently fashionable Politically Correct worldview, in which critical thinking is encouraged only when it is critical of Those Other People, the ones who decline to Get With The Program.

So the answer, which used to be Yes, is today No.

Peter Hitchens is getting tired of the same old left-wing paintbrush.

I’ve warned before against presuming that I (or anyone else) haven’t said, written or done certain things, unless the person making the statement also has total knowledge. Perhaps it would have been wiser to make some enquiries, or to seek knowledge on this matter first, before making this insinuation. If the accuser can’t be bothered to look back through several years of my writings, perhaps it would have been more prudent to stay quiet. But no, the innuendo must be produced anyway. Out of such slack-minded, and if I may say, bigoted folly is totalitarianism born.

Read it.

It’s unnecessary, ineffective, and expensive. And that’s just for starters.

Read it.

“Targeting journalism has become a trend, and now the people who are harassing and killing journalists include governments as well as the people you would expect,” said Mr. Rusbridger, who, along with others, was honored at the gathering in New York.

Well, then, what you have to ask yourselves is, ‘Why do they hate us?’

 On the same day as the Waldorf event, three employees of news organizations were killed in Gaza by Israeli missiles. Rather than suggesting it was a mistake, or denying responsibility, an Israeli Defense Forces spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, told The Associated Press, “The targets are people who have relevance to terror activity.”

And there you have it. So-called journalists aren’t just objective collectors of facts and reporters of news; they have an agenda and their activities are in support of that agenda. So it’s not a surprise that those on the receiving end of that agenda treat them like any other enemy, especially when they act as the propaganda arm of thugs, mass murderers, and terrorists. There’s nothing about being ’employees of news organizations’ that makes you bullet-proof, or gives you diplomatic (or any other kind of) immunity. News organizations are notorious for picking a side and then employing adherents of that side as Friendly Native Guides; is it any wonder that doing so almost always gets them in trouble with the other side?

 Mahmoud al-Kumi and Hussam Salama worked as cameramen for Al-Aqsa TV, which is run by Hamas and whose reporting frequently reflects that affiliation. They were covering events in central Gaza when a missile struck their car, which, according to Al-Aqsa, was clearly marked with the letters “TV.” (The car just in front of them was carrying a translator and driver for The New York Times, so the execution hit close to our organization.) And Mohamed Abu Aisha, director of the private Al-Quds Educational Radio, was also in a car when it was hit by a missile.

Human Rights Watch spoke up in protest, saying in a statement, “Civilian broadcasting facilities are not rendered legitimate military targets simply because they broadcast pro-Hamas or anti-Israel propaganda.” Reporters Without Borders, another advocacy group, called the killings a “clear violation of international standards.”

Bullshit. If you want to be treated like a neutral observer, act like a neutral observer. Don’t act like a partisan and then act shocked, shocked when you’re treated like any other partisan.

Read it.

Anyway, I’m writing a column on a Swedish toy catalog that’s going for a Gender Neutral approach, which means the boys have baby dolls and the girls have guns. Seems odd that the news stories call this “gender neutral,” when it’s actually an inversion. Right? There are contradictory strains in modern thought I cannot reconcile: there are no differences between men and women, except that women are more sensible and better. I know I touched on this yesterday, but it’s only because the examples of this idea are so banal, and frequently untethered to observable reality.

I have worked for women all my life – without complaint or resentment, because they’ve all been tremendous bosses. The one guy I had as a boss was the day manager of Ralph and Jerry’s, and he taught me how to shrink-wrap ground beef. A useful skill, and I dare say I could still do it; otherwise, all my editors up the chain have been female. So? So nothing. But when you’ve been edited by women since 1983, the idea that the patriarchal voice brays and blares and drowns out all female voices, well, it doesn’t quite hold. All the women I ever dated were career missiles. My wife is a high-performing medical-statute lawyer.

Every one of those women hated guns and would find an ad with a girl holding a gun to be abhorrent.

But that’s sensible, and who is sensible on this subject in print these days? Damned few.

Read it.

First and foremost, watch out for the reemergence of a “public option” likely marketed by Democrats as “Medicare for all”, as Democrats revive their already stated original goal of forging a single payer, wholly government-controlled system. We know that President Obama wants it. In June 2003, Obama said “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care program … a single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see.” And we know that Senator Max Baucus, the chair of the Senate Finance Committee during crafting of the ACA and its ramming through Congress by Democrats, admitted in February 2009 that “There may come a time when we can push for single-payer. At this time, it’s not going to get to first base in Congress,” a sentiment echoed by then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who said “For 30 years I have supported a single payer plan, but our next best choice is to support an exchange and a public option.” There is no secret about the ultimate goal of the president and leading Democrats.

Indeed, there is not.

Second, or perhaps in advance of single payer legislation, watch for the federal government to restrict doctors from practicing, or possibly even criminalize them, unless they accept all patients with insurance paying government-defined rates for medical tests and treatments.  We know that ObamaCare and its Independent Payment Advisory Board, IPAB, will force prices for medical services lower and lower by direct design, so that by 2019, payments for Medicare will be even lower than Medicaid. While some doctors will swallow government-dictated low reimbursements, undoubtedly more and more physicians will refuse to see patients under such health plans – easy to foresee, since this has already happened to Medicaid and Medicare patients across the country. But this presumably will not be tolerated by HHS Secretary Sebelius and our President. It is not at all unimaginable that the federal government will soon tie all medical licensure to accepting the new edicts, as has already been contemplated in Massachusetts by state legislators.

There will be doctors willing to operate under this regime, even as there were in Britain with the introduction of the National Health Service. But service will become as crappy as has already happened in Britain (and Canada), and there won’t be a U.S. for people to go to for high-quality care any more.

Read it.

Today, two Chicago men were shot outside a funeral home on the poverty-ridden South Side of the city. The two men were at a funeral for another man who was shot to death last week on the South Side; the police reported that that man was a gang member.

Well, I’m certainly glad that Chicago has such strict gun control regulations, or who know what might have happened.

Read it.

Days after Dr. Badr made these pronouncements, on October 30, a roaming band of Salafis in Suez attacked and severely beat a young Egyptian grocery store worker, and even tried to cut off his hand, because he prevented one of their gang from using the store bathroom without permission, to which the bearded Salafi had responded: “I do not ask for permission.”

The assaulted youth’s brother, angered at what had happened, “insulted the men.” Accordingly, Suez’s new Sharia enforcers, who call themselves the “Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice”—styling themselves after Saudi Arabia’s “morality” thugs—ordered that the man’s tongue be cut out, claiming that he had insulted Islam (this is the same group that earlier stabbed to death a young Egyptian man for walking in public with his fiancée).

What peaceful, friendly people! Wouldn’t you just love to have some for neighbors?
That’s some fine Religion o’ Peace™ you got there, Mohammed.
Of course, as we all know, the real problem is Islamophobia.

Read it.

From a political standpoint, it’s hard to imagine a better formula for sparking a taxpayer revolt than to impose a large, unexpected tax increase with little or no warning.

Well, we can’t have a nasty old taxpayer revolt, can we? That would never do. Maybe if we warm up the KY jelly it will make them feel better about it.

The impact would be concentrated in more affluent and urbanized states, particularly those with high state and local taxes (the federal deduction for state and local taxes is one of the breaks that frequently pushes people into the AMT). California’s number of AMT filers would go from 685,000 to more than 5.5 million, according to the Congressional Research Service. New York would go from 477,000 to about 3.9 million. New Jersey would go from 265,000 to almost 2.2 million.

Eventually Democrats will discover that they’re stepping on their own dicks base with this class-warfare tax legislation, since most Really Rich People are Democrats. (George Soros, are ya listenin’?)

Not that I’m going to cry much of a river for tax laws that soak places like California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, D.C., ….

Read it.

Step 1: Be a lovely California seaside town with gorgeous bluffs and rocks that everybody (this author included) loves walking and sitting on.

Step 2: Ban people from walking and sitting on the bluffside rocks, “partly because of safety concerns.”

Step 3: Discover that when you remove the presence of humans, those bluffside rocks swell up with sea gulls and cormorants, and predictably begin to smell like like shit.

Step 4: Discover that hosing down the guano is verboten because of state environmental regulations, to the extent that “multiple state regulatory agencies would have to issue permits before the [cleaning] agents could be used, a process that regulators have indicated would probably take at least two years.”

Step 5: Enjoy the smell of regulatory success!

“We need to consider a range of alternatives for cleaning the rocks, and one of those could be no project, just sit and wait for rain,” said Kanani Brown, an analyst for the California Coastal Commission, one of the regulatory agencies. “I know that’s not ideal for local businesses, but that’s historically been the approach.”

Read it. And watch the video, if you’ve got ten minutes to throw away that you never want to have back.

Cheap entertainment for your Monday — I wouldn’t let this clown near any sick person if I had anything to say about it.

My first idea was to seek other opinions. Maybe this hospital is wrong. Maybe there are other places that wouldn’t need to do surgery. Maybe there is a laser, a chemical, an ancient tradition, a shaman, a scientist, a nanorobot.

As you might have guessed, he’s an artiste, and so knows very little about the real world.

My main objective — the best thing I felt that I could do — was to make my digital information available on the Internet, in formats that would allow people of multiple cultures, skills, professions and inclinations to access, use, recombine and redistribute it.

In other words, he’s depending on other people to cure him — for free. A poster child for the New World Order.

I see a cure as a dynamic process, in which multiple doctors, professionals, artists, scientists and others join as a society — to converse, support each other, be open to various contributions and shape solutions that merge humanity, technology, technique, philosophy and art. Creativity and “normal life” become part of the process and bring “diseased” people back to life.

I guess the important part is to realize that being cured is not a physical thing but a state of mind. All together now: ‘I feel cured. I feel cured.’

Read it.

This is the fun part:

As a side note, want to see something scary?

In 2008, the least wanted candidates for bloggers were…John McCain and Ron Paul.

In 2012, the least wanted candidates for bloggers were…Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

So, going by those results, Chris Christie and Jeb Bush would have to be considered the early favorites for 2016 based on the fact that conservative bloggers don’t want either of them as a nominee.

Read it.

Though why the Turks should have any claim on it is beyond belief — they didn’t get to the area until a thousand years later. But I suppose it makes as much sense as pretending that the Arabs now ruling Egypt have a claim on the pyramids and their contents.

The Turkish culture minister, Ertugrul Günay, has announced that German officials have agreed to return the missing artefact, a brooch in the form of a winged seahorse, possibly as early as this year.

There’s an oxymoron for you — ‘Turkish Culture Minister’.

After an investigation the director of the museum, Kazim Akbiyikoglu, who had been instrumental in recovering the artefacts from the US, was arrested with 10 others. Akbiyikoglu admitted selling museum treasures to pay off gambling debts and was jailed for 13 years. He blamed his misfortune on an ancient curse said to afflict those who handle the treasure.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens?

Critics argue that foreign museums helped to preserve countless historical treasures from destruction or theft.

Oh, ya think? After all, it wasn’t the British who stored gunpowder in the Parthenon before it blew up — It was (wait for it) … the Turks! Yeah, really great defenders of cultural tradition in the areas they stole from the natives. But I guess Ward Churchill’s busy right now.

Read it.

An interactive map from the New York Times showing what could get flooded at various level of sea-rise.

Considering that all of these are deep Blue areas, I kind of like the 25-foot level. It would solve a lot of problems.