Thursday, April 26, 2012

What's a "Fair Share" for Millionaires and Billionaires?

Although nearly 50% of Americans pay no taxes at all, Democrats believe that raising taxes on the private sector -- primary small business owners -- will somehow grow the economy. To illustrate just how twisted the Left's logic is, they term this despotic insanity "fairness":


The President has been jetting around the country demanding that “millionaires and billionaires” pay their “fair share” of income taxes. Apparently, he didn’t get the memo. As the above graph, based on data from the Heritage Foundation, shows, the 1 percent-ers are already paying a lot more than they should be, 2.18 times as much to be exact. The same goes for the 2-5% (1.47x) and the 5-10% (1.09x). Also notable, the 10-25% group rakes in about 35% more income than the top 1%, but pays less than half as much in taxes.

Put another way, relative to the bottom 50%, the top 1% currently pays over 14 times as much in income taxes for each dollar earned. The president’s solution to this glaring inequity: raise taxes on the top. I may not be a mathematician, but I’m pretty sure that would make the tax inequality gap bigger, not smaller.

Aside from demonstrating the canyon-like tax disparity, the graph also highlights another economic point generally lost on liberals: the 1% may control a vast amount of income, but they still can’t match the income earned by the rest of the country. As rich as the “millionaires and billionaires” may be, the 99% can still outspend them.

No matter: facts, logic, history and reason never get between the Left and their master plans.


'Breitbart Is Here' - The Music Video

Written and performed by Chris Cassone and directed by Big Fur Hat: "Breitbart Is Here."


I also had the pleasure of meeting one of the video's cameramen -- Mr. Pinko -- this past weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. Except when he smacked me around.


Uh Oh: I Just Received a Crucifixion Order From the EPA

I guess my carbon footprint hit the EPA's threshold.



Larwyn's Linx: The Second Coming of American Liberal Fascism?

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

The Second Coming of American Liberal Fascism?: Erickson
Obama's Fallon Appearance Violated Campaign Law: Breitbart
Supreme Court casts doubt on Obama’s immigration law claim: Times

Conservative Strategy for Winning the Fight After the Election: BG
'Vote Fraud is a Central Democrat Strategy for 'Winning Elections': HySci
A Bad Day in Court for the Obama Administration: Power Line

Economy

Labor Dept. Prepares Ban on Kids Working on Family Farms: Powers
Welfare At All-Time High Under Obama: JW
Most Useless College Majors: OTB

Rural kids, parents angry about Labor Dept. rule banning farm chores: DC
Your B.A. won't get you a job, but Obama will buy your vote!: WyBlog
TSA screeners arrested for narcotics trafficking, accepting bribes: KABC

Obama's Rent-A-Thugs Storm Banks In New Shakedown: IBD
"Fair Shares" Would Be Payday for "Millionaires and Billionaires": E.S.
Medicare’s Unfunded Liability: $38,600,000,000,000.00: MB

Scandal Central

High-Ranking DOJ Official Soon to Resign Amid Scandals: Nice Deb
Obama Campaign Returning Ponzi Money: Beacon
George Zimmerman: Prelude to a shooting: Reuters

2012 Elections

America's Not Laughing: RNC
Y’Know, Somewhere Along The Line Romney Figured Out How To Give A Speech: HayRide
It Begins: Marco Rubio Receives Threat, Under Police Protection: JWF

Climate & Energy

Crush Your Enemies, EPA Edition: No Runny Eggs
EPA Announces Plan to Use Clean Water Act to Preemptively Strike Down Mine Permits: ResourcefulEarth
NHTSA to hold meeting on the safety of lithium-ion batteries: Torque News

Obama’s Interior Secretary: We’re Being “More Strict On Denying Drilling Permits”: WZ
Spinach: The Popeye energy policy: Fausta
Don't You Love It When Leftists Speak Their Minds?: Ace

Media

Raw Story: A Profile in Leftist Media Mattering D-baggery: ProWis
Exclusive: Kagan's Handwritten Notes to Bell on Critical Race Theory: Breitbart
RNC’s #Notfunny hashtag in response to Obama is a hit, causes Democrat meltdown: Twitchy

DWS: Don’t ask why Senate Democrats won’t pass a budget, because that’s process: Hot Air
Girlfriends, Let’s Talk About How to Convert a Democrat: Turner
The new Occupy poster is a unicorn killing a cop. Because, OBVIOUSLY.: NakedDC

World

What Happens In Cairo...: Glick
The Worst Places to Be a Woman: ForPol
Good News: Urban Outfitters Introduces Its 'Auschwitz' Line of Clothing!: Atlas

CAIR Suit Calls Questioning Muslims 'A Form of Torture': Times
Shark Tank Swims With the Fishes, Submerges with U.S. Navy Submarine: Shark Tank
Terrorist and Obama Pal Bernadine Dohrn Advocates Communism to Sheeple: NoisyRm

Sci-Tech

Did Google Patent the ‘Hot or Not’ Sexiness Ranking System?: Wired
First Android revenue numbers revealed: $278.1m in 2010, iPhone more lucrative: Verge
The A/B Test: Inside the Technology That’s Changing the Rules of Business: Wired

Cornucopia

British Game Show Contestant Thinks He's Captain Kirk Or Somethin': Ace
Exclusive: See 3-Minute Action Film Already Gone: Wired
Democrat Senator's Plan to Save the Post Office: Use Offshore Windmills to Charge Batteries in Electric Trucks: Marfdrat

Image: BarkingCrayon.com
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Senate Conservatives Fund

QOTD: "It seems to me the federal government just doesn’t want to know who’s here illegally." --Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., listening to oral arguments in the matter of Arizona attempting to enforce federal immigration law

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Question: what does the Obama EPA's stated policy of "crucifying" oil companies do to gas prices?

For you drones: that's a rhetorical question.

This nitwit is an EPA administrator who bemoans the fact that he "only has 150 enforcement people for five states". And his policy is to crush the oil and gas industries (uhm, and don't even ask about coal, which produces the lion's share of electricity in this country).

I thought EPA Assistant Administrator Mathy Stanislaus telling Congress that his agency doesn't look at jobs losses when doing its economic analysis was something, but that's nothing compared to this video of an EPA administrator comparing what he does to ancient Romans soldiers conquering a village. The Washington Examiner's Joel Gehrke reports [emphasis mine]:

Al Armendariz, a regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, explained in 2010 that he understands the EPA policy to be to "crucify" a few oil and gas companies to get the rest of the industry to comply with the laws.

"I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement," Armendariz said during a meeting in 2010. "It's kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean: they’d go into little Turkish towns somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they’d run into, and they’d crucify them and then, you know, that town was really easy to manage over the next few years."

...Armendariz went on to say he believes in hitting oil and gas companies "as hard as you can" to "make examples out of them."

I'd like to make an example out of the EPA by completely de-funding it next year. It's the only way to be sure.

Oh, and just for fun, here's what the Obama EPA's policy of "crucifying" oil companies has done to gas prices:


These hypocrites should be required to forego all of the luxuries of the real energy economy: automobiles, airplanes, food transported by truck, plastics, etc. Because if they can't live what they preach, why the hell should we?


Hide This Chart From the Kids

Democrats and, to a lesser extent, RINO's have perpetrated the greatest act of fiscal child abuse ever seen on Earth:

Runaway spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will drive federal debt to unsustainable levels over the next few decades. Total national debt consists of publicly held debt and intergovernmental debt. Intergovernmental debt is the amount that the government owes to specific programs or agencies, such as the Social Security Trust Fund. Publicly held debt is more relevant to credit markets.


History proves -- beyond a shadow of a doubt -- that no country can survive these levels of debt.

And when thoughtful people propose reforms -- like George W. Bush's 2005 Social Security reform plan and Paul Ryan's Path to Prosperity Budget Plan -- they are demonized and demagogued as "pushing Grandma off the cliff".

Unless we remove the Cloward-Piven Democrats from office -- and force RINOs to hew to the Constitutional line -- this country is headed for collapse, as surely as night follows day.

November is coming.

A Meal Fit for a Would-Be King

From the brilliant Sweasel:


It's what's for dinner. And, apparently, it's also the other white meat.


You Lying Sack of Schumer

If there's a more malevolent, anti-American force in the U.S. Senate than Chuck "Schmucky" Schumer, I have yet to read of him or her. I firmly believe that had Schumer been around during the founding of the United States, he would have been a Tory, collaborating with the Crown.

Case in point: the Soviet-style show trial Schumer held to "review" Arizona's immigration bill, which -- as everyone knows -- simply upholds federal law and explicitly prohibits profiling.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), convening his Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security, vowed to have a legislative response of his own should the justices uphold the state law that allows police to require proof of residency with probable cause... “It is simply too damaging to our economy and too dangerous to our democracy to have 50 different states be permitted to take their own direction when it comes to immigration policy,” Schumer said. “The Supreme Court should find the Arizona law unconstitutional, but if it doesn’t, Congress will be ready.”

Our founding fathers gave Congress plenary power over immigration law,” Schumer said. “The Supreme Court has consistently interpreted the naturalization language in Article I to mean that the establishment of the immigration laws and the manner of their execution are committed solely to the federal government.”

...[Former Arizona legislator] Pearce countered that “illegal is a crime, not a race,” and that the majority of illegal immigrants just happen to come across the southern border... “It’s simply the rule of law,” he said. “Laws without consequences are not laws at all,” and SB 1070 forbids racial profiling, he added.

Plenary power, eh? Which means all of those Democrat-run "sanctuary cities" and "sanctuary states" will be punished for violating federal immigration law? Of course not, because Schmucky is a lawless hack who is more interested in drumming up the votes of illegals than protecting lawful citizens and legal immigrants.

Earlier today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments concerning the constitutionality of Arizona's law. Some observers thought Schumer's hot-dogging was intended -- like Obama's pontificating about Obamacare -- to intimidate the Supreme Court.

But what the lawless Obama administration and Schmucky heard from the Justices must have been disturbing.

Supreme Court justices took a dim view of the Obama administration’s claim that it can stop Arizona from enforcing immigration laws, telling government lawyers during oral argument Wednesday that the state appears to want to push federal officials, not conflict with them...

...“It seems to me the federal government just doesn’t want to know who’s here illegally,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said at one point [and] even Democratic-appointed justices were uncertain of [the Obama administration's argument].

“I’m terribly confused by your answer,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who went on to say that the federal government can always decline to pick up illegal immigrants when Arizona officials call.

When the history of this Republic is written, Schmucky Schumer will go down in history as one of the most nefarious, vicious, and reckless political thugs ever to slither on the floor of the Senate.


Good News: Urban Outfitters Introduces Its Much-Anticipated 'Auschwitz' Line of Apparel

Because nothing says chic like those pencil-thin models in a Nazi death camp:

The norming of evil. As the depraved left tightens its chokehold on the culture, the media, arts, and popular culture in general reveal to us their true face -- monsters. This is how Hitler and his lovers overtook a country...... incrementally, step by step, mainstreaming hate, dehumanization and genocide via the culture. This is the MBO of the left/Islamic coalition in America. The banality of evil.

American clothing company Urban Outfitters is selling a holocaust T-shirt bearing the Jewish star that Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis in death camps. This Urban Outfitters T-shirt is labeled "Auschwitz chic" and retails for $100. The “patchwork Star of David on the left breast pocket goes back to 1930s and 40s Europe.” The “vintage yellow color” of the shirt is Nazi yellow -- obvious to students of Nazi Germany. This is just another in a long line from the antisemitic Urban Outfitters of Jew-hating clothing pieces using monstrous iconography. The latest Jew-hatred fashion follows on the heels of Arafat's war scarf (the keffiyeh) is this Auschwitz tee shirt. The store also generated anger in 2004 with a shirt bearing the words “Everybody Loves a Jewish Girl,” surrounded by dollar signs and shopping bags.

Atlas has the contact info for Urban Outfitters as well as a recounting of the company's bizarre history of hateful clothing choices.


Hat tip: BadBlue.com.

Larwyn's Linx: Obama and The Perfect Storm of Misery

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Obama and The Perfect Storm of Misery: Baldilocks
Obamacare's Newest Fraud: RWN
Earth Day 2012 Fizzles — Badly: Nice Deb

Conservative Consumers: Stand Your Ground: Malkin
Dems To Obstruct If SCOTUS Upholds AZ Law: S&L
Social Security’s in trouble? Why didn’t anybody tell us?: Troglo

'Now That's Justice for Trayvon': Ace
Obama Grabs Credit Again: Beatty
ANWR -- It's Been 10 Years: Wizbang

Economy

Your Obama reelection cheat sheet: Boortz
Trumka's Big Bucks: Free Beacon
Politics of Denial: Peth

It's another Obama record!: Hot Air Pundit
Public Unions Bankrupt Illinois: Unpaid Bills Top $9 Billion: Mish
Wanna Know Why California's Broke?: ConCom

Devious Taxation: Williams
Obama Fought Oil And Lost; Now It’s Back To Reality: IBD
Weeping four-year-old girl accused of carrying a gun by TSA: Daily Mail

2012 Elections

Shocker: Obama’s Popularity Falls Among Catholics: JWF
College students face a simple choice in 2012: Glob
Joe Kennedy III: Out. Of. Touch.: Sarah

Scandal Central

Cuomo Administration Caught Trying to Silence Whistleblower: MenRec
Valerie Jarrett’s Father-in-Law a Communist; Worked With Obama Mentor Frank Marshall Davis: Loudon (2011)
Nancy Pelosi's Top 10 Gaffes: Times

Climate & Energy

British climate alarmist recants his alarmism: Q&O
EPA's Regulatory Train Wreck: FreedomWorks
The Last Days of Global Warming Theory?: AT

Media

An Indictment of Liberalism: DC
NY Times Pledges ‘Unbiased Political Reporting’, Laff Riot Ensues: Breitbart
Tammy Radio Beating Rush Head-To-Head on Interwebtubes?: Bruce

Journalism, Jihad, and the New York Times: AIM
#JusticeforTrayvon: Random acts of brutal violence, media complicit: Twitchy
War on Chelsea Clinton: Blogmocracy

Obama Loves America… When It Agrees With Him: Publius
Follow-Up: Atlantic Revises John Edwards Trial Article, Discloses Actual Facts About Edwards and Author: Blumer
The Assault on Food: Stossel

World

Communists Work on a New Improved, Pro-Obama “Occupy” Movement: Loudon
For Holocaust Day This Year – Obama Puts Jew-Bashing Crackpot on Atrocities Board: GWP
Elie Weisel puts Obama in his place: Matzav

Terror Defeated? Ask Afghans, Iranians and Egyptians: IBD
The elephant of Jew hatred: Glick
Free Speech Found Guilty by Europe: Gatestone

Segregated swimming for Muslim women creeps in Nashville & Virginia: Creeping
Portuguese Finance Minister Admits Keynesian Stimulus Was a Flop: Cato
Robert Spencer Book Talk/Reception for "Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins": UrbInf

Sci-Tech

The Fort Knox Approach to Security: Infosec Island
Eight Products the Facebook Generation Will Not Buy: Yahoo!
Facebook Passes the 900 Million Monthly Users Barrier: WSJ

Cornucopia

The Atrocities Prevention Board: Keeping the Horse We Rode in On.: MOTUS
Sean Penn and Mikhail Gorbachev Walk Into a Bar: Mellow Jihadi
The Tantrum: C&S

Image: Pirate's Cove
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Support the Senate Conservatives Fund

QOTD: "...how is everyone adjusting to the knowledge that Romney is our nominee? It could be worse. He’s well-spoken, he has economic knowledge, and he’s never eaten a dog. We could win this." --Frank J.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

The Road to Freedom, Illustrated

Based upon "The Moral Case - Job Creation", by Arthur C. Brooks


Jobs do more than create wealth. Jobs give individuals the ability to pursue their happiness and earn their success, to find their dreams and turn them into reality. Jobs can bring fulfillment, matching individuals’ skills with their passions in a unique way. For this reason, persistently high unemployment is unfair, particularly to those who have had the fewest opportunities — the young and the poor.

In addition to lost happiness, unemployment brings financial hardship, which hits far more than the pocketbook. When times are hard, individuals put off marriage, starting a family or pursuing education. Our current policy path of regulatory uncertainty coupled with burdensome taxation keeps entrepreneurs on the sideline. This delays job creation and keeps millions dependent on the state for their survival rather than on themselves for their success and fulfillment.

Three core principles should be the center of any major job reform:

• The government has no role in picking winners and losers in the economy. The stimulus spending tried to do just this, and failed miserably.
• It is unfair for the government to steer public dollars toward favored industries or well-connected unions and corporations. When special interests cozy up to the government, job creation always suffers.
• The government should keep its payroll to a minimum. Clearly there are numerous important jobs for government to do, but the government should not grow beyond what is necessary to perform its basic functions.

Burdensome regulation has grown over the last few decades, and exploded with the recent health care and financial reforms. The uncertainty created by these regulations keeps businesses from hiring. The entire U.S. regulatory structure should be examined. Some regulation is necessary for a thriving society, but many of today’s rules have little benefit but massive cost, and should be repealed. Taxes should also be lowered and loopholes closed to reward productive businesses, not politically active ones.


Government spending also dampens job creation, as taxes and debt rise to pay for the spending. The federal workforce should be cut to only what is necessary for a well-functioning government and federal spending should be curtailed. Also, government should not endorse higher union membership. While unions can and do serve important functions, they also drive up labor costs and reduce hiring. It should be left to individual citizens to decide when union membership or union contracts are appropriate, not the federal government.


Based upon: The Moral Case for Job Creation", by Arthur C. Brooks.

Good News: Feds Look Seriously at Attacking the Deficit. Bad News: They're Targeting Retirement Accounts.

There are really no depths to which Democrats won't stoop in order to keep their unconstitutional Ponzi schemes running, are there?

Uncle Sam, in a desperate attempt to fix its $16 trillion-plus deficit, is leering over Americans’ retirement nest egg as its new bailout fund.


Capitol Hill politicians are assessing tax changes that could let the Internal Revenue Service lay claim to a portion of the $18 trillion sitting in 401(k) accounts and other tax breaks used by middle-class workers, including cutting the mortgage tax deduction... as one way to prevent government bankruptcy.

I love the term "tax breaks", don't you? As if it's the government's money, and not yours.

Besides 401(k)s, other possibilities include the mortgage-interest deduction on second homes, as well as benefits from employer-provided health insurance, which are untaxed now.

And once the mortgage-interest deduction is removed for second homes, it won't be much longer until all mortgage deductions are eliminated. Because when the Constitution no longer constrains government, the leviathan becomes insatiable.

And all of these Rube Golberg contraptions should do wonders for the housing market, don't you think?

Last week a group of retirement industry experts went to Capitol Hill to criticize these proposed changes in retirement-plan rules. “These changes could have unintended consequences,” warns Lynn Dudley of the American Benefits Council (ABC).

Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee about the proposals, Randolf Hardock, of ABC’s board of directors, said, “[The idea] could seriously undermine the retirement savings system.”

Jack VanDerhei, research director of Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), believes either of the two proposed 401(k) changes under review would have a “catastrophic” effect on the current retirement saving system.

Unintended consequences indeed.

How about a really crazy idea? Like the federal government slashes expenses until it's spending only what it takes in? Oh, that's right -- we have a president addicted to trillion-dollar deficits. Forget I mentioned it.


Hat tip: Mark Levin.

Tastes Like Chicken, Kinda

The Obama-Dog Jerky meme just never gets old, does it?


Seamus who?


Graph o' the Day: The United States of France

Funny, you don't look like a European socialist welfare state:

What can Americans learn from the French presidential election? Certainly that France seems to be experiencing the politics of denial. A vote for François Hollande is a vote for fiscal denial... With debt near 90% of GDP, France needs to sharply reduce the size and scope of government. What’s more, a 2010 ECB study found that overall, the EU is about maxed out when it comes to taxes...


...Would a vote for Barack Obama also be a vote for fiscal denial? Well, consider the following:

• The president has offered no comprehensive tax reform plan.

• The president has offered no comprehensive, long-term debt reduction plan.

• The president’s budget will, at best, only stabilize debt at historically high levels. (Better pray we don’t have another recession or financial crisis in the next decade or so.)

Indeed, one might conclude — after listening to the president — that the key to a growing economy and a fiscally sustainable government were higher taxes on the superrich (the Buffett Rule) and blunt Medicare cuts to healthcare providers (IPAB). That’s the politics of denial.

As Europe enters a new and more ominous phase of its recession, one can't help but think of the Weimar Republic and the rise of totalitarianism.

And, it would seem, this is the kind of failing society that President Obama and the Democrat Party wants to emulate.


Larwyn's Linx: Obama admin to use $8.3B “slush fund” to fake out seniors?

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Obama admin to use $8.3B “slush fund” to fake out seniors?: Hot Air
Good News: Obama To Act More Like A Dictator: Cove
Former DOJ official: Obama worse than Bush on civil liberties: DC

5 facts from the 2011 Medicare trustees report: AEI
They Could Be Obama's Sons: HyScience
Twitter lynch mob: Twitchy

Economy

The Bloated Government of America: Foundry
Thomas Friedman: I Didn't Enjoy My Government-Run Train Ride : Ace
As EU Nears Collapse, Will U.S. Follow Suit?: IBD

The Next and More Serious Phase of the European Crisis: AEI
Feds eye retirement-fund tax to cut $16 trillion-plus deficit: Post
U.S. watchdog blasts Medicare quality insurance project: Reuters

Scandal Central

VA Investigating Voter Fraud In 2008 Elections: Ace
Washington Targets Your 401(k): IBD

2012 Elections

Is the Obama campaign getting desperate?: AT
Governor Asterisk Update: Republican Who Endorsed Romney Trashes GOP: RSM
Barack Obama: coming up short among female voters: RS

The Metrics in Favor of a Romney Win: RS
California's Open Primary Stifles Republican Free Speech: Bookworm

Climate & Energy

Key Warming Guru James Lovelock: I Was a Climate Change "Alarmist" And So Is Al Gore: Ace
Madrid 1995: Was this the Tipping Point in the Corruption of Climate Science?: Watts

Media

CBS News’ ‘Hatchet Job’ on Israel: Beacon
Obama Dog-Eater Joke o' the Day: Power Line
A Broken Keith Olbermann Crawls Along Rock Bottom... Somehow I can't summon a single tear: MB

Mainstream media ignores Mia B. Love’s historic first: LI
“Enough With the Dogs Already! (Unless We’re Talking About Mittens’ Dog, Of Course)”: AIR
Was Michelle Obama behind Hilary Rosen's attack on Ann Romney?: AT

Hey, Remember when liberals were anti-lynching?: RSM
Jimmy Wales to Hollywood: You’re Doomed (And Not Because of Piracy): Wired
Treacher Trolls Village Voice Over Obama Dog Jokes, Hilarity Ensues: IMAO

Chutzpah: Killing your parents, then complaining you’re an orphan: Fine Report
ALEC-bashing NPR reporter fails to disclose ties to lead anti-ALEC group: Malkin
NBC News President Admits Network Should Have Corrected Falsely Edited Zimmerman 911 Call On Air: MRC

World

The Savage Lands of Islam: Sultan Knish
Islamist Fellow Traveler: Rep Bill Pascrell: IPT
Obama Selects Woman Who Wanted to Invade Israel As Chair of Genocide Panel: Lid

NKorean military issues sharp threat to South: AP
Book Review: Did Muhammad Exist?, by Robert Spencer: Zombie
About That Bizarro Nork Threat…: Soylent (NSFW)

Sci-Tech

Entry-level ‘iPhone nano’ again rumored to launch this year: BGR
Microsoft sells AOL patents on to Facebook: AP
Research In Motion is dead: BGR

Cornucopia

Nuke the News: When Will Obama Address His Dog-Eating?: IMAO
Smoke 'em If You Got 'em: MOTUS
Mitt and Marco: the WASP and the WHISP: Cube

Image: The Ab-Hancer
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Senate Conservatives Fund

QOTD: "Jimmy Wales has a message for Hollywood: You’re doomed, it won’t be piracy that kills you, and nobody will care... The Wikipedia founder, delivering a keynote address at the Internet Society’s INET convention in Geneva, predicted that Hollywood will likely share the same fate as Encyclopedia Britannica, which shut down its print operation this year after selling just 3,000 copies last year.

“Hollywood will be destroyed and no one will notice,” Wales said. But it won’t be Wikipedia (or Encarta) that kills the moviemaking industry: ”Collaborative storytelling and filmmaking will do to Hollywood what Wikipedia did to Encyclopedia Britannica,” he said[, looking] at a generation of kids growing up in a world of video and mastering editing software at a young age. His own 12-year-old daughter, Wales said, is already adept at iMovie and won a local award for a short film she made." --Ryan Singel

Monday, April 23, 2012

Ben Bernanke and the Pyramid of Doom

Tyler Durden reintroduces The Denninger Exter Pyramid, which offers a compelling hierarchy of asset survivability:

This morning, a vastly expansive essay by Lew Spellman of the University of Texas in Austin titled "Warren Buffett and the New Calculus of Gold" is making the rounds, and while the narrative is largely defensive of gold, and its role as the only true safe collateral in a world rapidly depleted of the latter (as we have been arguing for the past two years) as proven over and over by the fact that the entire modern system now relies more on re-re-re-rehypothection of existing collateral than on spending money for CapEx purposes and to replace an aging asset base, we wonder: is this realization really just now being grasped by the world?

Are the forward thinkers of the world only now understanding that in a world with hundreds of trillions of imaginary collateral whose ultimate owner will never be tracked down, and a daisy-chained bankrupt domino collapse will come before anyone finds out who owns what?


...Because one can spend 30 minutes reading the Spellman essay, or... cast a quick glance at the picture [above] to understand the true value of everything in a world in which the monetary fabulation of the past 99 years is finally unwinding.

One picture in this case is absolutely worth well over a thousand words.

I'm no Paul Krugland, mind you, but I've read enough history to predict what happens to a society that engages in massive, unchecked money-printing operations.

Think Weimar and Zimbabwe.

Bumper Sticker o' the Day


Gas Price Headline Hilarity

May I present a panoply of headline hypocridity? That's a new word I invented just for liberal media, a cross between hypocrisy and stupidity. It just fits.

• 22 April 2012 - On Meet the Press, "unemployed douchebag Keith Olbermann declares gas prices [are] set deliberately high to screw Obama." Probably by investors evil speculators. Or the Koch Brothers!

• 9 May 2006 - On CBS News, "Bush, Big Oil, Slammed On Pump Prices" blamed a conspiracy of President George W. Bush and his oil buddies for driving prices higher.

• 11 April 2004 - In Time Magazine, the neuron-challenged Andrew Sullivan asserted that gas prices were far too low: "even when they peak this summer [of 2004]..., they will be too low...." Sullivan blamed, in part, Bush's drive to addict Americans to cheap oil.

Respectively, the driver of gas prices -- at least according to the Democrat "intelligentsia" -- are: (a) speculators targeting Obama; (b) Bush conspiring with big oil to keep prices high; (c) Bush conspiring with big oil to keep prices too low.

Not supply and demand. Not the free market.

But malevolent actors imagined by Democrat hacks.

Folks, these people are so stupid I'm surprised they can breathe without mechanical assistance.


Gee, I wonder what this Democrat official was going to do with the personal information of 228,000 Medicaid recipients?

Kids, can you say "vote fraud"?

Columbia, SC (WLTX) - State Law Enforcement Division agents have arrested a man they say transferred thousands of confidential state Medicaid records to his personal email account.

Christopher Lykes, 36, of Swansea is charged with five counts of medically indigent act confidentiality violation and one count of disclosure of confidential information... The agency revealed Thursday that 228,435 Medicaid records were taken since January... The documents included names, phone numbers, addresses, birth dates, Medicaid ID numbers and in some cases Social Security numbers.

According to SLED, at least one other party received this data from Lykes. It has not been made public yet who this third party was.

Oh. Did I mention this?

...News 19 discovered a connection between Lykes and two Richland County [Democrat] lawmakers, Sen. Joel Lourie and Sen. Darrell Jackson.

...Lykes has also served as an executive committeeman of the Lexington County Democratic Party.

Well, knock me over with a feather. A Democrat. Involved with vote fraud? Say it ain't so!

It gets better. There was also an attempted -- and, predictably, bungled -- coverup by Democrat Party officials:

...According to the Republican Party, Dick Harpootlian and his liberal minions “scrubbed” the official S.C. Democratic Party website of Lykes’ name. An April 18 screencapture shows Lykes as a Lexington Democratic Party Executive Committee contact, but his name is missing from an April 19 screencapture. Lykes was arrested on April 18.

...Lexington County Democratic Party chair Kathryn Hensley notes that Lykes had been an active member of the Lexington County Dems. Lykes previously served as a precinct officer, but Hensley says he no longer holds that position.

Every time I think Democrats have hit bottom with their vote fraud efforts -- from ACORN to Eric Holder's despicable attacks on voter ID -- I find out that bottom is a relative term.


Larwyn's Linx: President Obama's Enemies List

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

President Obama's Enemies List: Foundry
On April 22, Celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day: ObjStd
Clearing a path for a dictator: Sentinel

Another “novelty” swipe at a conservative Tea Party woman: Malkin
If I Wanted America To Fail: FreeMarketAmerica
Grope and Change: Steyn

Economy

Liberal Nostalgics Are Economic Illiterates: Barone
Even more welfare fraud: Mini-mart owner skimmed $30k per month: DC
Book: GOP Freshman Class Turned Into a Monster for Boehner: WaPo

Bernanke Sends $100 Billion In Foregone NIM To The Primary Dealers: ZH
Marion Barry quadruples down on anti-Asian business attack: Twitchy
Change! 1 in 2 new graduates are jobless or underemployed: ABC

Northeastern University Attacks Holocaust Survivors: AT
Wall Street Isn’t Enough: City Journal
From muggle to media mogul by age 25: ChiBiz

Scandal Central

Reuters: Obama needs vote fraud: Surber
It Was the Power, Stupid: Hanson
Contempt Charges For Holder Imminent – “Weeks Away” According to Issa: Nice Deb

2012 Elections

Revealed: Michelle Obama masterminded Ann Romney Mom smear: NatlEnq
Mitch Daniels unintentionally makes the case against Dick Lugar: LI
Jon "Who?" Huntsman Rips Republican Party: PolWire

Climate & Energy

Astronomers: World may be entering period of global cooling: Watts
Environmentally Sound Energy Independence: Palin
We have more oil than the president says: Chron

Media

Charlie 'Turd' Crist Denounces GOP, Praises Obama: MB
Martin Bashir demonstrates the First Media Truth for Conservative/Republican Legislators.: RS
Man Bites Dog... Likes the Taste: RWN

Science: GOP voters better informed, open-minded: DC
The Obama Administration's 15+ Scandalous "Achievements": Lid
Medical Freedom, Lyme Disease, and Obamacare: Zilla

Questioning ‘The Voice of Authority’: Driscoll
Trayvon Martin and the murder of America’s Fourth Estate: JPA
Obama Media? What Obama Media?: Cube

World

Things That Make You Go Hmmm - Such As A Power Struggle (To The Death) Within China's Power Elite: ZH
Egypt cancels natural gas deal with Israel: Haaretz
London: Don’t ban alcohol — we'll get blame, say Muslim students: IIE

Hollande Tops Sarkozy in France’s Presidential Race – Will Face Off in May: GWP
The Scandalous Lies of ‘Hope Not Hate’: FPM
China & Russia Launch First Ever Joint Naval Exercises in Yellow Sea: GWP

Germany Shows True Colors on Iran: Commentary
Another 60 Minutes Hatchet Job on Israel: AmSpec
Why Do They Hate Us?: ForPol

Sci-Tech

DARPA's Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2011 Test Hit Speeds of Mach 20: DARPA
Infosys Controversy: Homeland Security Investigates Indian Software Giant: HuffPo
No Bull: Lamborghini Is Building a 600HP SUV: Wired

Cornucopia

A bumper sticker is worth a thousand words: LI
Viral Video: Birth to 12 Years in 2 Minutes in 45 Seconds: HapBlog
Death Race 2012: NJ State Police escort 100 mph caravan of luxury sports cars to Atlantic City: WyBlog

Image: Occupy Unmasked
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Occupy Unmasked

QOTD: "Time and again last year, House Republican leaders faced a nearly in­trac­table opponent: the very freshman class that propelled them into the majority with the historic 2010 midterm elections...

The freshman resistance caused feuds among Boehner and his lieutenants that led some to fear a mutiny, heightened several showdowns with President Obama and eventually led to fissures among the rookies, pitting those who seldom trusted the leaders against those who reflexively did, according to “Do Not Ask What Good We Do,” an account of the freshman class’s impact by Robert Draper..." --Paul Kane