USA Today (warning, video auto-plays):

Seniors who graduate over the next several weeks are poised to be yet another product of a depressing economic cycle that isn’t their fault but that they may never fully recover from.

Fail-buzzer: A preposition is not something you end a sentence with.

But I noticed something else, and Stuart Schneiderman noticed it too:

It’s good for USA Today to say that their bleak job prospects are not their fault. And yet, we must notice that they voted for the politician whose policies are most responsible for this mess.

As the old saying goes, you get what you vote for.

…you get that for which you have voted…

It may be tough for the Class of 2014 to explain this to the Class of, oh, let’s say, 2052 or some such: After we voted in Obama and He fixed everything and made it all moar-wonderful, we were then faced with a depressing economic cycle that somehow wasn’t our fault.

I’m of the opinion that we’re going to survive this. I’m also of the opinion that when & if we do, it will be because — and only because — of a renewed, society-wide understanding of the plain and simple cosmic truth that things that happen, cause other things to happen. Our current miseries result from a widespread ignorance of this; the Weltanschauung that dominates is one that says everything is spontaneous, everything is random, and there’s nothing for anybody to do except believe in politically-correct pablum, start & win all the fights on the Internet about the pablum, tweet/twerk/selfie/Instagram like crazy, and have lots of “hope.”

Cathy Reisenwitz writes at Townhall:

A new working paper from libertarian think tank CEI called, hilariously, Tip of the Costberg: On the Invalidity of All Cost of Regulation Estimates and the Need to Compile Them Anyway, reveals that regulations cost American businesses $1.863 trillion annually. While that number is staggering, something somewhat buried in the blog post on the report is actually much more important. An earlier Small Business Administration report revealed “the extent to which regulatory costs impose higher burdens on small firms, for which per-employee regulatory costs are higher.”
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According to the SBA, over 50% of small businesses fail in the first five years. According to Bloomberg, 8 out of 10 entrepreneurs who start businesses fail within the first 18 months.

Failure itself isn’t a bad thing. Creative destruction is extremely important in a functioning economy. But many firms are failing due to government regulations instead of market signals.
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And lest we fall for the lie that regulations are just the cost of maintaining safe, functional, fair markets, we should note that most regulations frankly absolutely fail to accomplish their stated aims. That’s because most are written by and for incumbent businesses, and are aimed at creating barriers to entry for startups in order to protect existing companies’ from competition and maintain their places in the market.

Indeed, it’s no shock nor accident that compliance costs disproportionately impact small businesses. It’s by design.

Language used not acceptable for work, or for any sort of general audience.

From here.

Via Linkiest.

Sooner rather than later…

We have no place to be outraged when we are made to experience some small measure of suffering or sacrifice. This is what it means to exist as a separate, distinct, mature human being. This is what it means be alive. The world has left bumps and bruises on everyone, why should we be the exception?

Good advice for all of us, at any age.

Mike Adams:

The opening line of her response is typical of today’s college graduate in at least two specific ways. First, there is the tendency to respond to the tone rather than the substance of an argument. Second, there is the tendency to project motives of anger and fear onto others simply because they hold a different opinion. Gone are the days when we evaluated arguments. Today we evaluate emotions. This is particularly the case when sexual orientation is either directly or tangentially related to the topic at hand.
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And there you have it. This college graduate who took the time to write me a letter and slip it under my office door has completely wasted my time. She began by chastising me for referring to a “celebration” as a “graduation.” She ends it by referring to the very same “celebration” as a “graduation.” So I guess it really was a graduation after all (a fact that I am hoping she overlooked, rather than intentionally misrepresented).

To the casual observer, celebrating the way people have sex is strange. Conferring credentials upon those who approve of their lifestyles is even stranger. In a few short years it will all seem normal. That’s why I’m writing about it now.

Speaks for itself.

From here.

I certainly do hope so.

The collision between liberals, and ideas they do not like, is spectacular and fascinating. It is more captivating than the fresh concoction of Diet Coke and Menthos. Bleach and brake fluid. Baking soda and vinegar.

They’re missing something Aristotle thought was important.

William F. Buckley noticed it, too.

If this was not a joke…Zowee. The irony. And, the irony-ignorance.

Those two words sum up the qualifications — all of the qualifications — of this ambitious new candidate:

That’s where we are now.

The politics reflect the people. And people, I’ve noticed for awhile, relate to each other according to either strengths or weaknesses. You may know some people who know you only by your weaknesses, and if you take the time to look, you may be surprised to learn that that’s how they know everybody else too. That’s Bob, he can’t find a job. That’s Mark, he has a learning disability. That’s Susan, her husband left her with three hungry kids and she has no time for herself. Nobody’s a brilliant carpenter, nobody has anything interesting to say at a casual conversation, nobody knows how to play the piano…everybody just has their troubles. Which must have been caused by someone else, who they don’t know that well. It’s that darn so-and-so who didn’t pay enough money.

I’m voting for Hillary, her husband cheated on her and it’s time we had a woman President. And Sandra Fluke, because she can’t afford birth control and Rush Limbaugh called her a slut.

And then she whined about it. So she’s qualified.

Matt Walsh:

It’s everyone’s favorite form of irony – the one where you reveal your own prejudice by calling someone else prejudiced.

It usually looks like this:

Person A: “Man, I really dislike it when people murder their pet hamsters!”

Person B: “Hey! Why do you hate Australians?”

In this realistic example, Person A has expressed a general anti-hamster-killing sentiment, which Person B interprets as a verbal assault on the people of Australia. In so doing, Person B has exposed his own disturbing belief that Aussies are particularly inclined to slaughter innocent hamsters, which makes any anti-hamster-murder statement a direct attack against anyone of Australian descent.

Next thing you know, we can’t even make laws to protect hamsters because the legislation would be seen as discriminatory against a group of people who, if you asked them, probably aren’t particularly pleased about being unfairly associated with the mass genocide of domesticated rodents. That is until, after a while, even Australians begin to believe that crushing hamsters must be an integral part of their heritage and culture, as everyone else keeps insisting is the case.

This is all just an unnecessarily bizarre way of illustrating how progressives tend to argue their point. They take some illegal, illogical, unethical, or morally repugnant act, and confidently declare that act to be universally sacred amongst an entire racial, ethnic, or gender group — often to the protest of many in the group itself. Suddenly, those who disagree with their ideas are automatically in disagreement with the very existence of whatever demographic progressives have deemed as inherently opposed to decency and virtue.
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Now, with this in mind, we understand why racist white liberals have decreed that black people don’t know how to obtain a driver’s license, and anyone who thinks a driver’s license ought to be required for voting must be involved in a nefarious conspiracy to suppress the black vote.

Voter ID laws are racist, they claim. To ask people to produce a photo identification before voting is a ‘step toward Jim Crow laws.’

They’ve made this enormously stupid argument so many times, that even guys like Rand Paul have been scared away from protecting the integrity of the voting process. We wouldn’t want to “offend,” he says.

The anti-Voter ID folks will point out that a minority person – particularly a minority woman – is statistically less likely to have an ID than a white dude. This might be true, but it’s irrelevant. Whatever the requirement, in whatever situation, there’s always going to be some group statistically less likely to meet it. By progressive logic, every requirement is therefore prejudiced and ethnocentric.

Your grandmother is statistically more likely to drive the speed limit than I am, but that doesn’t mean speed limit laws are an evil plot against me.

Now, if there ever were a law that assigned a DIFFERENT speed limit to me, or a different speed limit to 27-year-old middle class white dudes in general, then I’d have a case. But, as it stands, we all are under the same tyrannical thumb of the same tyrannical speed limits, which means, by definition, they don’t discriminate.
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…if I had my way, you’d need to produce much more than a license to vote. You’d have to pass an elementary level civics test and then identify by name, at the very least, the Secretary of State, the Vice President, and the Speaker of the House. Next you’d be quizzed on a few current events. Finally, all votes would be cast in essay form. You’d be asked for your choice, and then 6 sentences explaining why you made that choice. There would be no wrong answer, as long as you have an answer. People who cannot even articulate the reasoning behind their vote don’t deserve to vote in the first place.

I imagine these easy tests would disqualify about half of the people who show up on election day, sending our voter turnout numbers plummeting into the basement. And that, my friends, would be a wonderful day in the Republic.

The 42nd President came out of the shadows earlier this week, to defend a woman who was once married to him and whom, according to some, still may be. It’s a mystery.

Former President Bill Clinton was interviewed in Washington D.C. today, and took the opportunity to defend his wife Hillary’s actions during the Benghazi crisis:

“In my opinion, Hillary did what she should have done.

She impaneled a very high-level review committee with the immediate-past Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

In other words, Hillary chatted with some people before disappearing to who-knows-where without taking any swift and serious action. A few critically important facts that Bill didn’t address:

• Hillary continued to blame an internet video, even after the administration knew it was a terrorist attack.
• The State Department’s actions were self-investigated; this is akin to a high school student “grading his own homework.”
• Hillary was exempted from the investigation.
• She did not convene the Counterterrorism Security Group, and did not dispatch the in extremis rescue team, though the siege lasted hours.

Every time Bill Clinton opens his cakehole to oppose common sense, which is pretty much every time Bill Clinton opens his cakehole, I’m just amazed and saddened that he ever picked up a following. The persuasive power of his words, which is always considerable, is sharply deteriorated when the words are recorded in print. They’re built for the audible forum. They require the famous Clinton charisma to achieve the full effect, because as the written language reveals, they don’t really make much sense. Hillary convened a committee? Yay. Let’s hear it for committees. Golf clap.

The democrats’ idea of “leadership” must look like a fine thing to anyone who can be assured it’ll always be some other person who’s in trouble. Oh yeah, we’re on the job. Most assuredly, if you get killed, we’ll convene a committee to study your cold dead corpse. It’ll be a real blue-ribbon panel. Vote for us!

When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away…

Update: Not directly Bill-Clinton related, but this cartoon does an absolutely brilliant job of capturing the problem:

James Delingpole’s column appears in Breitbart:

Professor Lennart Bengtsson – the leading scientist who three weeks ago signalled his defection to the climate sceptic camp by joining the board of the Global Warming Policy Foundation – has now dramatically been forced to resign from his position.

His views on the weakness of the “consensus” haven’t changed. But as he admits in his resignation letter, he has been so badly bullied by his alarmist former colleagues that he is worried his health and career will suffer.

Bengtsson’s recruitment by the GWPF (the London-based think tank set up by former Chancellor Lord Lawson) represented a huge coup for the climate realist cause. The Swedish climatologist, meteorologist, former director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg and winner, in 2006, of the 51st IMO Prize of the World Meteorological Organization for his pioneering work in numerical weather prediction – was by some margin the most distinguished scientist to change sides.

But this, of course, is why he has been singled out for especial vitriol by the climate alarmist establishment – as he describes in his resignation letter.

I have been put under such an enormous group pressure in recent days from all over the world that has become virtually unbearable to me. If this is going to continue I will be unable to conduct my normal work and will even start to worry about my health and safety. I see therefore no other way out therefore than resigning from GWPF. I had not expecting such an enormous world-wide pressure put at me from a community that I have been close to all my active life. Colleagues are withdrawing their support, other colleagues are withdrawing from joint authorship etc. I see no limit and end to what will happen.

Aristotle…paging Mr. Aristotle, please pick up the white courtesy phone…

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Looks like we need more “education.”

Rogen describes what’s wrong with movie marriages:

Seth Rogen admits that in early drafts of the script for “Neighbors,” Rose Byrne’s character was basically just another humorless, nagging wife. That’s when Rogen’s real-life wife, actress and writer Lauren Miller, pointed out how unrealistic that was. What if the married couple in “Neighbors” — who get into a prank war with a next-door fraternity — were actually like them?

“My wife read the script,” Rogen told Studio 360’s Kurt Andersen. “She’s a writer. She’s one of the people who was like, ‘This isn’t how it would be. We get along, I want to have fun too…’

“And then as we started talking about it, that actually became the most exciting idea of the movie to us,” Rogen continued. “That we could portray a couple where the wife is just as fun-loving and irresponsible as the guy, and they get along really well. In a comedy, that’s almost non-existent. An actual healthy couple that really likes each other.”

Mrs. Freeberg and I saw it on Sunday. It would have to say our review is a bit mixed, because the movie still does have some problems. The writers sort of lost track of what kind of a villain Zach Efron’s character was supposed to be. At one point, toward the end, he comes over and taunts the married couple about how his frat house is going to hang around so long, and there’s nothing they can do to ever get rid of them, that they’ll make the baby daughter into a frat-princess or something. The couple has already looked into selling & leaving, and found that to be a dead end. Evil, evil, evil. Would a plan like that work? Probably not. But, from just making the threat, a bad-guy’s character doesn’t recover from that; you don’t get to redeem and reform into this happy-go-lucky guy who’s your good buddy by the time the closing credits roll, and boy the two of you are just really sorry about the madcap hijinks that got way out of hand…

It’s like slaughtering a Jedi Temple full of “younglings” with your lightsaber, or killing Peter Parker’s gentle Uncle Ben. There’s “tragic misunderstood villain with a heart of gold” stuff, and there’s dark, pitchy, evil, rotten-to-the-core bad guy stuff.

Other than that one thing, though, and an over-saturation of dildo jokes, the movie was enjoyable and generally funny. We did learn to care somewhat about what would happen to the characters and what would happen next, and didn’t look at our watches. It was alright. And yeah, the change Mrs. Rogen presented probably saved it, because Lord knows, I’ve just about had it with the nagging wife with the crease between her eyebrows and the migraine from chasing around her grown-up other-kid husband…it’s just not funny anymore, it’s been worn out. Probably would’ve ruined this movie.

Attention proggies like Chris Matthews: “All men are created equal” is the exact opposite of giving special privileges to targeted classes of people. Thought you’d like to know.

From Newsbusters, where IamnottellingYou points out:.

The gay marriage fight is not designed to give gays marriage. It is designed to destroy marriage as an institution. When marriage is destroyed, the children that result from sexual couplings will not belong with their parents, but with the state. Note what Melissa Harris-Perry said: “Kids belong to their communities.”

…or climate change, or whatever.

I guess it must be an even-numbered year. And democrats must be expecting to lose an election. “Income inequality” is sure to become some pressing, urgent problem all of a sudden too, right?

Crudo, at Misfit Politics:

We hear this party-switching myth so often, but nobody ever has a clear point or example in history for where it occurs. Ever since the birth of the Republican party in 1854, Republicans were strong supporters of abolition. Meanwhile, Democrats had KKK members in Congress, and Al Gore’s father not only voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but gave quite a lengthy filibuster. Republicans championed the Constitutional amendments ending slavery, giving African-Americans the right to vote, as well as securing that right. Civil Rights legislation as well as anti-lynching laws, and anti-poll taxes were pushed through by Republicans to ensure this, while Democrats fought them tooth and nail.

The closest I’ve gotten to an answer, in regards to the switch, was the Civil Rights “hero” Lyndon B. Johnson championing the “bi-partisan support” of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I used quotations because I’m being incredibly sarcastic.

“These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don’t move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there’ll be no way of stopping them, we’ll lose the filibuster and there’ll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again.”-LBJ

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Once African-Americans were free of slavery and had legitimate voting power, (both thanks to Republicans) then and only then were Democrats forced into supporting Civil Rights legislation. It was all a charade for votes. Beyond this point, what significant events happened that showcased any sort of structural attitude change in either party?

Hat tip to fellow blogger and comment-poster CylarZ.

Related: The Party of Racism is Not What Most People Think.

What’s been consistent throughout it all, is the fascination with castes. These people we nowadays call “liberals” are overly fond of pigeonholing people, and bestowing them with privileges and obligations to remain in their designated spaces: These people belong here, those people belong there. It’s a pretty consistent pattern. By the time we see conservatives accusing liberals of racism, there’s nearly always some tip-off about the way the liberal thinks about people. The quote from LBJ is a decent example, although there are many others. Contrast that to when liberals accuse conservatives of racism. The “joke” going around is that this is almost like a facial-tic, just a word they use when they know they’re losing an argument, and it isn’t really that much of a joke.

There was no “switch,” but there’s certainly been a decline, and we’re now at the point where you’re an extremist, reactionary, right-wing conservative if you’ve reached the quite natural conclusion that you’re tired of all the specialty-audience campaigning, tired of the race card, tired of the hyphenated-American nonsense and just want to see people as what they are, people. Our culture has accepted as a mainstream-moderate viewpoint, the half-century-old hamster-wheel chicanery of “Come a long way but we still have such a long way to go.” But, not permanently. The fatigue with all the people-in-boxes politicking is bound fester over time, and the hamster-wheel gullibility must have some sort of half-life. You can’t culturally oblige people to not-get-sick of something, endlessly. It falls under the Herbert Stein rule.

Kingjester:

We’ve been treated by the image of a frowning Michelle Obama and several Liberal Hollywood Stars holding up poster boards featuring the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, as if somehow, this futile gesture would convince this Muslim Barbarians to let go of all these girls whom they are selling as slaves, and forcing under threat of death, to convert to Islam from Christianity.

It is no wonder that after Obama was first elected, the British tabloids nicknamed him “President Pantywaist”, after watching the wussy way he bowed to world leaders…something American Presidents have never done before.

And, of course, through the Obama Administration’s embrace of this emasculating philosophy, this philosophy has extended into our military, with Obama’s “Military Experts” being more concerned about performing Social Engineering Experiments on our troops, such as ending “Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell”, changing the hats they wear, and relaxing female hairstyles, than they are about protecting our country and defeating our enemies.

Derek Hunter, writing at Townhall.com, has some fun with it:

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said he was “stunned” today by the announcement that Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau would surrender himself and all his followers to authorities after he realized he’d started a trending hashtag on Twitter that even First Lady Michelle Obama tweeted.

Shekau, a purveyor of workplace violence and kidnapper of little girls, was quoted as saying, “With progressives in Hollywood and Washington aligned against us, what choice did we have? Look, when Bradley Cooper and Michelle Obama tweet about you in a negative way it has an impact. Sure, you gain followers, but so many of them are negative. I can’t even look at my mentions column anymore. Twitter trolls are the worst. I missed an invite to a party and a picture of Miley Cyrus twerking because so many people were tweeting mean things to me. I’m done.”

Mark Steyn comments:

It is hard not to have total contempt for a political culture that thinks the picture at right is a useful contribution to rescuing 276 schoolgirls kidnapped by jihadist savages in Nigeria. Yet some pajama boy at the White House evidently felt getting the First Lady to pose with this week’s Hashtag of Western Impotence would reflect well upon the Administration. The horrible thing is they may be right: Michelle showed she cared – on social media! – and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?

Just as the last floppo hashtag, #WeStandWithUkraine, didn’t actually involve standing with Ukraine, so #BringBackOurGirls doesn’t require bringing back our girls. There are only a half-dozen special forces around the planet capable of doing that without getting most or all of the hostages killed: the British, the French, the Americans, Israelis, Germans, Aussies, maybe a couple of others. So, unless something of that nature is being lined up, those schoolgirls are headed into slavery, and the wretched pleading passivity of Mrs Obama’s hashtag is just a form of moral preening.

But then what isn’t? The blogger Daniel Payne wrote this week that “modern liberalism, at its core, is an ideology of talking, not doing”. He was musing on a press release for some or other “Day of Action” that is, as usual, a day of inaction:

Diverse grassroots groups are organizing and participating in events such as walks, rallies and concerts and calling on government to reduce climate pollution, transition off fossil fuels and commit to a clean energy future.

It’s that easy! You go to a concert and someone “calls on government” to do something, and the world gets fixed.

Well…hold up, there. That’s the irony, is it not? If liberals were completely consistent in “talking, not doing,” then they wouldn’t be in charge right now. They have a tireless resolve to win-every-argument that seems to stop at the water’s edge; if only that sense of ambition, that drive, that strength could manage to swim across oceans, it might get something accomplished that would bring a victory to good in the never-ending battle against evil, and at the same time serve the country’s interests.

…and, the gravitational pull didn’t destroy us.

From here.

Came up with that mouthy metaphor while typing a status update into my phone. In complete frustration. Yes, I am among CNN’s captive-audience.

“Coverage,” in this context, is an oxymoron. It’s all depth and no breadth. Not really depth either — you don’t dig deeper by just repeating crap over & over. Racist basketball team owner; gay football player kissing his boyfriend; missing Malaysian flight; uh, what else? Ukraine, that’s it, that’s the fourth one. Then, back to the racist basketball team owner.

ALL. DAY. It’s as if a bigwig sent out a memo saying “One second of on-air coverage that isn’t about one of those four things, and heads will roll. I mean it.” The result makes you want to just rip your eyes out of your skull. Who watches this willingly?

Fox News, I don’t get to see that much. I don’t know that much about it, really. But I know it doesn’t play like this.

People who bitch and bellyache about Fox News, are the biggest phonies. What’s their preference? CNN? And they watch it while it’s on endless loop like this? I doubt it. They’re watching this guy, and bragging about it. So yeah, thanks guys…I’ll take your opinion under advisement, or something.

John Hawkins writes at Townhall.com:

Relying on big government to help you out would be like relying on the Girl Scouts to spearhead an invasion of Iran. It’s the wrong people, in the wrong place, doing the wrong job. Whether Democrats or Republicans are in charge, our government is barely functional. That’s certainly not a shocker. Anyone who has had dealings with the federal government can tell you that it’s slow, stupid, expensive, belligerent and incompetent. But, here’s the $64,000 question: WHY is the federal government so slow, stupid, expensive, belligerent and incompetent? It’s not a mystery.

The first four items on the list don’t concern me too much. I think everyone knows about them, including the liberals. When they’re pointed out, the liberals’ rebuttals all seem to be nothing but a bunch of bluster, just radio-static, “I can’t hear you la la la” as they say.

But, Reason #5 made a bigger impression on me. Especially with the last sentence:

5) There’s a lack of responsibility: The late, great Milton Friedman once said,

“When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in the Soviet Union — like public housing in the United States — look decrepit within a year or two of their construction…”

Similarly, when no one is held personally responsible for the failure of a government program, nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. Who’s responsible for Benghazi? The IRS targeting of the Tea Party? Fast and Furious? The trillion dollars we wasted on the stimulus program? The National Debt? Obamacare — oh wait, there are still people pretending Obamacare isn’t a failure.

But, that’s just it. Between the multitudes of politicians and bureaucrats tied into every decision, a biased media and raw partisanship, there’s a fog bank around every program, decision and calamity created by the government. That’s why ultimately, you’d be much more likely to be fired from a government job for saying something racist or making a nasty crack about gay marriage than wasting a billion dollars or getting people killed with your incompetence. [bold emphasis mine]

Thing I Know #408: You can’t aspire toward success if you won’t spot the fails. When everything an organization or person does is defined as success, very few things done by the organization or person will ever genuinely be one.

Ironically, this is the very same problem the Republican establishment has with winning elections. They nominate their “mainstream” candidates who often don’t stand for anything at all, or if they do, the public can’t see it. The mainstream candidate predictably loses. If you ask the power-brokers in the Republican party, in the wake of that defeat, what could & should have been done differently the answer would come back: Nothing, everybody ran a great campaign, and better-luck-next-time. That’s not the attitude democrats would’ve taken, anywhere, if Barack Obama lost His bid for re-election. It isn’t the sentiment any of them had after John Kerry lost in 2004. They blamed Republicans for fixing the Diebold machines, in public, but in private they reorganized and looked for new opportunities, new candidates who were most certain to win-every-argument. And then the knock-down-drag-out between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama happened. It was a very hot contest, because for democrats it was a contest that needed to happen.

It’s fascinating that each side is running electoral campaigns the way the other side governs, if & when it’s in power.

This lady’s date with him sounds like some of my dates with liberal woemen, back in the day. Except for the part about his paying for her dinner. Which she then took home. Alone. To eat in peace and quiet.

He asked me what my views were, so I explained that I’m an independent voter, then went on to describe some of my political views such as personal responsibility, accountability, small government, and how able bodied people who live in a perpetual state of dependency on government disgust me, and should be drug tested to qualify for benefits.

He asked me, “Well, what would you do? Take all those people off benefits and just let them starve?”

“Yes,” I said, then added, “for them to get back on benefits they must work at a job chosen for them by the government.”

This horrified him. I could tell by the look on his face. I knew my friend had punked me, and had instead set me up with a liberal. He went on for a little while longer on how views such as mine are selfish, and that its more noble to take care of those less fortunate.

I countered with facts and information. He shot back with thinly veiled personal attacks.

It was clear that Libdude’s anger was about to reach critical mass as his face turned red, and the veins in his neck started to bulge. As I sat there calmly leaning back in my chair, probably smirking, sweat accumulated on his brow. I don’t know why, but I found that really humorous. I couldn’t resist the urge to see if I could get his face to change from red to almost purple by going on and on about how ignorant, and sometimes even stupid liberals and Democrats are; that they cant debate unless they are calling names, or changing the subject. Looking right in his eyes with a serious look on my face, I leaned forward and quietly said, “I cant imagine having to spend more than a minute or two in the presence of a liberal who is talking about politics!”

From Captain Capitalism.

It’s been my general experience that where liberals implode most immediately, is where it’s revealed that they don’t live in the same universe as normal people. When you point out that the tenth amendment actually means something, that the second amendment actually means something…if we subsidize an activity we should expect to see more of it, if we raise taxes on something we should expect to see a lot less of it, that you can’t claim to be treating people equally if you’re providing advantages to targeted classes. That if the Government provides a “stimulus” then it must ultimately have a neutral effect, at the very best, since the money had to come from somewhere.

That’s when the sissy-fangs come out, when the hissing and spitting starts. That’s when they change the subject into what a terrible person you must be. And cease on the spot any discussion of what the primary topic is supposed to be. I suppose that’s because this is where they’d have to start admitting they’ve been indoctrinated, and easily, in the very moment of their bragging about what independent thinkers they are. They can’t face the truth.

So there I was putting together a list of requirements for the next phase of our MS SharePoint application, and by the time I got up to #18 with explanations about how the new features would all work, I had to take a break because there was a back-and-forth going on between the resident physical-fitness-know-it-all and the office weenie, in which he was offering to tutor her for free and she was turning the offer down due to the expectation of pain.

These things are always hilarious. I suppose that’s distracting, but that can be a good thing. Every now and then you need a break.

Workout know-it-all answers her question about diet, waxes lyrically of his simplistic food intake, which is legendary. He does lots of things I should be doing. Simple things. Big into bananas, oranges, and proteins, but makes sure he works off whatever calories he puts on. As it happened, I rode my bike in to work that day. But I need to do more, and whatever else I do it needs to be less time-consuming than riding the bike.

The thing that stuck in my head was “I drink my protein shakes, I eat my chicken…” It got me thinking. Chicken and fish, I’ve heard before, are staples of the diet guy who doesn’t want to sacrifice the pleasure of eating meat for a more balanced and sensible diet. This is something I should do first. I should look for recipes for low-fat, home-cooked chicken that can be refrigerated and then packed into a lunch. That would be a good habit. Wife is already way beyond me on this. I should get going on this first step. But, of course, yelling “Honey could you cook me some chicken?” is the sissy’s way through it. What I really need, is a good recipe.

That’s yesterday. Today, I see William Teach has a post up…

I bet you didn’t know I could cook, eh? I actually started out working in local restaurants during the summer. I ran a pizza place for a couple years in college, turning cheap products into good pizzas (and calzones for me and friends). BTW, if you want to make the best pizza, use whole milk cheese, not part skim.

Anyhow, here’s an easy one I’ve been doing for 15 years, similar to this link, for pan cooking chicken breasts

Use olive oil, more virgin the better. Pour in pan till covers about 3/4ths of bottom. The reason for this is if you use too much it can start almost frying, and will be nasty as a sauce.

Add about a tablespoon of butter or substitute. I use butter if it’ll be a sauce, Country Crock lite if using a pasta sauce.

Put some pepper, salt, a bit of garlic on the breasts. Let rest in fridge for about 15 minutes.

Turn the heat to medium high. Let butter melt. Turn to medium.

Sear each side of chicken for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes, depending on thickness.

Turn to low. This would be about a 1 to 2 on stove dial. Add a bit of fresh lime squeezing and a bit of garlic powder to liquid. Can use fresh garlic, but have to spread it out.

Cover. Depending on thickness, cook for 10 minutes. Do not lift cover!

Uncover, flip, cook another 5 minutes. Cover.

Turn off heat, but leave on burner. Let sit covered another 5-10 minutes, based on tenderness.

Boom, done! And perfect.

Perfect indeed. Question on a Friday; answer on a Saturday. Like divine intervention or something.

From The Blaze:

It’s interesting that what the guy really hung his Confederate hat on, was a bill, I’m guessing this one, about police departments reporting on the race of stopped motorists. It goes without saying that a color-blind society would not be collecting such information. It’s in the definition.

We’ve strayed very far from Martin Luther King’s dream. The democrat party doesn’t seem to have ever shared it, not even for a moment.

…as this video proves.

They don’t know. They don’t care.

Those are actually understatements of mine. There are very, very few open questions on the entire planet about which they know less than this.

And there are absolutely no subjects at all, about which they care less than this. This is question-asking-101, you know; wherever you don’t know something, you should be able to admit you don’t know it, at least to yourself, and couple up this knowledge that you don’t know it with a desire to learn about it.

Example: I do not know why the other Republicans didn’t get up and leave the room with Mark Callahan. I would like to know the answer to that.

Via Newsbusters.

New York Daily News, via Kingjester:

AtheistTV will be launching this summer with big plans to reach out to atheists, humanists, freethinkers, and folks who are looking for a way out of faith.

Members of American Atheists, the organization behind the endeavor, think it’s about time.

“There’s a glut of religious TV programming out there, from televangelists to Christmas specials,” spokesman Dave Muscato told The News. “But there’s no atheist channel. We wanted to fill that void.”

Oh…boy…YCMTSU…

Since they’re first on the scene, American Atheists will face the challenge of defining what exactly godless programming will look like.

“We’ll have shows about philosophy, science, history,” Muscato said. “A critical examination of the facts.”

Well, I hope it’s something that brings facts to people who otherwise wouldn’t get them. Like a real documentary, of sorts. That way, people could learn about things.

But the alternative? Novel new ways of “critical” but tortured thinking, masticating over what’s already known and has already been discussed, pretending to mull over questions when the answers have already been chosen? No void there. That would be adding to another glut.

I suppose I should presume more charitably, and wish them luck. But I still have to wonder about the urgency of proselytizing lack of belief.

Muscato also hopes the channel fill encourage people who are doubting their faith to come out as atheist.

“When somebody leaves their religion, they don’t necessarily know everything about the Big Bang,” Muscato said. “This will fill in the gaps in knowledge that pastors have left behind.”

And I suppose there I have my answer: The people who insist atheism is not a religion, are simply wrong. Or at least, not talking about these particular atheists. It’s getting much more difficult to distinguish them from an actual church, is it not? They have a catechism, they have a congregation, they have a drive to spread their “word” and recruit new members. They even have high priests and evangelicals, and now a teevee show.

Via Gerard, again.

This week’s comment that drew an unexpected number of “likes” over at the Hello Kitty of Blogging, was a rebuttal I made to a friend of mine who makes a big show out of despising Republicans and democrats equally. I notice whenever democrats do something that is unquestionably wrong, this person is quite consistent in bringing up some anecdote of Republican skulduggery, but he doesn’t say the same thing about democrats when it is the Republicans who are in hot water. That’s probably why my other friends think he’s a lib, when he continues to protest he isn’t one. I’ve clued him in on this cause-and-effect, but it seems he’s only sufficiently bothered by it to do a lot of complaining, not enough to modify his behavior. Which is his choice, I suppose.

Anyway. His remark was that he hates Bush and Obama equally, because they’re both war pigs.

My reply:

In my lifetime, most wars have been caused by “peace-pigs.” Negotiate and negotiate and negotiate…about what, the rest of us do not know…and when war finally breaks out, it’s much bigger than it ever had to be.

Fewer lives would’ve been lost if the fighting broke out immediately. I have no way of proving that conclusively, but the evidence that supports this is on the heavy side by now.

I dread the lives that could be lost under Obama. In the long run, there may be fewer body bags coming home as a result of His fine tutelage, if He was a real “war pig.” Wikipedia tells me the Ukranian Revolution was around the third week of February, so that means we’re up to some fifteen or sixteen weeks of President Babble-a-Lot and Secretary-of-State Jibber-Jabber grabbing podiums and drawling a lot of nonsense into banks of microphones about “must must must” and “shall not stand.” When they do that, and I have to look at them, I see Jimmy Carter. I see Neville Chamberlain. I see Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. My only son is turning seventeen soon.

If he serves, he serves. If he dies, he dies. But if he chooses to enlist, while he’s pulling the oars of the ship of state, it would be nice if here was a Captain up in the wheelhouse, whose mouth was occasionally closed and whose eyes were occasionally open. I’m just not seein’ it. And I’m as disillusioned with the citizenry as with the politicians, truth be told. We’ve been plunged into the thick of modern warfare, and thus presumably learning about it, for about a century…shouldn’t some of the most obvious and clear lessons, about the huffy puffy talky politicians in particular, have sunk in by now?

What exactly is it that conservatives conserve?

Civilization.

Debt destroys civilization. Treating citizens as subjects destroys civilization. Taking profits away from people who produce things that help people, hurts civilization. Treating people as if they are some kind of pollutant, some toxic agent that doesn’t belong on the planet, hurts civilization. Punitive taxes, unchecked illegal immigration, social safety nets being turned into hammocks, runaway spending, unchecked centralized police-state power, disrespect against people who actually produce goods and services that other people need; all of these hurt our ability to live together. They hurt our sense of community and they hurt our sense of brotherhood.

I agree: I hope grandparent-hood changes Hillary’s perspective a bit. I’m not yet at a stage of life where I can comment on that intelligently, although Todd and Sarah Palin already are.

From Captain Midnight.

Bird Dog at Maggie’s Farm quotes Gods and Gopniks:

…we have reached a moment in Western history when, despite all appearances, no meaningful public debate over belief and unbelief is possible. Not only do convinced secularists no longer understand what the issue is; they are incapable of even suspecting that they do not understand, or of caring whether they do. The logical and imaginative grammars of belief, which still informed the thinking of earlier generations of atheists and skeptics, are no longer there. In their place, there is now—where questions of the divine, the supernatural, or the religious are concerned—only a kind of habitual intellectual listlessness.

I have noticed this, when discussing the big “Is God There?” issue with the secular crowd, or other things only tangentially related to that one. I notice very often my opposition is demonstrably intelligent, and accomplished — these are people who should be able to understand fundamental thinking like “We know X, because Y.” Or, “Lacking Y, X is a possibility, but not-X is also a possibility.” Many among them have done positive and productive things they would not have been able to get done if they were not capable of building-block thoughts such as these.

And yet, on the God Question, their argument fails to ascend to that level of useful complexity. “It’s a myth, because I say it is”; “It’s a ‘fairy tale,’ because I just called it one.” That seems to be the structure of the argument they want to advance. Worse yet, they keep wanting to veer into it when the discussion is supposed to be about something else.

They’re proving something, just not what they think they’re proving. Instead, they demonstrate that there are certain ingredients involved in clear, useful thinking. That, eliminating possible answers prematurely in an effort to resolve a question, one might as well leave the question entirely unresolved. And perhaps suffering is one of the ingredients; they raise the distinct possibility, in my mind if in nobody else’s, that content people are not apt to come up with useful answers to much of anything at all. They haven’t got any need to.

Perhaps there are some disciplines that can be maintained to rectify that. But if so, then this provides foundation for God’s purpose, if not for His existence. If He truly is dead or never did exist, then re-living the adventure of evolving and advancing a thousand more times, the human race would surely have no choice but to invent Him. With atheists in charge from the very beginning, we would not be exploring the universe today — we’d be living in caves, and more likely than not, without the benefit of spoken or written language.