MEDIA FAKERY UPDATE: Second Firing in False Zimmerman 911 Edit.
Archive for 2012
April 26, 2012
GEORGE WILL: BILLS COMING DUE AS REALITY CLOSES IN.
After trying to tax Illinois to governmental solvency and economic dynamism, Pat Quinn, a Democrat who has been governor since 2009, now says “our rendezvous with reality has arrived.”
Actually, Illinois is still reality-averse, so Americans may soon learn the importance of the freedom to fail in a system of competitive federalism.
Illinois was more heavily taxed than its five contiguous states (Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin) even before January 2011, when Quinn got a lame duck Legislature (its successor has fewer Democrats) to raise corporate taxes 30% (from 7.3% to 9.5%), giving Illinois one of the highest state corporate taxes, and the fourth-highest combination of national and local corporate taxation in the industrialized world.
Since 2009, Quinn has spent more than $500 million in corporate welfare to bribe companies not to flee the tax environment he has created. . . . Quinn’s recent flirtation with realism — a plan to raise the retirement age to 67 and cap pension cost-of-living adjustments — is less significant than the continuing unrealistic expectation that some Illinois’ pension investments will grow 8.5% annually.
Read the whole thing. The Gods Of The Copybook Headings always win out in the end.
AT AMAZON, IT’S Coupons Galore!
“YOU LIE,” THE SEQUEL: Two Republican House members say Obama misquoted them.
TWITCHY: Reality bites back: With Joan Walsh’s help, the Left is hoisted on its own homophobic petard. “See? She can do it because she’s all inclusive and stuff. She’s a liberal! They are allowed to be homophobes and sexists and racists. And Monica must be a H8R. Because, Republican. And what about Al Sharpton? ‘Punk faggot’ is okay, evidently, if Al ‘blood on his hands’ Sharpton says it.”
As a great man once said, make them live by their own rulebook.
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Obama Leads Most Unpopular Government In 15 Years.
I HOPE THE HEADPHONES PLAY TOM PETTY’S FREE FALLING: The Suit That Will Help Felix Baumgartner Withstand A 120,000-Foot Free Fall.
MY FAST-AND-FURIOUS INTERVIEW WITH KATIE PAVLICH is now on YouTube.
Her new book, Fast and Furious, Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up, just hit the NYT bestsellers list.
WHY YOUR GADGETS’ BATTERIES DEGRADE OVER TIME.
POLL: Lugar Trails Mourdock By 5. I guess this explains why I’m suddenly getting a flood of anti-Mourdock spam from the Lugar press operation.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Kentucky Employees May Not Be Fired for Lawfully Storing Guns in Their Cars.
PUSHBACK AGAINST SMART METERS.
Ed Friedman doesn’t mind the tinfoil-hat jokes. Just don’t install a smart meter on his house.
From his home in Bowdoinham, Maine, the helicopter pilot and environmental activist is leading opposition to digital electrical meters being installed by the local utility, Central Maine Power. The new devices, which use wireless radios to transmit data about electricity consumption, are touted as a critical component of a more intelligent electrical grid. With smart meters, consumers could track the price of electricity in real time, and utilities could lay off tens of thousands of meter readers.
Friedman, who carries a radio-frequency analyzer that emits frightening crackles around cell phones and Wi-Fi routers, says smart meters are a dangerous idea. They are an invasion of privacy and might even cause illness, he has alleged in a legal complaint set to be heard by the Maine Supreme Court next month.
Every smart meter should have a physical switch that will turn it into a dumb meter if the homeowner so desires. Problem solved. There’s also a lesson in how utility officials were caught entirely flat-footed by people’s privacy concerns.
OUT: TAKE YOUR DAUGHTER TO WORK DAY. In: Take Your Daughter To The Unemployment Office Day.
BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN: Oppositional 3-year-olds more likely to have gambling problems as adults.
TRANSPARENCY: Broadcasters Scramble To Hide Political-Ad Data. “With the Federal Communications Commission set to vote Friday on whether to require broadcasters to post political ad data online, the industry has been scrambling to water down the proposed rule.” Transparency for thee, but not for me!
HMM: Childhood Stress Linked To Early Telomere Shortening.
UPDATE: Link broken earlier; now fixed.
RUSSELL BERMAN: Race And Violence, The European Way. “Race and violence—and their politicization—are by no means exclusively U.S. phenomena. On the contrary, contemporary European societies display similar troubling tendencies, marked by the fragmentation of ethnically-mixed populations, the spread of extremist ideologies, a growing willingness among radicals to engage in violence, and the propensity of politicians to instrumentalize racial and ethnic anxieties for electoral purposes.”
#PROTESTFAIL: Protest outside of Paul Ryan’s speech at Georgetown Univ lacks actual protesters. “This is what happens when you rely on slackers.”
INSTAVISION: I talk with Katie Pavlich about her new bestseller, Fast and Furious, Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up.
ENERGY: North American Shale Gas Gives Russia Serious Headache.
North America’s shale gas boom is chipping away at the market for gas producers like Russia. What’s more, if the United States becomes a gas exporter, Russia’s customers (especially in Europe) could decide to cancel expensive contracts with Gazprom in favor of cheaper American natural gas. Gazprom supplied 27 percent of Europe’s natural gas in 2011. While American gas is trading below $2 per MMBTU (million British thermal units), Gazprom’s prices are tied to crude oil markets, and its long-term contracts charge customers roughly $13 per MMBTU, says the FT. European customers would love to reduce their dependence on Gazprom and start to import American gas. Already Gazprom has had to make concessions to its three biggest customers, and others are increasingly dissatisfied with their contracts.
I would be too.
A REMINDER TO THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN: Don’t trust the press. Not even the photographers.