WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Obamanomics: Consumer spending falls as taxes rise.
Archive for 2013
April 30, 2013
April 29, 2013
GIVEN ALL THE UNCLOSETED FEMALE ATHLETES, ISN’T THIS A BIT SEXIST? “I didn’t set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport.” I mean, it kind of implies that to be a “major American team sport,” it has to be a male team sport, doesn’t it?
“MAINTENANCE SEX” CAN WORK BOTH WAYS: The stereotype is of a frigid wife, but plenty of women find themselves the more desiring partner.
NATIONAL REVIEW: Pigford Forever: “At the time of his premature death, the great provocateur Andrew Breitbart was more than a year into a grinding crusade to bring attention to a little-known class-action settlement called Pigford, which had begun with plausible accusations that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had discriminated against a small number of black farmers, but which had spiraled into a billion-dollar, open-ended government kickback machine for untold thousands that showed no signs of letting up. The Pigford case represented everything Breitbart raged against in the American political order — large-scale cronyism, corrosive and cynical identity politics, unrepentant hypocrisy, and the predictable indifference of the mainstream media.”
THE LESSONS TO BE LEARNED from Cary Grant.
SO WHEN DEMOCRATS ARE PUSHING TO BAN PEOPLE ON THE “TERROR WATCH LIST” FROM BUYING GUNS, they’re really pushing to have a constitutional right blocked by your placement on a secret list put together by unaccountable bureaucrats with no due process. Just to be clear what they’re really talking about.
This wouldn’t have prevented the Boston bombings — because, you know, they were bombings — and the one gun that the Tsarnaev brothers had doesn’t seem to have been purchased legally. So this is really just another non sequitur of a policy designed to capitalize on tragedy. I’d call them ghouls, but that’s unfair to ghouls everywhere.
TERRORISTS ON WELFARE: Tsarnaev Family Received $100,000 In Benefits.
Time for someone to do a followup to Mickey Kaus’s piece on the terrorism/welfare connection.
UPDATE: “The Tsarnaev brothers were state-supported terrorists. The state was Massachusetts.”
KIRSTEN POWERS: Gosnell’s abortion atrocities no ‘aberration.’
ANN ALTHOUSE: Maybe Hank Johnson Isn’t As Dumb As You Think.
WHEN IS A RAISE NOT A RAISE? Only In Government. “Even though ‘2,498 of 2,700 teachers got salary increases for longevity and degree attainment,’ Ed Hughes, candidate for president of the Madison School Board believes teachers have not had a raise for years.”
WHAT IF THEY HELD AN ANTI-NRA PROTEST AND NOBODY SHOWED UP? And the few people who did seemed kind of useless?
Some brief confusion ensued Thursday when protesters arrived at the first nondescript office building and no one could remember which lobbying firm was located inside.
“Whatever, we’ll get it to them later,” one organizer told another after milling about for a few minutes. “Let’s not stand around looking like idiots.”
Too late!
AT AMAZON, Spring Savings in Patio, Lawn & Garden.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN FOR TOMORROW: Why the Democrats Lost the Sequester. And why across-the-board spending cuts should be our next step.
And on Twitter, Will Collier proposes this bit from the column as Reynolds’ Law: “Whatever politicians control, they will use against you to get what they want.”
I guess that would have to be Reynolds’ Third Law. Since the First Law and Second Law are already out there.
MEDICINE: How a Serial-Killing Night Nurse Hacked Hospital Drug Protocol. “Cullen was the master of a new machine that hospitals started using to track and distribute drugs, a computerized cabinet called a Pyxis MedStation. Manufactured by an Ohio company called Cardinal Health, the machine is essentially a metal drug cash register with a computer screen and keyboard affixed to the top. Not all the nurses were comfortable with the new computerized element of nursing care, but Cullen enjoyed it. He’d worked aboard nuclear submarines, and he’d always been good with the technical devices. He appreciated how the machine efficiently tracked a nurse’s drug withdrawals, linking each with the account of a particular patient and nurse to create a record. Hospital administrators relied on Pyxis to simplify billing while allowing the pharmacy to know exactly when any given drug was running low. But like any new technology, it was just a tool, one in the service of an intimate art practiced by real people with flaws of their own.”
KATHY SHAIDLE: Jobs Are for Suckers: How to Be the Boss of You.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS UP: Democrats lose sequester battle: Problem was, when the spending cuts came, nobody noticed. Plus, a suggestion to privatize air traffic control.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Why Is Ammunition Still In Short Supply? “What some call the great American ammo shortage is a head-scratcher even for experts, so far defying economic laws of supply and demand. Three causes are generally cited, though it’s difficult to tell precisely how much each is to blame. First is panic buying among the gun-loving public, something that’s been seen before. Second is a staid industry that, having not anticipated a demand surge, does not have a big enough supply of black powder and primer to quickly and significantly boost production to meet the demand surge. Third, and most controversially, is suspicion in some quarters that the federal government itself has deliberately placed a huge order for ammunition in order to drain the supply and cause bullet prices to jump for private buyers.”
Actual answer: Preparations for the alien invasion. Wake up, sheeple!
BRAIN/COMPUTER INTERFACES moving closer to the mainstream. There are a lot of upsides to this, but personally I don’t want to be decompiled.