THOMAS SOWELL: Cyprus: Can It Happen Here?

When the federal government spends far beyond the tax revenues it has, it gets the extra money by selling bonds. The Federal Reserve has become the biggest buyer of these bonds, since it costs them nothing to create more money.

This new money buys just as much as the money you sacrificed to save for years. More money in circulation, without a corresponding increase in output, means rising prices. Although the numbers in your bank book may remain the same, part of the purchasing power of your money is transferred to the government. Is that really different from what Cyprus has done?

Read the whole thing.

WHY REBUT AL GORE? NPR Laments ‘Confusion’ Campaign to Teach Two Sides on Climate Change.

Obviously the reactionary corporatists at NPR prefer to see a spokesman for Big Oil dissemble without opposition.

DANA LOESCH SCHOOLS PIERS MORGAN & VAN JONES ON “ASSAULT” WEAPONS:   This is epic.  She is awesome.

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HIDE THE DECLINE: The Meltdown Of Global Warmists Reveals Their True Priorities.

I blame global cooling/warming/cooling.

THE SHRINKING JIM WEBB: “What do you call a person who complains about a situation he helped perpetuate?”

THIS IS CNN: Were Americans Misled About The Cost Of ObamaCare?

Don’t worry though, this is merely a brief pause in the network’s continuing evolution of Obama worship.

BECOMING CONSTITUTIONALLY COLOR-BLIND:  James Taranto has a terrific piece in the WSJ this morning, explaining how the clock is winding down on the constitutionality of explicit race-based preferences.  Good riddance.  In the words of Justice John Marshall Harlan in his Plessy v. Ferguson (U.S. 1896) dissent:

“Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.”

DOESN’T FIT THE NARRATIVE: Psst, Ed Schultz — Reagan Wanted Higher Pay for Air Traffic Controllers in ’81.

WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN NO ONE’S EXPECTING: Nick Gillespie of Reason reviews Jonathan’s Last’s new book on demographic decline. Plus this:

“Come for the review, but stay for this enjoyable rant against Bookforum’s editor, Chris Lehmann, for assigning a review of Last’s book in the first place and giving the job to me in the second.”

Heh. For my recent interview (with transcript) with Jonathan click here.

EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL: Man with a Sharpie penis on his face takes greatest mugshot of all time [PHOTO].

HISTORY LESSON: Michael Walsh on Racist Democrats and the Big Lie.

RELATED: Conservative Black Neurosurgeon Must Be Destroyed.

IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE IN THE LOS ANGELES AREA ON APRIL 24th, Michael Ledeen will be discussing “The Real War,” with an introduction from Roger L. Simon, at an event to benefit the Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors organization. Details here.

THE WORST ECONOMICS WRITER: And no, it’s not Paul Krugman:

Crutsinger’s desire to tell a success story about President Obama’s economic policies is evident in sentences such as this one from March 8: “The American job market isn’t just growing. It’s accelerating.” But the hiring numbers in what he called a “four-month hiring spree” were: 247,000, 229,000, 119,000, and 236,000, respectively. So during that four-month period, there was no acceleration — hiring was fairly steady, with one month weaker than the others. Of course, Crutsinger argues, the numbers would have been better if the government were hiring more people.

The final product is an AP-distributed political worldview that government spending is always good for the economy, good for employment, good for construction, etc., with little or no contemplation of the possibility that government spending may be one of our more significant economic problems. That government spending may be out of control is a possibility that has occurred to many Americans, but not to the economics desk of the Associated Press.

RELATED: AP’s Maryclaire Dale: Gosnell ‘An Elegant Man’ Who ‘Smiled Softly’ in Court.

MICHAEL S. MALONE: Why Your Kid Can’t Get A Job.

COPS DISARMED BY AMMO-HOARDING GUN NUTS, claims Salon writer, as spotted by J.D. Tuccille at the Reason Hit & Run blog:

Hey, there’s no doubt that gun and ammunition companies are doing booming business at the moment, falling behind on orders because they just can’t meet demand. Want that to stop? Get politicians to stop threatening to impose restrictive laws. Until then, people will certainly buy what they can, while they can.

Oh, and if cops are running short on ammunition, maybe they could ask the Department of Homeland Security to share. Fifteen members of Congress recently wrote (PDF) to Janet Napolitano to ask why DHS needs to buy 1.6 billion rounds of ammo when the federal government is pleading poverty.

Janet will get back to them any moment now…

SCHOOL CHOICE OPPOSITION– BY REPUBLICANS?:   In Wisconsin, yes.  A handful of the state’s Republicans have teamed up with their union-loving Democrat colleagues to stymie Republican Governor Scott Walker’s plans to expand the existing voucher program to just 9 more of Wisconsin’s worst-performing public school districts.  Why?  Because they are afraid that vouchers will ultimately go statewide, bringing kids from inner cities into suburban schools.  This is short-sighted and frankly, just bad for kids.  Republicans should be ashamed.

“FOOD SOVEREIGNTY:” Yes, liberal friends, the government is ‘protecting’ you from delicious, local food.

RELATED: From the Onion: Mississippi Bans Soft Drinks Smaller Than 20 Ounces.

LILEKS: CONTEXT MATTERS:

That’s the thing that annoys me sometimes about the Internet: mining the past for yuks without context or useful annotation. Why, look: someone on Buzzfeed discovered a tumblr that put up some Interior Desecrations-style pictures because Mad Men OMG. As it turns out, some of the pictures might well be from my site, or book; some are from another tumblr. The source doesn’t matter; context doesn’t matter. A LIST OF THINGS PEOPLE LOOK AT THIS IT’S A LIST

By calling them “Mad Men” era pictures*, Mr. Copyranter demonstrates that the term means “back then before disco and Reagan,” unless he’s anticipating the new season’s timeframe, which I doubt. Someone in the comments — bless you — notes that I was on this oh, ten years ago, and he curtly responds that he credited the source from which he took the pictures. As opposed to “really? There was an internet that did those things when I was in middle school? Cool; I’ll check that out.” But that’s normal. Expected. I just wonder if context and precedent matter much anymore, or whether remix culture regards everything as a punchline undeserving of context. Because the past sucked except for when they were 12 and had that Mario game and if you remember jumping for that mushroom you’re awesome.

Empathy is always held up as a great virtue, but it’s remarkable how so few people have empathy with the total sum of the American experience beyond their own self-definition. It’s possible that somewhere in their heart of hearts they think “I am a milky-pallor wisp-chested neutral with thick-framed glasses well aware that my grandfather was being shot at in Italy when he was my age, and I am writing posts about the 23 Sloth Babies That Will Make Your Day.” That can sting.

Oh, and speaking of Buzzfeed, context, empathy and making moral assumptions based on aesthetics, “WARNING — GLACIER SUNGLASSES RECOMMENDED TO AVOID RETINA DAMAGE.”

* Speaking as someone who grew up in a house whose decor was frozen in time in 1963**, of course those aren’t Mad Men-era aesthetics in the above photos.

** Similarly, pop culture for my parents ended pretty much the day the Beatles touched down at JFK. Thank God that Jimmy Page fellow played a guitar with Les Paul’s name on it to bridge the chasm between my father and me.

BUT REMEMBER, UNDER THE NEW PRESS REGULATIONS IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE A MODEL FOR BRITISH MEDIA IN GENERAL: The BBC, ignoring sexual-harassment complaints until the complainant commits suicide. That’s in addition to the seemingly endless pedophilia complaints, of course.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Study: School administrative bloat increased 700 percent since 1950.

PRESIDENT TO BEGIN TO PRETEND TO FOCUS ON JOBS AND INFRASTRUCTURE.

THE DECONSTRUCTION OF MARRIAGE: From Daniel Greenfield at his the Sultan Knish blog.

HALAL IS BIG BUSINESS: Halal Easter eggs and cat food: where big money meets religion.

COMPANY RELEASES NEW BACON-FLAVORED CONDOMS: “I don’t think this what Bill Gates had in mind when he offered $100,000 to someone to invent the next generation condom.”

AT AMAZON, 100 Kindle Books for $3.99 or less.