Thoughts on the Palin/Fiorina endorsement

She's taking a fair bit of abuse for the decision to endorse Carly Fiorina over Chuck DeVore.  From what I've seen of DeVore, I like him, he's a good conservative.  I'm not a big fan of Fiorina, my gut tells me she'll be a west coast version of Snowe and Collins...and of course there's the chance she'll go full retard like Schwarzenegger.  That said, this is the Soviet of California we're talking about.  That state is on the verge of becoming what Greece currently is and doesn't seem to care. 

I've noted on here that I'm not purely against supporting RINOy candidates, to a point (Lincoln Chafee and Arnold being prime examples of RINOs being more trouble than what they're worth).  I'm fine with RINOy candidates in Commie havens.  I'm thrilled Scott Brown won in Massachusetts, and yet I fully expect him to be a fairly RINOy Senator during his tenure.  Of course, where there are pockets of conservatism in leftist states, we should try and promote good conservative House candidates. 

What I really have a problem with is RINOs where there is no need for RINOs.  Why the fuck is Lindsey Graham still a Senator?  My God, he's in South Carolina, you're telling me there's no eeeeeeevil right wing Republicans to challenge and defeat McCain's yappy little lap poodle?  None?  I don't believe it, not for a second.  McCain needs to go too now that I mention it.  And there are a lot of these guys who are so fucking clueless and out of touch that they just need replaced, Cornyn and Hatch come to mind. 

So I'm not too bothered by Palin's decision, I think for her own political well-being, she'd have been better off keeping her head down and staying out of the CA GOP primary, but I don't find her move unreasonable.  We should be looking for opportunities to expand the GOP when possible, even RINOs can be useful, and having a few more, especially in the Senate, can work well, as long as they understand what it is they're doing in there.  I'd ideally like a solid majority of wingnutty wingnuts, but that isn't easy to make happen.  But if we have a core of conservatives and enough RINOs to go around, we can do more that needs done because the RINOs can dilute the political damage done to themselves when they vote in a way that pisses off their left leaning constituencies.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 12:05 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Domino's sees big boost with new recipe

They took a gamble admitting their old recipe was crap as openly as they did, and doing a big revamp of their pizza, and it appears to have paid off, obviously they're hurting a bit in the down economy, and the spike they saw from people trying their new pizza will plateau down a bit, but it sounds like they've made steps in the right direction and are seeing gains from it.  Now, like a lot of people in the northeast, I've got a lot of local independent pizzerias that make kickass pizza at a competitive to choose from, even sometimes a better price than the big chain pizza joints, but for places with limited access to good independent pizza shops, Domino's improvements make them a viable alternative to places like Pizza Hut and Papa John's.  So good for Domino's.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 11:28 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Dow plummeting

Not good, panic over Greece and the status of Europe's banks and economy...

A fucking typo?

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 02:07 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Anyone here play BattleTech?

Get ready for the real thing.

Scientists have created an artificial material that mimics the tough, stretchy properties of muscle.

...

Scientists cross-linked the polymers to form a solid, rubber-like material.

The authors suggest that the properties of this material could even be fine-tuned to resemble specific types of muscle by adjusting the compositions of the proteins.

 

I want me a Rifleman


more...

Posted by: chad98036 at 11:49 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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Revenge of the Sestak

Joe Sestak finally made the Specter attack ad that we've all been waiting for. Behold!

Posted by: JoeCollins at 10:11 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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The double standard, writ very, very large

Imagine this conversation taking place about five years ago, after Hurricane You Know Who. I'm not even going to excerpt any of it here, since it really has to be read to believed. Seriously, it's hi-fucking-larious.

(Oh, and I found it via St. Andrew of the Blessed Heart-Ache, who actually made sure to call Obama "our temperamentally conservative president" in commenting on this discussion. Yes, really.)

Posted by: Sean M. at 03:08 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I highly recommend Naked Economics

Finally finished the book. Overall I would give it an 8.5 out of 10. It takes a number of highly complex topics and boils them down to understandable chapters that I thought built on each other pretty well. There were a few things I disagreed with, for example Wheelan goes full retard in his support of Anthropogenic Global Warming, but reasonable people can disagree on that. I think he also understates the potential damage health care reform can do to our society. On the other hand he is fairly scathing about earmarks, subsidies, and entitlements and what they mean in regards to economic growth and the future of America's economic health:

Think about what that means. Going forward, somehow we have to raise enough revenue to (1) pay for whatever government we chose to have, which we aren't doing fully now; (2) pay the interest we've accumulated on past bills; and (3) pay for the new expenses associated with an aging population and expensive entitlement promises.

That's going to require serious political leadership and recognition by Americans that the status quo is not an option. Simon Johnson, who had plenty of experience with financial crises as the former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, has noted, "Overborrowing always ends badly, whether for an individual, a company or a country." During the first decade of the new millennium, three parties borrowed heavily: consumers, financial firms, and the U.S. government. So far two have paid a huge price for that leverage. Is there another shoe to drop. (pg. 324)

Wheelan is also critical of some tax cuts, disputing the idea that the Reagan tax cuts actually ended up increasing treasury revenues (pg. 96, 97), again reasonable people can disagree on this one, and in fact this idea was echoed in National Review this week:

Some people are more sensible about that Laffer Curve talk. Laffer, for instance. Arthur Laffer, whose famous (and possibly apocryphal) back-of-the-napkin diagram launched supply-side tax policy, readily concedes that the growth effects of tax cuts are oversold in the political debate. “Does every tax cut pay for itself? No. I think Irving Kristol wrote that, once — and then did a pretty good job of arguing for it. But if some guy running for Congress in Clayton County, Texas, says all tax cuts pay for themselves, what do we want to do? Go after him with a shotgun? Sure, they’re going to cite me, and there’s very little I can do about it. But there’s the same amount of ignorance on the other side, ignoring the economic feedback effects of tax cuts.”

...

There is considerable debate among economists and federal legume-quantifiers about how large supply-side revenue effects are. The Congressional Budget Office did a study in 2005 of the effects of a theoretical 10 percent cut in income-tax rates. It ran a couple of different versions of the study, under different sets of economic assumptions. The conclusion the CBO came to was that the growth effects of such a tax cut could be expected to offset between 1 percent and 22 percent of the revenue loss in the first five years. In the second five years, the CBO calculated, feedback effects of tax-rate reductions might actually add 5 percent to the revenue loss — or offset as much as 32 percent of it.

Personally I would argue that the balancing of the budget in the 90's is proof that the Laffer curve is accurate and that those rates happened to be the ones at which economic growth and revenue growth matched in a sort of min -max curve, but I am not the PhD. so who cares what I think.

Anyway even if you don't agree with the guy the arguments are well made and worth considering. more...

Posted by: chad98036 at 01:21 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Holy crap

I'm not a very religious guy, much less a Bible scholar, but I'm pretty sure that it's not cool to compare yourself to Job because you've lost a few acting gigs and have been mocked on the internets.

And, while I again must emphasize that I'm not much of a student of The Good Book, I don't remember the part of Job's story where he begged a bunch of strangers for money.

(Via Topless Robot, where there's a funny video response.)

Posted by: Sean M. at 01:15 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Ecotards ecotarding

So the puppy blender has a link to some eco-blog with the surprising headline that supporting electric vehicles is a waste of gov't money.
I had to click because it made me have to question my own preconceptions that led me to agree with eco-tards.
The first paragraph didn't help.
Quote
Of course, it's all speculation for now because it's hard to determine the EVs' actual impact until they take to the streets and long-term studies can be conducted.

Ummmmmm. No.
You can check each vehicle's impact and I bet it will be very negative if they allow anything approaching a fair look.
First, batteries are very polluting and energy intensive to make and even more polluting to dispose of. Even recycling them is very polluting.

So making the vehicles is very polluting and very bad. Toxic elements from making batteries gets into the water table and hurt people for years to come.
Strike 1.

Second, we are not very efficient at utilizing energy.
Using petrol we lose a lot of the energy it has stored.
The exhaust from the engine contains unburnt petrol and noise and heat are also inefficiencies.
With electric cars we lose it turning the gas into electricity, then we lose it in transmission to where you would charge your car and then we lose it in charging the battery and then, well, our batteries aren't all that efficient either.
Strike 2
So we need more energy input to get the same output at the vehicle and we have extra-polluting batteries to make and dispose of.

The conclusion of the article makes me feel much better as they totally reject the premise of the headline.
Whew. 
My favorite line from the article
Whether you believe Resch or not, we know EVs have environmental benefits regardless of where the electricity comes.

I'll translate from eco-tard:
Damn the facts, I know what I know. he even mentions hydro-power as a clean way to make electricity.
He's obviously never been to Niagara, NY. Do a search for Love Canal if you don't remember.
Niagara, on the US side, has a chemical stench that you get used to after a day or so. It's not pleasant.

Posted by: Veeshir at 02:59 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Here's something I would like to see the Oh So Tolerant And Caring Say

Instead of "We do not support any acts of hatred or bigotry to Muslims":

How about "We do not support any ideology that will chop off the heads of those who are queer"

How about "We do not support any ideology that will stone to death a woman for being raped"

How about "We do not support any ideology that demands that women be placed in clothing that covers them from head to toe"

How about "We do not support any ideology that believes that women should not be educated"

I'm sure you can come up with others, I'm too blindly furious to do so.

Posted by: alexthechick at 01:58 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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That's not stupid, it's el stupido.

I guess I'm the only blogger here who thinks this is funny.
The Phoenix Suns are going to wear jerseys tonight that say, "Los Suns" in solidarity with illegal aliens.

Considering that "Sun" in Spanish is "Sol", all that does is make me think of W.C. Fields asking where he can get an "El Drink-o".

Related: First, I own the world suggests that, in solidarity with illegal aliens, we all sneak into sports venues.
Then they linked to Exurban Jon's tweets to the Suns, there are a bunch of them that are great.
Including this gem
@PhoenixSuns Here's how you avoid being called hypocrites: Don't man the arena gates & whoever sneaks in w/out a ticket gets to stay!

And my personal favorite
@PhoenixSuns You're right that Arizona is just like Nazi Germany. They never won an NBA championship either!

What I can't figure out is how blatant stupidity ever became so accepted in America and when it happened that the truly stupid could act so smug after acting like idiots and not just get a Nelson "Ha-ha".

I mean, everybody used to understand Meathead was just as much an idiot as Archie Bunker.
Now? His intellectual equals are running our country.

Posted by: Veeshir at 01:44 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Sinking of the Fleet

Past week or two haven't been too kind to the MFM, last week, the Philly Inquirer and Daily News were both sold to their creditors.  This week, WaPo is looking to unload Newsweek.  Many factors contributed to this, I think.  Obviously the right's abandonment of old news sources is a central one, even among older consumers of news, with FNC, talk radio and teh intarwebs.  Certainly the migration to intarwebs news has had a major impact, but then again, I think people still, for the time being, have a sentimental attachment to newspapers and news magazines, there is something physically nice about holding and reading the newspaper or magazines, just like there is with a book.  That sentimentality will only carry so far, especially when journalists and editors have become so rabidly biased while claiming impartiality and generally sloppy on facts, information and writing quality.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 10:23 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Welcome to the future

As Mark Steyn has noted, you can't get people to give back entitlements, no matter how desperate the financial situation. Greece is the perfect example. There's no money. The situation is dire. The budget cuts must be made. There is no magic answer.

The response? Massive riots, including possibly 20 people trapped in a burning bank.

This goes with Sean's post below.  If you read that article, the family involved are not only completely shameless about living on the dole but also believe that they are owed more. 

There has been talk about a "cultural war" here in the States for quite some time.  Well, it's looking like it's approaching a boiling point both here and worldwide.  The European version of social welfare is dependent on a work ethic that is undermined by the welfare state itself.  Why should anyone work?  Why should those who do work be expected to pay for those who don't?

This is going to get far uglier before it gets better.

Posted by: alexthechick at 08:59 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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If this had been done ten years ago, Grandma wouldn't be in jail now

Beat your children well, they'll know better than to tell nuns and Grandma to fuck off.  And maybe, just maybe, they'll be successfully graduating from a real high school instead of leeching off of you and pretending to do home schooling at the age of 18.

Posted by: Alice H at 08:57 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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That's it, I'm moving to England

You may not have the right to bear arms or much in the way of free speech over there, but nobody around here has exactly been offering to subsidize The Ace of Spades Lifestyleâ„¢ for me:

Their loud and drunken behaviour makes the lives of their neighbours a misery - and it is all being funded by state handouts of £20,000 a year.

Residents are petitioning to have Jane and Lee Houghton, their five youngest children and a grandson evicted.

But with a new bathroom and kitchen on its way, paid for by the council, and a house filled with numerous games consoles, computers and TVs they have no intention of moving.

And Mr Houghton yesterday insisted they need more money.

The 42-year-old is paid £150 a month disability allowance because he has a 'personality disorder' which makes him 'kick off in crowds'. He has not worked since 1999 and says drinking alcohol helps him cope with his condition.

Plus, free health care! W00t!!!

I'm sure the eventual liver transplants will be taken care of, lickety-split.

Posted by: Sean M. at 12:33 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Bleg/Whine

Sonomabatch.
I don't shoot my Wildey too much because it's expensive, it was $2/shot a few years ago, and getting the ammo is a pain.

I'm down to one mag left so I wanted to order some more ammo, you never know when a biker gang is going to invade your neighborhood after all, and we all know you can't count on Ernest Borgnine and his M1919.

So I sent an email. It got bounced. I sent it to their other address. It got bounced.
I called, according to the message they've "suspended operations".
Itshay.
I kept putting off getting dies, I can use my buddy's reloading equipment.
They're about $100 on the Wildey page and that's how much Midway was charging.
Now Wildey isn't there and they're $300 at Midway.
Oubleday itshay.

Has anybody heard anything about Wildey going away?
A year ago or so they were fine. Heck, they've been fine for decades but all of a sudden they're gone and I haven't seen anything about it.
Google news has nothing. Google anything has nothing.
WTF?
Shooting that beauty just got really, really expensive, it'll delay my next gun purchase as I spend $500 getting dies, some more brass and bullets instead of being able to throw down $100 or so when I need ammo.

Posted by: Veeshir at 02:41 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Thoughts on teabagging

There. That got your attention. It appears that our Esteemed Leader is perfectly happy with calling his opponents a sexual slur.

Stay classy, Obama. 

Here are the promised thoughts on teabagging.  When I think of teabagging, I immediately think of Halo and how much I suck at it.  Why are those two things linked? Because when playing Xbox Live, it is traditional to teabag your opponent after beating him/her.  Considering my Epic Suck at Halo, I am somewhat familiar with witnessing my avatar being teabagged.  The entire point of it is to display dominance and to humiliate your opponent.

This is why I find it utterly hilarious that the Left is using teabagging as a pejorative.  Generally, it is far far better to be the teabagger than the teabaggee.   I've had some hilarious and very profane discussions about this exact subject.  Attempting to insult me by referring to me as the dominant person constitutes Fail. 

Now, I get why people are insulted by the use of the term.  It's crude, vulgar and I could have gone my entire life without having to explain what it meant to my mother who gets mad when people say damn on television.  There is an undertone of sexual violence to it that is quite nasty.  But still.  If you want to recognize that I just capped your ass and I get to celebrate, by all means, feel free to do so.

I do wish that our country was being lead by a President who does not use terms in the Urban Dictionary to describe his opponents.  It displays Obama's utter lack of dignity and respect for the office.

(You'll note the absence of the Pres. before Obama.  That is purposeful.  I will show the amount of respect to him that he deserves)

Posted by: alexthechick at 12:20 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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I almost marked this as a Win!

Chinese Economy to Fail in Next 9 to 12 Months

May 3 (Bloomberg) -- Investor :S:d1">Marc Faber said China’s economy will slow and possibly “crash” within a year as declines in stock and commodity prices signal the nation’s property bubble is set to burst.

OK I know in the short run this will probably hurt us but, in my completely uniformed economic opinion, in the long run it helps us by forcing some systemic changes in things like the artificially low peg of the Yuan to the dollar. I am still of the opinion that "creative destruction" or no that America's economy can never fully recover as a service economy. We need mid-range manufacturing jobs and those can't reappear as long as China keeps their prices artificially low.

Posted by: chad98036 at 11:30 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Phillies fan tasered on the field

I maintain my position that Philly fans are the lowest of the low, and any abuse or beatdowns administered to them are warranted. 

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 08:08 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The Hell is Wrong With Harrisburg?

What is this Orwellian shit?

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 10:09 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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