Month: April 2011
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Christopher Hitchens: Not A Fan Of The Royal Wedding
Not surprisingly, famed anti-monarchist Christopher Hitchens best expresses what nobody seems willing to say about the absurd Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton: For Prince William at least it was decided on the day of his birth what he should do: Find a presentable wife, father a male heir (and preferably a male…
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Back to Those Darn Freeloaders
More on that freeloader problem (today with less snark).
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Rand Paul Files For Re-Election, Five Years Early
Apparently, Rand Paul plans on sticking around Washington: Barely into his first term, Sen. Rand Paul has already filed for reelection, signaling that he won’t be running for president in 2012 but does plan to stick it out in Washington. The Kentucky Republican filed for reelection – in the 2016 race — on March 21,…
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Arizona Governor Vetoes ‘Birther’ Bill
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has vetoed a bill that would’ve required all Presidential candidates to produce a long-form birth certificate, or similar document, in order to appear on the ballot in Arizona: Calling it “a bridge too far,” Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on Monday vetoed the state legislature’s controversial “birther bill” and also rejected a…
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Piss Christ Slashed By French Catholics
On Palm Sunday, French Christians stormed a museum and slashed Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ
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Krauthammer: Trump GOP’s Al Sharpton
Charles Krauthammer called Donald Trump the “Al Sharpton” of the GOP presidential primary contest
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Fun with URLs
The Independent allows creative versions of the URLs on their stories.
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Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Blames iPads For Unemployment
There really are no words: On Friday, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) addressed the United States’s current unemployment crisis and claimed the iPad was “probably responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs.” Jackson, himself an iPad owner, expanded on his statement by pointing to the recent bankruptcy of Borders Books. “Why do you need to…
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Pentagon Report “Doubts” Some Comments Attributed To McChrystal By Rolling Stone
A Pentagon investigation was unable to verify some of the comments attributed to General Stanley McChrystal in Rolling Stone last year. That doesn’t mean he’s been cleared, though.
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Michele Bachmann: President Obama Has Failed To Prove His Eligibility To Hold Office
The birther caucus among prospective GOP candidates for President expands by one:
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Chart Of The Day: Bloated Tax Code Edition
There are few better illustrations of just how unwieldy our tax structure has become than the fact that the complete federal tax code rules, regulations, and IRS rulings is twice as big today as it was just under 30 years ago: H/T: Cato@Liberty
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Higher Education Bubble: Another Brick in the Wall?
An increasing number of bright observers are questioning the notion that everyone needs to go to college.
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National Review Offers Free Porn
A special surprise was waiting this morning for those who subscribe to Jim Geraghty’s Jolt newsletter.
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Drezner on Trump on Foreign Policy
At FP: Using the Force in global political economy? Here’s a fun little project for the commenters: predict what would happen to the global political economy if, in fact, President Trump seized all of Iraq’s oil rserves and slapped a 25% tariff on Chinese exports. Hint: I don’t think it ends well. Indeed. Read the…
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Freeloaders Ask for Federal Dollars
Everywhere you turn, people are asking for money.
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Standard & Poor’s Lowers U.S. Public Debt Outlook To “Negative”
A new report from one of the world’s top credit rating agencies is sending waves through the stock markets: NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Standard & Poor’s lowered its outlook for the nation’s long-term debt Monday, even as it reaffirmed the agency’s top-tier rating for the U.S. economy. S&P maintained its ‘AAA/A-1+’ credit rating on U.S.…
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Swearing Helps Reduce Pain, Study Says
It seems that your Mom may have been wrong when she told you not to use “dirty words” in public: Scientists from Keele University found that letting forth a volley of foul language can have a powerful painkilling effect, especially for people who do not normally use expletives. To test the theory, student volunteers placed…
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Want To Re-Elect Barack Obama? Support Donald Trump
A new Rasmussen poll shows fairly conclusively that Donald Trump would be a massive disaster as a GOP Presidential nominee, unless you’re a Democrat: President Obama leads Donald Trump by 15 percentage points in a hypothetical 2012 match-up, but the president is unable to top the 50% level of support even against an opponent some…
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Glenn Beck Accused Of Using Content From Conservative Bloggers Without Attribution
The Daily Caller’s Matthew Boyle reports that Glenn Beck is coming under fire from some conservative activists who feel that he’s used their content without giving proper credit: A number of conservative activists and bloggers say they’re furious at media magnate Glenn Beck for what they call content theft. Over the past several years, Beck…
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Texas Democrats Pushing Retired General Ricardo Sanchez To Run For Senate
It isn’t necessarily unusual to see Democrats recruiting a former military officer to run for office, after all retired Admiral Joe Sestak ran for Congress and the Senate, it is slightly unusual that the man Texas Democrats have their eye on is the man who used to be in charge of Abu Ghraib: WASHINGTON —…
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Beware The Barrenness Of A Busy Tax Code
Tax compliance employs more workers than Wal-Mart, UPS, McDonalds, IBM, and Citigroup — combined.
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Trump: I Wish I Didn’t Have to Do It
Donald Trump figures that, because he’s rich, he’s qualified to be president.
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Tax Burden At Historic Low?
According to one study the federal tax burden for individual Americans is at a level unseen since the 1950’s: For the past two years, a family of four earning the median income has paid less in federal income taxes than at any time since at least 1955, according to the Tax Policy Center. All federal,…
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Kentuckian Invents Car That Runs On Bourbon
American innovation knows no bounds. The Daily Load (“Kentucky Man Invents Car that Runs on Bourbon“): LOUISVILLE – 62 year old Mickey Nilsson of Bardstown Kentucky, finally found a way to make his tinkering hobby pay off. Inspired by the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Nilsson transformed a collection of “junk” into a motor vehicle…
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Alan Simpson Rejects The GOP’s “No New Taxes” Orthodoxy
Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson, one of the loudest deficit and spending hawks during the Reagan era, said in Colorado recently that his party’s position on taxes makes no sense at all: “I feel I have achieved a remarkable success, because at this stage of life I have achieved a goal: I have effectively pissed…
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Rand Paul: Both Sides Will Have To Compromise To Reach A Budget Deal
One of the Tea Party movement’s favorite Senators used the dreaded c-word.
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Time To Eliminate The “Natural Born Citizen” Requirement
With all the birther talk these days, it’s probably time to question whether we even need the “natural born citizen” rule anymore.
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China Cracks Down On Time Travel
At least on television: BEIJING — In a bizarre move, China’s television censors have issued new guidelines that all but ban TV dramas featuring time travel. In a statement (available here in Chinese) dated March 31, the State Administration for Radio, Film & Television said that TV dramas that involve characters traveling back in time…
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Japan Nuclear Crisis Expected To Last Another Nine Months
It’s likely to be the end of the year but before the nuclear crisis in Japan is fully contained: The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has said it expects to bring the crisis under control by the end of the year. Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) aims to reduce radiation leaks in…
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Women in Combat: Changing Rules for the Wrong Reasons?
It may be time to change rules keeping women out of combat roles. But “fairness” isn’t the right question.
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NATO Running Short On Some Bombs In Libya
Apparently, there wasn’t that much advance panning for the mission over Libya: Less than a month into the Libyan conflict, NATO is running short of precision bombs, highlighting the limitations of Britain, France and other European countries in sustaining even a relatively small military action over an extended period of time, according to senior NATO…
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David Simon on the Drug War, the Underclass, and America’s Dark Side
David Simon on the drug war, the underclass, and America’s seamy underbelly.
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The Hobbit, Pulp Fiction Style
Thoreau envisions the mashup of Tolkien’s Hobbit and Tarentino’s Pulp Fiction: Balrog: “Quenya, spider-f**ker, do you speak it?” […] The way your uncle Bilbo looked at it, this Ring was your birthright. He’d be damned if any Orc’s gonna put their greasy yellow hands on his nephew’s birthright, so he hid it, in the one…
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TV Ratings Myths
Demographic information about TV viewers is worthless to advertisers.
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Jon Stewart On Obama’s Budget Speech
What? “Spending reductions in the tax code”? The tax code isn’t where we spend, it’s where we collect, and that…. ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I guess what you said is tax “code”, code for raising taxes. You managed to talk about a tax hike as a spending reduction. Can we afford that and the royalty checks you’re going…
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Too Many Wars for Too Long?
I taped an episode of PJTV’s “The Bottom Line with James Poulos” Wednesday afternoon. The resulting 10 minute session, titled, “Too Many Wars for Too Long? Can We Sustain our Military Engagements Around the Globe?” is now posted.
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Evolution of Web Design, 1991-2011
Hard as it is to believe, it’s been two decades since Tim Berners-Lee published the first website. They look a wee bit different these days.
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Obama’s Signing Statement On Presidential Czars And The Constitution
President Obama’s signing statement on the allocation of funds to Presidential “czars” sets a potentially dangerous Constitutional precedent.
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Donald Trump Consulting With World Net Daily Founder And Birther Joseph Farah
I wondered where Donald Trump had gotten his birther ideas, now it all makes sense: Kendra Marr reports that WorldNetDaily’s birth certificate aficionado Joseph Farah has been on the phone with Donald Trump every day this week. “We’ve have been speaking quite a bit,” he said. Farah is enthused that the mainstream media is finally…
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Candidate Obama vs. President Obama On Presidential Signing Statements
Once again, President Obama has ignored Candidate Obama’s promises to reign in the Presidential powers assumed by George W. Bush.
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USA a Low-Tax Country?
Australia is the only major country with lower tax rates than the USA.
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Then Veto the Bill (Signing Statements)
Via Jake Tapper at ABC: President Obama Issues “Signing Statement” Indicating He Won’t Abide by Provision in Budget Bill Last week the White House and congressional Democrats and Republicans were involved in intense negotiations over not only the size of the budget for the remainder of the FY2011 budget, and spending cuts within that budget,…
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Jon Huntsman: Suck-up
Presidential wannabe Jon Huntsman wrote some embarrassing letters about President Obama and the Clintons.
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Sitting is Killing You
Donald Rumsfeld famously worked standing up. He was on to something.
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Mankind Losing Speed
While the pace of modern life is in many ways faster than ever, the golden age of speed was decades ago.
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NATO’s Death Greatly Exaggerated
A version of a piece I wrote Wednesday, titled “NATO’s Death Greatly Exaggerated,” has finally been published at Foreign Policy under the title “Back in the Saddle: How Libya Helped NATO Get Its Groove Back.”