I’m pretty sure that the doom of mankind is upon us now that I’ve seen this video. I’m afraid I can’t adequately describe just how pitiful it is save to give you a short description of its contents: it is, essentially, a group of men apologizing to women for being men and asking, pretty please with sugar on top, if they can be women the rest of their lives without actually having to go through gender reassignment surgery.
I admit, I can’t tell you more than that. I only made it through less than a minute of the whole thing before I had to turn it off. I could actually feel my testosterone level dropping faster than a pregnant pole-vaulter wearing a lead radiation suit. I can not be held responsible for anything that happens to you if you choose to watch for longer than is absolutely necessary to laugh until tears flow from your eyes.
And now, links!
- This post by the Troglopundit is the must-read post of the day. It contains more actual fact about how taxation and spending works than anything you will find squawked by the likes of Chris van Hollen, who I remind you, utterly failed to pass any kind of budget last year.
- It’s worth remembering as we face a potential government shutdown, that everything the government tells you about the apocalypse you will face without its warm and comforting presence is specifically crafted to scare the bejeezus out of you.
- Speaking of government fiction designed to scare you, take a look at the bogus “science” the EPA has used to regulate the air that you breathe.
- In what world does the phrase “incorporate my uterus” make any sense save the very strange world of the progressive left? However, the phase does suggest that any potential inhabitants of said incorporated wombs should be considered stakeholders, with a say about whether they live or die.
- Single women? Here is a very useful checklist for your future dating purposes.
- Ed Driscoll revisited a classic essay, and substituted “Barack Obama” for “Bill Clinton”.
- One day, we’ll have a free trade agreement with Colombia. Hopefully, the Colombians will forgive us for letting wealthy union leaders hold things up for more than four years.
- Here is an app I’m pretty sure you will want for your iPhone or iPad — Atari’s 100 Greatest Hits. You can buy selected game packs for 99 cents, or the whole shebang for $14.99. I’m actually amazed that the Sword Quest games made the list.
- Here is a beautiful photo of the Milky Way that would make an amazing desktop wallpaper.
Tags: Linky Love
I was ready to do Episode 87 Tuesday morning, which is a bit unusual. It’s not often I get such a great topic for discussion, one that causes me to crank out a couple pages of show notes before lunchtime. Paul Ryan’s budget plan, though, is worth some serious examination and so I spent some time with it and some of the auto-criticisms against it and I knew I could do a half-hour on it with ease. What I didn’t know then was that hours later I’d be in full rant about…Max Baucus.
Max Baucus? Yes, well, you have to listen to the show to hear how I got there. And you’ll also hear the reason why Socky the Sock Puppet did the show’s intro. It turns out he’s just perfect for a job in the administration.
It will help, when you listen to the second half, to have some experience with the podcasts Ron Moore recorded for Battlestar Galactica during most of the show’s run. As I say at length in the show, I honestly don’t know why more shows do what Moore and the Sci-Fi Channel did. The advantage for the creators — and I didn’t think of this until after the show had wrapped — is that they will already have some special commentary tracks done when they’re ready to release their shows to DVD. They can give their show’s fans some extra goodies and save themselves some time later on. That seems like a good thing to me.
Don’t sleep on the mid-show break. Greg Anstey, who may well be making a bid for Greatest Podcast Fan in the History of Podcasts, has produced another song parody and it’s a rumpshaker! I’m working up a page for Greg’s parodies that will have links to all of them so you can listen to them all by themselves that should be on the site in a couple days (over the weekend at the latest). Big thanks to SMP Mike for organizing all of them in their own folder so I can get to them more easily.
I don’t expect there’ll be a show on Friday. We’re going to record an episode of Right this Way with at least one new addition to the Take that Media podcasting family, so I’ll be tied up with that. Expect that podcast to hit over the weekend. It won’t be live (so far as I know), but it’ll be fun. I may gear one up for next Friday, but I can’t make any promises right now.
Tags: Democrats, Paul Ryan, The Delivery
The rave reviews for Paul Ryan’s budget plan keep rolling in. James Pethokoukis, in the course of asking and answering three essential questions, calls it a game-changer and I find little room for disagreement. Troglopundit, King of All Motivators, has the poster that doubtless haunts the dreams of many a Democrat tonight.
You can read Ryan’s remarks on his proposal to the American Enterprise Institute here, then check out this brief article for a touch of motivation. I spent the first half of the show last night on the “Path to Prosperity” and why it really is that big a deal. I also got into the incredibly irresponsible (if I may borrow a word from our President) manner in which the Democrats demagogued it today even though we all know darned well they have no clue what’s actually in it. I admit, I got just a tiny bit heated at one point. But it’s okay, I evened it out with some humor and introduced a brand new White House Press Secretary. The show post will be up a bit later this morning.
And now, links!
- While Senator Lindsey Graham is crusading against free speech, the Saudi government is taking on a real threat: black magic.
- Why did the AARP spend so much money and time pushing Obamacare? Oh, they have a billion reasons, give or take a few.
- When junior hacks at the Atlantic attack!
- Like it or not, we’re all activists now and the Anchoress linked to a very good article on how to make the most of your arguments.
- Ed Driscoll found The Quote of the Millennium.
Tags: Linky Love
Presented without comment.
President Barack Obama stepped out personally to address the impasse on budget negotiations and reject a Republican proposal for another temporary resolution unless it is to give Congress a few more days to pass a permanent deal.
“We are now at a point where there is no excuse to extend this further,” Mr. Obama said during a surprise appearance at the daily White House briefing. “I shouldn’t have to oversee a process where Congress deals with last-year’s budget when we only have six months left.”
The president, who has mostly stayed out of the budget debate until now, was visibly irritated over the impasse in negotiations. “There can be some negotiations about composition” of the cuts, Mr. Obama said, but he said he will not negotiate on ideological issues like abortion in the current budget discussions.
“We don’t have time for games,” he said. “Not on this.”
[Emphasis mine]
Did I say without comment? Yes, definitely no comment. I didn’t say anything about tweets, though, did I?
April 3, 2011 12:57 via web Reply Retweet Favorite 
Tags: Economics, President Barack Obama
As if on cue, the Democrats have come for Paul Ryan’s budget plan with pitchforks, torches, and a handy new word that sounds an awful lot like “extremist”.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) decried the 2012 budget proposal introduced by House Republicans Tuesday as “draconian.”
“I think that it completely lacks balance,” he said of the plan unveiled by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). “He has dramatic cuts in taxes for the wealthiest among us and finances that by draconian cuts to those of us who are dependent on Medicaid and Medicare.”
“It’s draconian,” added Conrad, who first ran for Congress on a pledge to reduce the federal deficit and has positioned himself as a fiscal hawk throughout his Senate career.
Gee, could “draconian” be the new “extremist”? It looks like that’s the Demon Word of the Day on the Democrats’ morning e-mails. Let’s see what another Democratic Senator has to say.
“Independent experts agree the House plan would make deep cuts to the Medicare benefits seniors count on,” [Democratic Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max] Baucus said. “It would end Medicare as we know it and funnel Medicare dollars directly into private insurance companies’ pockets.
“Under the House plan, seniors’ coverage would be cut drastically, benefits would no longer be guaranteed and seniors’ costs would skyrocket,” Baucus added.
Huh…old people and children eating dog food and dying, untended, in the streets. Now where in the world have I read that particular criticism today? I’d say that Democrats really need to focus on their own failure. After all, they didn’t pass a budget last year and they’re having an awfully hard time even putting together a spending bill to keep the government open for a week. The last thing they need to do is demagogue Ryan’s work and draw attention to their own negligence. They ought to be praising him for doing the hard work they couldn’t be bothered to do when they were in charge.
And, let’s face it, if Chuck Norris is on board with Ryan’s plan, surely the squawking parrots in the Democratic party can give it a little praise.
Tags: Big Government, Economics, Paul Ryan
I said in this morning’s Clearing the Browser Tabs post that Paul Ryan’s “Pay to Prosperity” budget plan (PDF link) was a humdinger and I wasn’t wrong. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that it’s the boldest plan we’ve seen since the 1980s and certainly the most comprehensive in my lifetime.
I’m not just blowing smoke here. Ryan’s plan not only tackles the debt problem (albeit not as quickly as it could), but also tries to fix Medicare and our very real economic growth problem, and it pushes Congress and the President to the table to fix Social Security. It is a real document that looks at real problems in a responsible and grown-up fashion.
That means, of course, that the Democrats can not let it pass. Nancy Pelosi could barely wait until the end of Ryan’s press conference before she hit Twitter with the same old hoary talking points about Republican cruelty to children and old people. Jennifer Rubin has done us the favor of debunking the ten most witless arguments you’ll likely hear against the plan (Pelosi’s talking points fit nicely into Numbers 2 and 9). Smitty also outlines a set of reasons why we can’t truly solve the debt problem unless we tackle the two major entitlement programs now.
I have a lot more to say about Ryan’s plan, including why it should only be the beginning of the spending cuts, but you’ll have to listen to The Delivery tonight (or grab the podcast when it comes out either Wednesday or Thursday) to hear them all.
I’ll give you a little bit now. It’s important that we start thinking of our spending in relation to how much we take in, which is a fairly predictable amount of how much the country produces each year (a little over 19 percent of GDP). If we shift our frame of thinking from dollars to percentages, we can put a real dent in the debt far sooner than even Ryan believes we can by taking spending below that 19 percent figure. Ryan’s plan takes spending to 20 percent of GDP for about a decade, then down to 15 percent. That’s certainly better than the Obama administration’s 23 percent or the recent debt commission’s 21 percent (PDF link), but it’s still a little bit too high because with current revenues well below 19 percent, it means we’ll still have to run deficits for a few more years. I don’t think we need to move that slowly. This post at Ace’s place puts some more numbers to the idea and I’ll add a few of my own, including how steady that 19 percent really is, so be sure to listen!
UPDATE: There is something very important I forgot to mention about Ryan’s plan: It doesn’t actually cut spending. It does slow the rate of increase dramatically (and you see that in the places where the plan compares itself to the President’s budget) but, so far as I can see, it doesn’t require we spend less in any year than we did the year before. At best, it holds spending at a steady rate. Keep that in mind when Democrats talk about “extreme” spending cuts or old people eating dog food.
Tags: Big Government, Economics, Paul Ryan
Today, the 2012 budget battle begins in earnest. Rep. Paul Ryan has introduced his budget proposal in an article in today’s Wall Street Journal and it’s a humdinger. In fact, it is probably the most ambitious and complete fiscal plan we’ve seen in this country since the Reagan administration. Not only will it cut the deficit hard, but it will also rein in Medicare and Medicaid and overhaul the tax code. The detailed plan will come out later, and that’s when the real analysis will begin, but the outline is impressive.
My only qualm is that it still leaves Federal spending above 20 percent of GDP. That figure needs to be at least two percentage points lower if we have any hope of reducing the deficit to nothing. If we want to whittle away at the national debt, it’s going to have to be even lower still. I’m hopeful that the Republicans will treat this plan as their opening bid, not the ideal that will be chipped away by hundreds of tiny craven compromises. If they do that, we might see some real deficit reduction very soon.
Also don’t forget about the live show tonight — 9:30 P.M. Eastern!
And now, links!
- It’s no surprise that air travelers hate the airlines. Who would like being treated as little more than a source of cash rather than as a valuable customer whose return business airlines crave and for which they will fight viciously?
- Chalk one up for the Laffer Curve. It’s not lost on me that England is rediscovering capitalism and personal freedom just when our government is taking us in exactly the opposite direction.
- The number of Obamacare waivers is now up to 1,168. Tell me again how wonderful government-run health care is? I can’t quite hear for all the stampeding away from it.
- I’m not entirely sure there’s corruption going on in Wisconsin, but it sure looks like a few Democrats are trying to discourage citizens from getting information they have a right to possess.
- You know where plenty of public employees won’t find the union label? On their paychecks.
- I’m looking forward to the upcoming A Game of Thrones series. Unfortunately, I don’t get HBO, so I’ll have to wait until it’s available on Netflix or DVD. However, I’ll enjoy this 12-minute clip from the pilot episode.
- Red. Velvet. Sheet. Cake.
Tags: Linky Love
If I was a suspicious man, I’d think that Bill and Hillary Clinton have spent the past three months diligently working a campaign to destroy Barack Obama’s presidency.
Consider the following three events:
- In December, Bill Clinton essentially ‘jacked an impromptu press conference from the President in full view of the entire country, then dismissed the humiliated Obama like he was the hired help.
- About ten days ago, Clinton systematically undercut the President’s message that Muammar Gadaffi had to leave power by leaving open the likelihood that we could see a peaceful and stable Libya even if he stays.
- Then, less than a week ago, she destroyed the President’s contention that we know who some of the leading Libyan rebels are when she said that we had no “specific information about specific individuals” and that we weren’t sure who was leading the rebellion.
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