December « 2010

12Dec/101

Paul Ryan completely pw3ns Chris Van Hollen

On Fox News Sunday during a discussion of the compromise to extend the current tax rates. In a nutshell, Van Hollen contends that the Republican are holding out on the estate tax, dare I say holding the middle class hostage, in order to "give 25 billion dollars to 6,600 families". In addition to repudiating that bit of misinformation (the CBO scores the cost difference between the Democrat's preferred estate tax rate and the one in the bill to be 7 billion dollars), he explains the inherent immorality and economic penalties to small businesses and family farmers of the death tax.

He also calls out the Democrats on their belief in class warfare, and calls for tax reform that involves lower rates and a broader base in order to get the economy going; very much like his Roadmap proposal. Which, as an aside, would not only benefit the economy, but address the moral dilemma of the non-tax-paying 47% of the electorate's incentive to perpetually vote for politicians that call for higher taxes and ever increasing redistributive schemes.

Quote Mr. Ryan: "Class warfare might make for good politics, but it makes for rotten economics."

Take a few minutes and watch it here if you didn't see it in real time, also take a moment to read his MJS op-ed.

Oh, and as always, enjoy your Sunday :)

Rocketman

Tagged as: Communists, obamanomics, Raul Ryan, Socialists, Tax compromise 1 Comment

12Dec/106

In Heroic Act of Metaphoresis, Metrodome Roof Collapses

That's the scuttlebutt, anyway.

Heavy snow has caused the roof of the Metrodome in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to collapse, a spokesman for the Minnesota State Patrol said Sunday.

A blizzard that hit the Midwest prompted officials Saturday night - before the roof collapsed - to postpone Sunday's scheduled NFL game between the Minneapolis Vikings and New York Giants. A statement from the Vikings cited "unsafe conditions related to the Metrodome roof and the weather."

Keeping it in perspective.

Pic at Bob's Bitz.

I'm going to refer to the place as the Souffle from now on.

More good news from Minneapolis.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Filed under: Too Lazy to Categorize 6 Comments

12Dec/106

Assange, Privacy and Rape

In the process of excoriating Naomi Wolf for her argument that rape allegations against Julian Assange are obviously a trumped up attempt at punishing him for the WikiLeaks, Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon says something eminently sane:

But just because a story smells a little off, that doesn't make it completely rotten. It shouldn't anyway -- unless you're Wolf, who, in a snippy open letter to Interpol this week, decided Assange had been a victim of "the dating police," because he'd been "accused of having consensual sex with two women." Actually, among other things, one of the alleged victims accused him of having decidedly nonconsensual sex with her while she was asleep, and the other has accused him of "using his body weight to hold [her] down in a sexual manner."

Oh no, not our Julian! Instead of considering the veracity of the claims, Wolf quickly pieced together a tale in which "both alleged victims are upset that he began dating a second woman while still being in a relationship with the first," a drama of "what appears to be personal injured feelings." Or maybe not, given that the charges arose when one of the alleged victims contacted the other, and the two compared their apparently very similar stories. They have also retained the same counsel.

In short, it would come as no surprise that Assange is persona non grata with various intelligence agencies and their governments, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he's not a douchebag.

For the past couple of weeks, we have watched the left intelligentsia argue that governments that they don't like have no right to private correspondence. At the same time, we are fully aware from our time blogging on the internet that, in cases where people with the correct opinions are involved, there is an absolute right to privacy. Anyone who doesn't have the correct opinions who's outed a particularly nasty troll has learned that it's so. Indeed, you can point people toward a publicly available bit of information on the tubez, and discover that your behavior is shockingly beyond the pale, even though classified documents relating to matters of national security are, to use the Plame expression, Fair Game.

The Obama Administration had plenty of warning that Assange and company were going to spill a vast array of classified intelligence, and its response was tepid, to say the least. After the dump, an Italian diplomat, with Italian hyperbole, chose to call the leaks the 9/11 of international diplomacy. My reactions were a bit more like Claire Berlinski's, but that doesn't mean that I don't believe that everyone involved, up to and including MSM outlets who gleefully dumped the material, in stark contrast to the way they treated the East Anglia Climategate material, ought to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Do I demonstrate my own duplicity regarding the East Anglia leaks by saying so? Not really, in my opinion, because the East Anglia leakers were motivated not only by the systematic fraud that was going on inside the institution, but also by the institution's open disdain for information requests to which they were under legal obligation to respond. What we can say without fear of error is that the Administration has expended a great deal more time, money and effort suppressing access to Obama's school records than it did trying to deal with the leaks, as newly minted Supreme Court Justice Kagan can confirm, whether or not she personally represented Obama or did so merely through her office.

Hayden and other Sixties radicals have copped to the fact that one of the principal attractions to guys of Sixties radicalism was easy access to chicks, whose provision of Free Love might or might not be voluntarily offered to The Cause. No matter how valid your beef, it would have been uncool to go to the pigs. And we see the same dynamics among the starry-eyed who troop off to represent the righteous Palestinian cause, only to discover the omerta imposed by fellow leftists in the wake of violation and even forced marriage to their abusers.

That stuff's no more newsworthy than the Pigfrauds.

Regarding privacy issues, Jerry Wilson has a stimulating post about employees' and potential employees' online lives.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Tagged as: assange, journalism, kagan, Obama, privacy, rape, Wikileaks 6 Comments

11Dec/101

Beefcake Friday (Saturday) Volume VIII

This is self explanatory I think.

Dede

Sometimes stuff rumbles around in my brain that's longer than 140 characters and, well......twitlonger just seems like cheating. :)

Tagged as: adrain paul, alex o'loughlin, christian kane, eddie mcclintock, eric balfour, Eric Dane, hunky, jeffery donovan, Johnny Depp, Kevin McKidd, Lucas Bryant, man flesh, matt bomer, Patrick Dempsey, peter wingfield, robin dunne, yummy yummy goodness 1 Comment

11Dec/104

Could “Yogi Bear” Be The Worst Movie EVAR?

Aurelius at Pundit Press asks the question.

POWIP favorite Anna Faris is in the movie, but even so, if it stood a reasonable chance of being The Worst Movie EVAR, we'd tell you so.

Unfortunately, it's not even in the running, since it's clear merely from the description, assuming that it's not a put-on, that The Nutcracker in 3D is easily the worst movie ever made:

The movie starts out as a gentle tale of a lonely young girl (Elle Fanning) in 1920s Vienna who receives a magical nutcracker for Christmas from her uncle Albert Einstein (Nathan Lane). Yes, that Albert Einstein. Exactly why the famed Jewish physicist was celebrating Christmas is not discussed in the film. The doll, of course, comes alive, reveals himself to be a prince under a curse, and leads her Wonderland-like into his world.

And here's where the movie makes a left turn from a Hallmark Christmas special into a bizarro version of the Third Reich. The prince's land is occupied by rat-faced Nazis. Their leader, the Rat King (John Turturro in an Andy Warhol wig), espouses the complete purification ("Ratification") of the population while throwing piles of children's toys into a crematorium. There's also singing and dancing. A little kung fu. An electrocuted shark and at least one beheading. And it's in 3D!

So, while I'm sure that Yogi Bear represents a valiant attempt at cinematic bathos, it has suffered the great misfortune of being released at the same time as a true misasterpiece of artistic demerit.

via Ruby Slippers

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Filed under: Too Lazy to Categorize 4 Comments

11Dec/101

It’s a Family Affair

Donald Douglas and Stacy McCain have all the sordid details on the Palin-hating, HuffPosting, Obama-supporting, ("allegedly") daughter-diddling Columbia Professor of Economics, David Epstein, that you could ever care to read. It appears that his wife, Sharyn "But Not That Much Sharin'" O'Halloran, per Stacy the "chairwoman of the executive committee of the Columbia University Senate and a tenured professor," has split from her husband following her discovery that he had been boinking and exchanging naughty text messages with their daughter during the period 2006-09. The daughter is now 24 years old, so it's not a question of statutory rape, but apparently the benighted legislators of New York State continue to believe that incest ought still be outlawed, whether consensual or not, so he could end up with a prison sentence of as long as four years.

Naturally, some of his HuffPo colleagues and commenters wonder what the fuss is all about. If he was turned in by his wife, as Stacy surmises, then it's a sad commentary on the narrow-mindedness of Columbia University professors that the Chairwoman of the Executive Committee should over-react in such a manner that it makes her look so . . . bourgeois. Columbia likewise opens itself to charges of primitive taboo-mongering by publicizing that he's been suspended from teaching duties pending various investigations.

I'm not aware that Columbia graduate Meggie Mac has spoken to this overblown kerfuffle, but if she does, I'll be sure to let you know.

Meanwhile, I've written on Pigford over at RightNetwork, and I have a few questions regarding who made certain calls at the DoJ. I've put in a request for comment to J. Christian Adams, so I'll keep you updated if he responds. The lovely and talented Dana Loesch has the latest on the scandal the MSM won't touch.

Yeah, yeah, I know: from contrails to entrails without using the clutch. It's a bumpy ride.

And it's certainly not Stacy or Donald's fault, but it's a sad commentary that this is a hot topic over at Memeorandum, but the Pigford parables are not.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Filed under: Too Lazy to Categorize 1 Comment

10Dec/103

Contrails

by Daniel P Collins, Sr

On our walk around the retirement complex, Grandma led me to a lakeside bench. Above was a cloudless, beautiful blue sky as far as the eye could see. A high altitude jet streaking across from east to west was trailed by a pure white plume. A contrail, extending many miles behind the small object causing it. It lingered long after the plane vanished from sight.

I mused this was a metaphor for the Christian Life - powerfully propelled by God's love we are elevated far above earthly values to soar high above. The individual's intense love of God and neighbor in the surrounding cold environs creates a beautiful plume of witness, enriching the lives of all who observe it. It breaks up and disappears in time: but the memory lingers long after the flight is over and the Person is in "Safe Harbor."

Enoch_Root

AKA. Bobby Donn Brubaker (the most popular man in Mesa, AZ), the Umbrella of Terror, Jack Ketch.

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Filed under: God Bothering 3 Comments

10Dec/103

Surprise!

Just a quick hit here.

I used to work for an answering service....and one of the business types we answered for were propane companies. (I sell propane and propane accessories) One Christmas Eve I got a call from a woman in Greenwich, CT who was all in a panic because she was out of propane for her gas logs in her fireplace. I explained to her that the office was closed and there were no deliveries on Christmas Eve except in extreme emergencies. She told me it WAS an emergency because she was having a Christmas party and 250 people were going to show up at her house and she wasn't able to use her fireplace. *faceplam*

I explained that even under regular circumstances, this company did not consider gas logs an emergency. She got very upset and said that we were ruining her Christmas party. I apologized...she got angry and hung up. Now it occurred to me while I talking to her and envisioning her head exploding because she couldn't use her fireplace, that she had to have seen this day coming. I mean Christmas Eve is the same date every year. And besides that, 250 people don't just show up at your house...you plan for them and invite them. So....wouldn't it have been prudent to make sure you had enough propane for your gas logs BEFORE Christmas Eve?

This is the way I feel about this debate about the "Bush Tax Cuts". Congress KNEW they were set to expire in January 2011. POTUS KNEW they were set to expire in January 2011. But they waited until December 2010 to even begin TALKING about doing something? Really? They didn't see this coming? They couldn't have started this debate say in April? Now they're all like...."it's not perfect but we have to do SOMETHING so we'll do something crappy." People...time management and prioritizing are important skills for McDonald's employees...certainly they are important on Capitol Hill. #justsayin

Dede

Sometimes stuff rumbles around in my brain that's longer than 140 characters and, well......twitlonger just seems like cheating. :)

Tagged as: Bush Tax cuts, Congress, surprise, Taxes 3 Comments

10Dec/106

Jobs Come and Go… The Webbertubes are Forever – PART I

This is a story about a certain someone I know quite well. Someone whose work ethic is above reproach.

This is a story about how that someone went to work for a certain company - Jones Lang LaSalle - and performed, achieving much... not according to her own words, but according to the voices of the people she worked with day in and day out.

This is the story of a boss going through a gnarly divorce... distracted and unable to fulfill his obligations to the company.

This is the story of that boss's boss: an unhappy, middle-aged, new age, slovenly, envy-monkey...

This is the story of, in my humble opinion, a conspiracy hit-job on an outstanding employee... entirely manufactured and without merit.

This is the story of two incompetent buffoons in positions of power and the damage people like them can do (through their unwillingness to act in an ethical business-like fashion) to a business's reputation - and worse, to the individuals who dare to shine... point out inefficiencies, provide solutions, work-arounds, and whose performance, whose abilities, whose nature, whose personality, whose confidence is enough to make mediocre, far-too-comfortable, private sector managers act in the spirit of peter-principle bureaucrats. This is the story of how a buried event conducted in a shroud of sneakiness - the firing of person in question - should be known throughout the organization, the executives of the organization, and people considering working for the organization. This is the story of shedding light on an untoward event.

A Corporate Hit Job in the Commercial Real Estate Services industry - on someone who thought there was a future job / career

Read Part II tomorrow....

Thematically Related

“I just rubbed some of the people who have been there so long the wrong way.” He is very humble and I knew the entire reason needed to be pulled out of him.

“Some people found you curt or you didn’t involve them enough in decisions?” I asked, having worked with him and seeing the internal politics just enough to see the red flags. “They were women, right?”

He looked a bit stunned but it was the distance between Mars and Venus that was the problem. It was not a question of power, misogyny, racism or any other isms as much as it was inclusion and recognition. Nobody wants to spend the prom standing in the rain, looking longingly through the window.

Also Related

The Lapdog Hero is at once the most tremendous asset a company has, and is also the biggest pain in the ass a company can have. I know because I am one.