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Can the Working Class Be Saved?
CHARLES MURRAY’S “Coming Apart,” the book that’s launched a thousand arguments this winter, is a brilliant work with an exasperating conclusion. What’s brilliant is Murray’s portrait, rich in data and anecdote, of the steady breakdown of what he calls America’s “founding virtues” — thrift and industriousness, fidelity and parental responsibility, piety and civic engagement — within America’s working class, and the personal and communal wreckage that’s ensued.
What’s exasperating is what the author suggests policy makers can do about the social crisis: in essence, nothing.
Or at least nothing realistic. Instead, Murray argues that our leaders should embrace his own libertarian convictions, scrap all existing government programs (and the dependency and perverse incentives they create) and replace them with a universal guaranteed income. This is a fascinating idea; it’s also fantastically impractical, and entirely divorced from American political realities. Which means that it’s divorced from any possibility of actually addressing the crisis that Murray so vividly describes.
That said, much of the criticism that “Coming Apart” has received from liberals is exasperating as well. Murray’s critics accuse him of essentially blaming the victim: the social breakdown he described may be real enough, they allow, but it’s an inevitable consequence of an economic system that Republicans have rigged to benefit the rich. In the liberal view, there’s nothing wrong with America’s working class that can’t be solved by taxing the wealthy and using the revenue to weave a stronger safety net.
Read MORE.
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Franklin Graham: I “Assume” Obama is Christian
SCOTUS To Rule On Affirmative Action Might be nice if they said no more affirmative action, not just for colleges, but for everything in the USA.
Newt: Obama the most dangerous president in modern American history
NATO Commander Apologizes for Soldiers’ Handling of Korans in Afghanistan Why are we always apologizing to the freakng islamics? Screw them and the hell with their book! These are people who burn churches, crosses and bibles and NEVER apologize to anyone!
How To Become A Middle Eastern Nut Job Great take on the above story on koran burning and all.
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(Daily Mail) — It is the fear of every party guest, turning up in an outfit not suited to the dress code.
And unfortunately for Hillary Clinton, her slip up was witnessed by top government officials from across the globe.
Wearing a lime green shirt, the Secretary of State was placed in the middle of the foreign ministers – all dressed in crisp white shirts – for a G20 ‘family photo’ in Los Cabos, Mexico.
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The word RACISM has no meaning if this is NOT racist!
Can you imagine if George Bush, or some other white president, had created an ad like this asking all whites to join together to help him get elected. The left and blacks would have gone ballistic and screamed racism. This is certainly the same thing only in reverse. And this is from an individual that is supposed to be the president of everybody!! What a joke.
(again, the republican party should be ranting and raving and making damn sure this is kept in front of ALL people! IMHO)
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“Propulsion,” the nine-year-old says as he leads his dad through the gates of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “I just want to see the propulsion stuff.”
A young woman guides their group toward a full-scale replica of the massive Saturn V rocket that brought America to the moon. As they duck under the exhaust nozzles, Kenneth Wilson glances at his awestruck boy and feels his burden beginning to lighten. For a few minutes, at least, someone else will feed his son’s boundless appetite for knowledge.
Then Taylor raises his hand, not with a question but an answer. He knows what makes this thing, the biggest rocket ever launched, go up. And he wants—no, he obviously needs—to tell everyone about it, about how speed relates to exhaust velocity and dynamic mass, about payload ratios, about the pros and cons of liquid versus solid fuel. The tour guide takes a step back, yielding the floor to this slender kid with a deep-Arkansas drawl, pouring out a torrent of Ph.D.-level concepts as if there might not be enough seconds in the day to blurt it all out. The other adults take a step back too, perhaps jolted off balance by the incongruities of age and audacity, intelligence and exuberance.
As the guide runs off to fetch the center’s director—You gotta see this kid!—Kenneth feels the weight coming down on him again. What he doesn’t understand just yet is that he will come to look back on these days as the uncomplicated ones, when his scary-smart son was into simple things, like rocket science.
MORE.
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15 Secrets the Emergency Room Staff Won’t Tell You
This insider information from doctors, nurses and paramedics will astonish you–and could save your life.
View the Slideshow
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She knows we are not the Land of the Free!
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Japanese fart scrolls prove that human art peaked centuries ago
Approximately 200-400 years ago during Japan’s Edo period, an unknown artist created what is easily the most profound demonstration of human aesthetics ever committed to parchment. I am referring to He-Gassen a.k.a. ??? a.k.a. “the fart war.” In this centuries-old scroll, women and men blow each other off the page with typhoon-like flatulence. Toss this in the face of any philistine who claims that art history is boring.
Gassy competitions weren’t limited to the scenes of He-Gassen (which is hilariously named in retrospect). Fart wars were also used to express displeasure at the encroaching European influence in Edo Japan — artists would depict Westerners being blown home on thunderous toots.
Know that the below scenes contain more than a few disrobed body parts, but it’s nothing worse than what you see in your average art museum (save for the roiling cyclones of rump mist, that is). You can read the full He-Gassen at Waseda University. And for more old-school blue humor, see these examples of ancient graffiti.
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Breitbart:’The most sinister screenwriter could not invent “Fast & Furious”
Please support Kansans in their efforts to ban Sharia (Islamic) Law
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“Today I’m pledging to cut the deficit that we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office.” — President Barack Obama, February 23, 2009
Three years ago, Barack Obama promised to cut the deficit by half. He has failed. Not only has he failed, he has made it worse.
First, let’s address Obama’s claim that he “inherited” the deficit. As you can see in the numbers provided by the Office of Management and Budget, the deficits under President Bush peaked in 2004, and than began to decline. The budget deficit in 2007 – the last budget approved by the Republican Congress before Nancy Pelosi became speaker – was $160 billion. When the Democrats took over, the deficit exploded. So, yes, Barack Obama inherited a huge deficit from the Democrats in Congress.
Show them this: When those lefties say it is Bush’s Fault!
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One thing I’ve learned in the year I have spent tracking General Motors cum Government Motors (GM) – and all its Crony Socialist, green non-energy “energy”, flammable absurdities – is the fact that the car media are every bit the Leftist open-channel steno pool as are the political media.
And with President Barack Obama running for reelection in large part on the utterly failed “success” of the $85 billion auto bailout, the car and political media have by now achieved fully melded fusion.
The examples are myriad.
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The press in parrot-unison hail Obama for having “saved” the auto industry.
But always somehow fail to report that we have lost (at least) $23.6 billion on the (mis-ad)venture.
Or that Obama handed an additional $68 billion of our coin – to two companies with a combined market value of around $8 billion. How’s that for new math?
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The press in parrot-unison back Obama’s excoriation of Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney for suggesting GM and Chrysler file for bankruptcy.
But always somehow fail to report that Obama…had GM and Chrysler file for bankruptcy. Just as Romney recommended. But Obama did so only after handing them an additional $68 billion of our money. Which is not at all like what Romney suggested.
Correct me if I (and Romney) are wrong, but GM and Chrysler could have gone bankrupt – for free. Companies and people do it all the time – with especial frequency here in the Age of Obama.
Read the article here.
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Yes, CATS do rule the internet!
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The UK woman who has two vaginas has attracted the attention of a Los Angeles-based film production company. Hazel Jones, 27, has the condition uterus didelphys, where she has two wombs and two cervixes.
Vivid Entertainment CEO Steven Hirsch, wrote to Miss Jones offering her $1 million and a flight to Los Angeles with first class accommodation if she decided to star in one of Hirsch’s movies. The blonde High Wycombe woman told ITV’s This Morning programme she was comfortable with having the condition, despite the fact she had to effectively lose her virginity twice.
Mr Hirsch’s Californian-based company became the first studio to introduce celebrity sex films, showing footage of Pamela Anderson and then-husband Tommy Lee and Kim Kardashian. They have even offered reprieved Amanda Knox a career in the porn industry as well as Casey Anthony a part in the industry almost as soon as she was found not guilty in the murder trial of her daughter Caylee Anthony.
MORE.
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Some interesting events have been transpiring in Georgia over the last few weeks. At least, that is, in the right wing blogosphere’s view — the mainstream media orchestrated a complete blackout. And it wasn’t because big media missed the show, since I personally saw them holding the spotlights and cameras. The footage was simply left on the cutting room floor.
Georgia is home to some brave citizens who dared to challenge, under state law, President Obama’s constitutional eligibility to run for a second term. The three cases stipulated that Obama was not qualified as a “natural born” citizen because his father was not a US citizen. As reported here on American Thinker in a series of columns, the administrative judge found for the defendant, and last week, Georgia’s Secretary of State Brian Kemp upheld the ruling — that Obama’s name should appear on Georgia’s 2012 ballot.
That decision was rendered even though Obama and his attorney, Michael Jablonski, failed to respond to a valid subpoena, and neither appeared at the January 26 hearings. In the initial stages of the challenges, Jablonski filed motions to dismiss, which were denied. The day before the hearings, Jablonski delivered a defiant letter, over Judge Michael Malihi’s head, to the secretary of state, warning that neither he nor Obama would attend. Neither the judge nor Kemp seemed to mind, however. Nor did the media.
As a witness to the hearings, I fully expected the mainstream media to report on the events with the usual “birther” ridicule, but I was astonished to find virtually no coverage at all. Perhaps because the challenges highlighted the less sensational points of statutory construction, judicial precedent, and constitutional law — aspects of “birtherism” that do not fit the mainstream narrative of crazy “birthers” and conspiratorial theories of a Kenyan birthplace.
Or maybe — the media did not want to draw attention to the disconcerting fact that Obama and his defense team turned their backs on legal procedure and the judiciary of a state.
Read the article here.
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Author: barenakedislam
FBI Director Mueller secretly met on February 8 at FBI headquarters with a coalition of groups including various IslamoFascist and militant Arabic groups who in the past have defended Hamas and Hizballah. At this meeting, the FBI revealed that it had removed more than 1000 presentations and curricula on Islam from FBI offices around the country that was deemed “offensive to Muslims.”
Investigative Project The FBI did not reveal what criteria was used to determine why material was considered “offensive” but knowledgeable law enforcement sources have told the IPT that it was these radical groups who made that determination. Moreover, numerous FBI agents have confirmed that from now on, FBI headquarters has banned all FBI offices from inviting any counter-terrorist specialists who are considered “anti-Islam” by Muslim Brotherhood front groups.
Read the article here.
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Does Michelle Obama really over-satiate herself on adipose-inducing feasts while lecturing kids to clean up their diets?
Yes, according to the most scientific study to date.
Obviously intending to counter Michelle’s critics, food writer Marian Burros, working for POLITICO, treated herself to lunch and/or dinner at “the 33 or more restaurants in the Washington area” where Michelle has grazed in Washington since her husband took office.
Can you imagine? Such diligence and sacrifice.
The result is a classic unintended scientific finding. Burros appears to have set out to prove that Mrs. Obama eats like an undernourished wild rabbit, citing the “vitriol” poured on her concerning her food habits by “anti-Obama blogs.”
In fact, Burros finds – though she doesn’t acknowledge it – that the excess weight Michelle is usually carrying around was not put there by a mysterious and unwelcome Act of God.
She eats poorly.
Burros discovers and celebrates that Michelle does eat vegetables. But that’s like saying a murderer sometimes commits burglaries. The problem is with Michelle’s core diet, much of which seems to be fried, sitting on a bone, or infested with sucrose.
Here at White House Dossier, we have a little fun with Michelle’s marked proclivity to overeat and overeat and serve unhealthy food to guests again and again, while pointing out the hypocrisy of her simultaneously telling others how to eat.
Not since Richard Simmons’s paunch protruded over his skimpy shorts has a worse Apostle of the path to health presented themselves to the public.
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Here is something that the republican party should run, replacing the phrase “the Bush Administration” with the “Obama Administration.”
Go HERE.
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Went to the gym this morning (that is now a normal thing for myself and my wife, go each morning, excepting sundays) and I will tell you, there is nothing at that gym remotely like the following:
Don’t Believe the Pipe
I am basically at a loss on this one. I was just searching (fun to search for dumb things, like pipes) and came across this image. So I searched further and found a link full of these images. Anyways, check it out at the link below the picture.
See more of these HERE.
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Report: Ron Paul signed off on racist newsletters.
Adam Jacobi fired from CBS for premature Joe Paterno death story.
Tweets still must flow – Twitter develops a way to censor tweets by country, depending on a given nation’s set of laws. For example, Germany forbids pro-Nazi content. The alternative is to stay out of some countries altogether. Twitter hasn’t used this, but if they do, you’ll see it here.
Tim Cook responds to claims of factory worker mistreatment: “We care about every worker in our supply chain” – Apple’s CEO, in response to a lengthy piece in the NYTimes about conditions in Chinese factories that make Apple’s products, says in a letter to employees that his company has a program training workers on their rights and safety.
Polish Politicians Don Guy Fawkes/Anonymous Masks To Protest ACTA Signing and European Parliament Official In Charge Of ACTA Quits, And Denounces The ‘Masquerade’ Behind ACTA
President John Tyler’s grandson is still alive, thinks Newt Gingrich is a jerk.
5 Famous People Who Succeeded Long After They Should’ve Quit.
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What debate? He’s pushing text book class warfare. End of story.
(Chicago Tribune) — President Obama said Friday that one of the biggest fights he will wage on the campaign trail is the GOP criticism that his tax proposals amount to “class warfare.”
Nothing against the wealthy, Obama said, “everybody wants to be rich.” The question is, he said, whether the nation is offering opportunity to all.
“We’re going to have a robust debate about whose vision is more promising [for] moving this country forward,” Obama said.
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The left’s logical case for abortion rights had officially collapsed. We can thank CNN’s Piers Morgan for administering last rites when he resorted to the tired, sensationalized, “Yeah, well, what if your daughter was raped?” argument with Rick Santorum in a televised interview.
…you see virtually no liberal willing to speak to the most fundamental question of the entire controversy: the humanity of what is in the womb. They simply declare any discussions of humanness, biology, and personhood rights to be above their pay grade, and thereby dismiss themselves from any expectation or obligation to answer questions that would expose their logical bankruptcy. Instead, they set the parameters of the debate, and draw conservatives into wildly emotional exchanges that inflame passions rather than engage intellects.
[snip]
Morgan’s disgraceful retreat from sound logic to the manipulative playground of emotion-driven passions is as transparent as it is embarrassing. This question is designed not to reveal any truth in the abortion debate, but rather, it is a tactical scheme made for the cameras in which the liberal questioner puts the conservative respondent in a corner. If Santorum says he would deny his daughter’s pleas, he looks like the cold and heartless goon that Morgan believes him to be. If he says he would relent and allow his daughter an abortion, he surrenders his moral high ground and appears a hypocrite.
And though Santorum answered the question effectively, stating that he “would do what every father must do…try to counsel your daughter to do the right thing,” there’s a greater point to be made here. Liberal politicians never have to answer such outrageous emotionalism in their interviews. Can you imagine, for example, Barack Obama being called on his condemnation of former President Bush’s advanced interrogation techniques with this challenge: “If Sasha and Malia were kidnapped and were being held and brutally tortured by terrorists, and we captured one of their accomplices who had knowledge of their secret hideout, would you not authorize any force necessary to get your girls back?” Can you fathom the outcry against such a loaded, sensationalized question?
Read the article here.
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People Should Replace Their Drudge Bookmark and Blogroll Spot With This Aggregator…BadBlue
And go there daily!
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Talk about spouting bullshit!
President Obama seemed to admit that his State of the Union (SOTU) speech ran too long, as he acknowledged to House Democrats that they “had to suffer through” the event, before recapping the State of the Union in 40 minutes less time than the original.
“You already had to suffer through a relatively long speech from me this week, so I’m not going to speak too long,” Obama said at the House Democratic Retreat today. “What I wanted to do, first of all, was just say thank you [for your public service].”
Obama empathized with “how much your heart bleeds when you see constituents are going through a tough time.” …
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Justice Dept. to SCOTUS on Obamacare: Don’t overturn entire law
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Okay, got my final form from the OPM today about what I get each month for my postal pension. It lists my gross amount, then line by line what is deducted from that to end up with the net amount I actually get each month. Yes, the even take out of my retirement a portion for federal income tax! Geesh.
Anyways, the raise I got on the COLA for this year? That was eaten up real fast by the increase in my health benefits plan! Geesh again!
So now, barring some crap by our president or one of his czars or agencies, I know what I will get each month this year.