Funniest Story You'll Read This Week

—Ace

The official sign-language guy at the Nelson Mandela funeral was... a fake.

He just was moving his hands randomly.

Now that I'm informed this was the case, it seems pretty obvious.

The Daily Mail has a funny quote from someone who spotted the guy as a fake: he was merely "flapping his arms about."

He translated Barack Obama's statement that Nelson Mandela was "an unwavering beacon for those seeking the shores of freedom and dignity" by just miming the hand-signals from MC Hammer's 2 Legit 2 Quit.

Okay not really. But he is basically just doing hand-jive dance moves.

I don't care who you are, this is just f***in funny. dan-O says this man is now his hero.

I wonder how long he's been getting away with this?

No One Cares: Time Names Pope Francis At the Top of Its "What's Hot" List

—Ace

I hate that I'm even mentioning this fake story. I'm linking the Telegraph here, not Time.

As I said, Time made this call to push their left-wing political agenda, and also to achieve their secondary goal, which is selling magazines and making money.

Their precis on Pope Francis highlights only his usefulness as a spokesman for social justice and wealth redistribution. They claim that he's not interested in the "doctrinal" matters that his predecessors were.

Time's headline and subhed:

Pope Francis, The People’s Pope

He took the name of a humble saint and then called for a church of healing. The first non-European pope in 1,200 years is poised to transform a place that measures change by the century

Time's interest: One part Power to the People agitation, one part multiculti uplift. Sprinkle liberally with a call for Hope and Change.

"What makes this Pope so important is the speed with which he has captured the imaginations of millions who had given up on hoping for the church at all," Time magazine said in announcing the winner.

", the buck-passing infighting over lines of authority when all the while (to borrow from Milton), “the hungry Sheep look up, and are not fed.”

"In a matter of months, Francis has elevated the healing mission of the church—the church as servant and comforter of hurting people in an often harsh world—above the doctrinal police work so important to his recent predecessors. John Paul II and Benedict XVI were professors of theology. Francis is a former janitor, nightclub bouncer, chemical technician and literature teacher."

One of us.

And as I said: Social Issues You Guys.

He is quoted saying of women who consider abortion because of poverty or rape, “Who can remain unmoved before such painful situations?” Of gay people: “If a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge.” To divorced and remarried Catholics who are, by rule, forbidden from taking Communion, he says that this crucial rite “is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.”

I don't quote Time to knock the Pope, or offer any opinions on his leadership of the Church at all.

I only quote Time to mock Time, to note how predictable they are. I predicted this yesterday, including the reasons they'd offer for their choice.

This is not because I am good at prediction; this is because the leftwing media is so very kneejerk and predictable. They claim to be neutral and objective. And yet someone can predict every single one of their news judgements by proceeding from the rule that they will make whichever judgement best serves the Progressive Socialist Transnationalist Cause.

Suppose I'm in a shady casino. I'm playing craps. I'm given a pair of dice by the pit boss, to throw to determine the results of a particularly large bet. I object and say I believe the dice are loaded, and will come up craps. He insists they are fair dice, and could come up with any dice tally.

If my prediction -- that the dice will come up craps on anything important -- is always correct, that casts a great deal of doubt on crooked house's claim that the dice are fair, doesn't it? They claim any score can come up; I claim it will always come up craps when they need it.

If it always comes up craps, then I am right, and they are lying.

If they're not actually in service of the Progressive Socialist Transnationaist cause, why is it that any moderately-informed observer can predict every single one of their judgements by employing this rule?

Thanks to @daveintexas.

Senate Democrats Up For Reelection Say Obama's Phony Phixes to Obamacare Aren't Enough; Plan a "Multifaceted" Reform

—Ace

Or at least a "multifaceted" campaign season PR push.

Senate Democrats facing tough reelections say President Obama has not done enough to fix the botched rollout of his healthcare law and are vowing to repair it themselves.

The Senate Democratic leadership is not on board with lawmaker plans to begin rewriting ObamaCare and have urged for more time to assess the changes made by Obama and his team, lawmakers say.

Landrieu, Shaheen and Udall face reelection next year.

...

Shaheen wants to extend the enrollment period for the ACA; Landrieu wants to mandate that insurance companies continue to offer plans that people like, even if they don’t meet the law’s requirements; and Udall wants to expand the pool of people included in the individual insurance marketplace.

...

The topic [Landrieu's suggestion that people be permitted to re-up on their old policies] came up briefly at a Tuesday lunch meeting, but Reid has urged the group of centrists to be patient and put off action until after Jan. 1.

...

Bennet and other Democrats have expressed concerns about what many expect to be a wave of new ObamaCare regulations.

“I’m concerned about the regulations which have yet to be issued,” said Angus King (Maine), an independent who caucuses with the Democrats.

He expressed concern that businesses providing healthcare coverage could be hit by excessive paperwork demands.

“This town seems to like issuing regulations,” he added. “I think the administration should be exceedingly careful about the onerousness of the regulations that are issued.”

Bennet said there should be an easier process to repeal ill-conceived rules related to healthcare and other issues.

Reid is committed to the "Buy Time" plan, just like Obama is. What Magical Rescue do they expect on January 1st?

As Drew writes in the post below, only 5-15% of the tiny number of Obamacare enrollees have actually paid their first month's premium. That means the tiny number of these so-called "enrollees" overstates the number of people who have actually purchased insurance by a factor of around 10.

About 36,500 people, or thereabouts, will actually have insurance on January 1st.

Five million people have lost insurance due to Obamacare.

It is usually the case that putting off the realization of a setback results in the ultimate setback being even worse when it arrives. That seems very likely to be the case here.

In twenty days we're going to start seeing the use of the C-word -- Crisis. And this is a crisis of Obama's making, Obama, Reid, Pelosi. All of them. They took people's insurance away and in return gave them a non-functioning website that cost several billion dollars of taxpayer money.

Almost No One Is Buying Private Insurance Through ObamaCare Exchanges

—DrewM.

That's a slightly different take that the MSM's "OMG, OMG, ObamaCare Enrollments Surging" headlines but mine is more accurate.

Here's the bottom line.

Just about 1.2 million people have gained health coverage through Obamacare, according to new federal data released Wednesday morning. Approximately 365,000 of those people have purchased private insurance and 803,000 have been determined to be eligible for the public Medicaid program. These numbers count data from both October and November, and show an especially quick growth in HealthCare.gov enrollment.

A couple of things to give that some actual context.

1- At least 5 million people have lost coverage due to policies being cancelled thanks to ObamaCare. So that 365,000 number is insignificant compared to that. There will no doubt be more uninsured on January 1 than there were on October 1. Don't let them get away with pretending "1.2 million people who didn't have insurance have it now!".

Liberals will point to the new "enrollments" (and assume they will pay and become actual customers) while ignoring the previously uninsured who won't get coverage in time or be able to afford the new rates and deductibles.

The are simply redistributing health insurance from those who paid for it to those who didn't. This is a victory in their minds.

2. You can talk about all the "quick growth" from October to November all you want but it's still far, far below the original targets.

The 364,000 people who have signed up through the first two months still fall short of the administration's expectations for October alone. Another 3 million people would have to sign up this month alone in order to hit the initial year-end goal.

HHS had expected 3.3 million people to sign up by the end of December and 7 million by March 31, when the enrollment window closes. Although enrollment will surely miss the mark for this year, HHS officials said they remain confident they will reach their ultimate goal.

The administration and dead-enders in the media want to judge the numbers against the pathetic first month, not the original targets (which the actuarial numbers are based on).

There's no reason other than advocacy to grant this dispensation.

3. There's still no word on the demographic makeup of this new cohort. The death spiral is still very much in play.

Bottom line: The flacks and hacks will cheer but the reality of the numbers is disastrous.

Wednesday Morning News Dump

—BenK

• Those Unobtainable Invincibles
• Sebelius Demands Investigation Into Screwed Up Obamacare Website
• Detroit's Bankruptcy Ruling Doesn't Spare The Pensions
• Euphoria Of Obamacare Becomes Nightmare Of Higher Premiums And Deductibles
• Obamacare Hurts Obama In NBC Poll
• Selfie-Gate
• No, Conservatives Aren't Always On The Wrong Side Of History
• Paper Application Missing From Healthcare.gov
• Indian Court Reinstates Law Banning Gay Sex
• Uraguay Legalizes Marijuana
• Will Colorado Have Enough Pot Stores To Meet Demand?
• Don't Take Naked Pictures Of Yourself With Your Cell Phone

Sorry for the meager offerings, I have a lot of work to do this morning.

Tiny Munchkin wearing +10 cloak of invisibility gets locked in parked plane for hours.

—Purp

OK, I may have made up that part about the invisibility cloak, and the dude seems a bit larger than a Munchkin too.

A Louisiana man flying to California woke up on a dark, empty plane parked at Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston after sleeping through the call to exit the aircraft, officials said on Monday...

...Company policy requires the flight crew to do a final sweep of the cabin and the company was investigating how Wagner was left onboard, Harrison said...

Top Headline Comments 12-11-13

—Gabriel Malor

Happy Wednesday.

The Obama Admin used to say 7 million Obamacare sign-ups would mean success. Now they're saying they just made that number up . . . because there's no freakin' way they're getting to 7 million sign-ups.

New poll (PDF): most (54%) say Obamacare is having a negative impact on the country’s health care system.

[ RSS]

[iTunes]

Overnight Open Thread (12-10-2013)

—Maetenloch

So my work computer decided not to boot this morning which pretty much wasted the entire day and ultimately ensuckened the ONT. But hey it's not like you were really going to read it anyway so we'll just call it a push.

Are You Colorblind? 

Well it's time for the annual AoSHQ color blindness test so we can see what you can't see. It's not like we ever use this information for say embedding secret messages for the other morons on the web site. Because that would be um...wrong I guess.

Tell me what you see.

Can't see anything? Well there are some new fangled glasses for you people.

Okay you saw some things - now let's see how good your color acuity really is. Take the color sorting test here.

Time Desperately Tries to Make You Give a Shit About Unaccomplished Copyeditors Picking Their Favorite Person of the Year

—Ace

Embarrassing, as usual. Link to Althouse.

Here are the names picked by a dozen editors you couldn't pick out of a lineup:

Bashar Assad, President of Syria
Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder
Ted Cruz, Texas Senator
Miley Cyrus, Singer
Pope Francis, Leader of the Catholic Church
Barack Obama, President of the United States
Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services
Edward Snowden, N.S.A. Leaker
Edith Windsor, Gay rights activist

Ted Cruz is obviously there for Time's readers to hate at. Several names, such as Obama and Sebelius, and for that matter Miley Cyrus, I assume are either jokes, or Time's desperate efforts to attract differing cultish demographics -- tweener pop music fans, the declining ranks of the Obamanaut Zealots.

They will pick Pope Francis. This is for several reasons. First, and most importantly, it will sell magazines. The Pope is the head of a large church; I can't think of anyone else on earth who is popular and who heads such a large organization, so intimately important in the everyday lives of people.

Picking Pope Francis also allows Time to claim Serious You Guys We're Not Anti-Religion n Stuff.

Of course the reason they would entertain picking Pope Francis (and not Pope Benedict) is that they are anti-religious. I don't mean Pope Francis isn't religious. I mean Time's interest in Pope Francis is entirely political -- they seem him as an ally in their unending political fight with the Right.

Not saying he is that -- I'm saying how that's how the left perceives him. A Polite Company Pontiff, so to speak.

You want proof of that? Time today had to correct a caption it ran with picture of Pope Francis. The caption specified that he was popular because he rejected the teachings of the Church.

No, seriously. Here was Time's first attempt to summarize the importance of Pope Francis:

First Jesuit Pontiff won hearts and headlines with his common touch and rejection of church dogma and luxury.

Yes, the head of the Catholic Church is known for rejecting the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Serious You Guys, the Pope said we need free birth control n stuff.

The Left is repulsively political. On the podcast, I criticized Frank Rich and Jonathan Chait for praising 12 Years a Slave not primarily on artistic merit, but for what they believed to be the film's true importance, its usefulness in swaying the political debate.

Similarly, Pope Francis is not admired for his efforts to bring the Catholic faith to the world.

Time views him only in terms of his potential impact on American politics -- you know, the "social issues" that bewitch them so, and socialistic wealth redistribution.

So that's why they'll pick Francis.

And I'll be over here, not giving a shit, as I don't give a shit every year a collection of mediocrities buy themselves some brief prominence by filling up some TV time during a slow news month.

We're In the Very Best of Hands: Currently-Serving Democratic Congresswoman Does Not Seem to Understand What, or Where, Benghazi Is

—Ace

Wow.

Mark Steyn is aghast.

First, she has no idea what “Benghazi” is.

Then, pleading in mitigation that she’s there to talk about the Middle East, she reveals that she has no idea where Benghazi is.

Finally, when her constituents helpfully point out that Benghazi is in Libya, she turns to the side and gives that pitiful look that is the single thing I most loathe about American politics – the look a floundering empty suit gives to her minder when she needs him to come and rescue her. Which the minder immediately does.

This isn’t an especially partisan point, but I’m so weary of post-modern ventriloquist’s dummies who can’t be allowed near their constituents without the protection of a phalanx of aides. In this video, the voters are well-informed, but they have a low-information Congresswoman.

Wonk Gap, yo.

Paul Ryan, Patty Murray Announce Budget Deal; Sequester Out, Spending Up

—Ace

"Compromise."

They're announcing it now, live, on FoxNews (and I imagine a lot of other stations).

National Journal laid out the basics:

Budget negotiators were tantalizingly close Tuesday afternoon to reaching a two-year deal that would set annual spending levels around $1 trillion and replace some automatic spending cuts with non-tax revenue, according to aides and lawmakers familiar with the situation. s set to hold a press conference.

...

Even as a deal appears certain, significant hurdles remain to final passage. Some conservatives have recently voiced opposition to swapping out sequester cuts for "user fees," while liberals have criticized any deal that does not extend unemployment insurance or protect federal employees from paying more into their pensions.

As I understand it, the actual cuts of the sequester will be replaced by "future cuts," also known as "not cuts at all," and a host of new or increased taxes which aren't called taxes because they don't want to call them taxes.

Drew discussed the deal yesterday, or at least the hints that had been public as of yesterday.

It became clear months ago when the House only passed appropriation bills that increased spending and not the ones that actually cut spending that the fix was in.

And don't buy the nonsense about fees (aka "taxes") or higher pension contributions offsetting some of the spending. First, like almost all stopgap gimmicks they are...gimmicks. Second, in the case of higher pension contributions, that should happen even with the sequester in place to reduce costs, not to offset new ones.

The biggest problem with the "off-set" flimflam is that even if it helps offset hiking the budget and the debt, it does nothing to shrink the size and scope of government. I've said it before and I still mean it, I'd rather a federal budget that takes up 17-18% of GDP and was out of balanced than a budget that consumes 24% and is balanced. Size and scope of government matter more than perfectly balancing the books.

More Details: At the Washington Post.

Yes, you'll be paying more in "non-tax revenue," or, I call it, Ryan Taxes.

Sequester's out, and Ryan Taxes are in:

Those savings would be replaced by roughly $63 billion in other policies, including fee increases for airline travelers, cuts to federal-worker and military pensions and higher payments for federal insurance of private pensions, according to people familiar with the talks.

Ryan and Murray were rushing to file legislation before midnight so the House could vote as soon as Thursday and leave town for the year by the weekend. The Senate, which is scheduled to leave town next week, would vote thereafter.

The agreement would set the budget for the Pentagon and other federal agencies at $1.012 trillion for fiscal 2014 and $1.015 trillion for fiscal 2015, preventing a new $20 billion hit to defense spending from taking effect in January.

Domestic agencies would get a bump up of equal size, according to people familiar with the deal. The $63 billion pricetag would be covered with a mix of policies, roughly half spending cuts and half new non-tax revenues.

They've Rebooted Godzilla for Some Strange Reason

—Ace

Yeah, I was actually about to just do my typical "What are these assholes doing?" sort of post but then I watched the trailer.

Quinnipiac: Obama's Job Approval Drops to Fresh Low

—Ace

38%, with 57% (!!!) disapproving.

Among Independents, he's at... 30%.

Today, Obama gets negative scores of 6 - 92 percent among Republicans, 30 - 62 percent among independent voters, 31 - 64 percent among men, 44 - 49 percent among women and 29 - 65 among white voters. Approval is 76 - 18 percent among Democrats and 85 - 9 percent among black voters.

This, of course, has impacted the Generic Ballot:

American voters say 41 - 38 percent that they would vote for a Republican over a Democrat for the U.S. House of Representatives, the first time this year the Democrats come up on the short end of this generic ballot. Independent voters back Republican candidates 41 - 28 percent. Voters also say 47 - 42 percent that they would like to see Republicans gain control of the U.S. Senate and the House. Independent voters go Republican 50 - 35 percent for each.

On to the personal ratings:

President Obama is not honest and trustworthy, American voters say 52 - 44 percent and is not a strong leader, voters say 51 - 47 percent. Voters are divided 48 - 49 percent on whether Obama cares about their needs and problems.

As for the "good news" for Obama: the public disapproves of the job Republicans in Congress are doing by an even higher percentage, and the public feels, by a 2:1 ratio, that the minimum wage should be hiked.

You can tell they don't really care terribly much about these feelings based on their wish that Republicans recapture Congress. Yes, they're down on the GOP, and yes, they say the Nice Media-Approved Thing with regard to the minimum wage, but if this were driving their voting preferences it would, well, actually drive their voting preferences.

Thanks to @slublog, or, as I call him, The Hot Air Meatball.

Almost Three Quarters of All US Military Deaths in Afghanistan Have Occurred During The Presidency of Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barack Obama

—Ace

Because the media does not report on Afghanistan anymore -- much less report the Grim Milestones daily -- I believe that most of the American public believes the War in Afghanistan ended years ago. They don't remember precisely when it ended, but most probably think it did end.

It didn't end. Media coverage ended. The war stopped being newsworthy when it ceased being a useful political catspaw by which the media could agitate against a Republican Administration.

So even though three quarters -- 74%! -- of all US servicemen's deaths occurred under the leadership (and I use the term advisedly) of Barack Obama, the public still thinks that Bush, rather than Obama, is responsible for the deaths of our best and bravest.

Using the AP’s Afghanistan casualties database, Breitbart News calculated that between January 20, 2009, and the end of last month 1,595 U.S. soldiers lost their lives in the Afghanistan conflict. The total number of military deaths so far is 2,153.

That means that about 74 percent of all U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan have taken place under Obama’s watch. During the eight years of the previous administration there were only 558 fatalities, or about 26 percent of the deaths that have taken place from October 7, 2001, the start of the war, to November 30, 2013.

...

The information in the AP database is gleaned from AP news reports and confirmed by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

There is some good news:

This year is shaping up to have the lowest death tally of any during Obama’s presidency. The 110 fatalities reported so far in 2013 are similar in number to those reported in 2007. Then there were a total of 110 U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan, followed by 151 in 2008. Those were the two highest casualty counts under President Bush.

So a good year for Obama, in terms of casualties, was a bad year for Bush.

And yet the media no longer asks what we're doing in Afghanistan, or what the plan is, or what all this cost in American life is supposedly buying us. When now is precisely when they should be asking.

FAQ: If I, As a Good Jihadi, Wish to Smuggle Explosives In My Anus, Is It Permissible To Allow Other Jihadis to Sodomize Me Until My Anus Has Become Wider and More Suitable for Smuggling?

—Ace

Indeed! Not only is it permitted, it is encouraged.

This is actually an old story, dating from at least July of 2012. But I guess it's getting some new attention this slow-news week.

I don't know what exactly @benk84 was trying to find when this sexy little tidbit showed up in his search returns, and I'm not sure I want to. Let's just say it was a happy little accident.

Paul Krugman, The Wonk Gap, and The Eternal Church of the All-Seeing State

—Ace

A few days ago, Kevin Glass wrote a story about the alleged "Wonk Gap" at Meatball Central, aka The Federalist.

His basic observation is this: The Progressive Left likes to flatter itself as a Party of Experts, making rational, scientific decisions about policy without regard to politics or tribal loyalty.

As a hack at the Washington Monthly put it:

[T]he left has an equally lopsided advantage when it comes to a different type of pundit: wonks. The left’s wonk bench is both wide and deep. These folks are ideologically inclined, certainly, but are also dedicated to study, empirical analysis, and informed debate. They argue mostly through evidence-based reasoning, sometimes shot through with a bit of sarcasm or anger, but they’re uncomfortable with abject partisanship.

This is directly contrasted with the Unreasoning Right, a group which has precious few "wonks," low collective expertise, and, to fill in the significant gaps of their knowledge, examines every policy question through the prism of ideology.

Here's the problem: None of that is true. Because the Left's Wonks have an embarrassing tendency to completely ignore all of their previously stated Expert Opinion the moment a political actor, Barack Obama, tells them that the Left's political interests will be served by doing so.

What good is being a "wonk" if you're going to say "F*** You, Science" the moment the Democratic Party needs you to?

Ever since President Obama endorsed a federal minimum wage hike in his State of the Union speech, progressives have lined up in lockstep support. Economists, bloggers, tv hosts all have come out saying that a minimum wage hike is clearly the right move. You’d be forgiven if you thought that it’s been a very short while since the very existence of a minimum wage was considered controversial.

In the late 1980s, the New York Times advocated for an abolition of the minimum wage. With 25 more years of research, much of it showing that the minimum wage is an inefficient distortion of labor markets, the New York Times reversed position and advocated for a minimum wage hike to historic highs.

...

Even the Times’ progressive-and-proud columnist Paul Krugman has earlier had wise things to say about the minimum wage. In 1998, Krugman wrote:

So what are the effects of increasing minimum wages? Any Econ 101 student can tell you the answer: The higher wage reduces the quantity of labor demanded, and hence leads to unemployment. This theoretical prediction has, however, been hard to confirm with actual data. Indeed, much-cited studies by two well-regarded labor economists, David Card and Alan Krueger, find that where there have been more or less controlled experiments, for example when New Jersey raised minimum wages but Pennsylvania did not, the effects of the increase on employment have been negligible or even positive. Exactly what to make of this result is a source of great dispute. Card and Krueger offered some complex theoretical rationales, but most of their colleagues are unconvinced; the centrist view is probably that minimum wages “do,” in fact, reduce employment, but that the effects are small and swamped by other forces.

What is remarkable, however, is how this rather iffy result has been seized upon by some liberals as a rationale for making large minimum wage increases a core component of the liberal agenda–for arguing that living wages “can play an important role in reversing the 25-year decline in wages experienced by most working people in America” (as this book’s back cover has it). Clearly these advocates very much want to believe that the price of labor–unlike that of gasoline, or Manhattan apartments–can be set based on considerations of justice, not supply and demand, without unpleasant side effects. This will to believe is obvious in this book: The authors not only take the Card-Krueger results as gospel, but advance a number of other arguments that just do not hold up under examination.

...

This earlier version of Paul Krugman had the right idea, writing that what a large minimum wage hike “is really about is not living standards, or even economics, but morality.”

The New York Times’ view has changed. Paul Krugman’s view has changed. Jason Briggeman of George Mason University took a dive into why these elite progressives have changed their opinions on the minimum wage. None of the possible reasons speaks well to the elite progressives’ thinking.

Yes, the sudden reversal on the minimum wage by left-wing academics is so abrupt and startling that other academics are writing papers to try to explain the volte face.

...

The intertwining of the left-wing intelligentsia with the Democratic Party has compromised the ability of many of these writers to actually think critically....

The result of this bandwagon-circling around the inherent rightness of progressivism is a rejection of the traits that they’ve associated with “being a wonk.” [W]hen the leader of the Democratic Party takes a side on an issue that the wonks may feel conflicted about, they tend to fall in line. When the progressive wonkocracy is a key leg of the Democratic Party, though, they’ll discard dispassionate analysis for partisan hackery.

Scott Linciome also discovers other "experts" now claiming to be surprised by the perfectly obvious -- that insurance companies, whose products are now mandated to be purchased, should be set to reap record profits.

And Krugman, meanwhile, continues to discover that all of his previous expertise on matters economic has now been rendered moot by the new discoveries made in the field-- discoveries announced by non-economist Barack Obama in political speeches.

"Here's the world as many Republicans see it: Unemployment insurance, which generally pays eligible workers between 40 and 50 percent of their previous pay, reduces the incentive to search for a new job. As a result, the story goes, workers stay unemployed longer."--former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, New York Times, Dec. 9

"Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. . . . In other countries, particularly in Europe, benefits are more generous and last longer. The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker's incentive to quickly find a new job. Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of 'Eurosclerosis,' the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European countries."--"Macroeconomics" by Paul Krugman and Robin Wells, second edition, 2009

I should confess that Krugman does not explicitly endorse the "wide belief" that unemployment benefits cause longer-term unemployment in that quote. Nevertheless, just as he admitted the "centrist" view on the minimum wage is that it reduces employment by a small amount, here he confesses the "wide belief" of economists that longer-term and more generous unemployment benefits lead to, well, a more generous and longer-term spell of unemployment.

That belief is texbook-- literally. Krugman wrote about it in a macroeconomics textbook.

And yet, when he is in his firebreathing partisan loyalist mode -- a mode he has scarcely departed from lately -- he will instruct you that only stupid Republicans and non-wonks could possibly believe these silly little nostrums, and that no self-respecting Wonk could possibly credit them as true.

Waitress Who Wasn't Discriminated Against Because She's a Lesbian Now Discriminated Against Because She's a Liar

—Ace

Fired from the restaurant where she served as a waitress and moonlighted as a Hate Crime Hoaxer.

At the New York Post:

Dayna Morales, 22, was finally canned from Gallop Asian Bistro in Bridgewater — nearly a month after she made national headlines over what’s likely a hoax.

The restaurant announced her termination on Facebook Saturday shortly after it was revealed she was returning donations from supporters across the world.

Um... we'll see if that happens. Because the last thing she said would happen with the money, get this, didn't:

The purported incident created a media firestorm, with well-wishers sending Morales at least $3,000 in donations through a PayPal account. Morales claimed she’d send proceeds to the Wounded Warrior Project, but the group said it hasn’t received anything.

Some donors say they have gotten their money back. Here's hoping they all do.

Losing The Plot On Primaries

—DrewM.

News from the GOP Senate primary front:

Congressman Steve Stockman announces he will take on John Cornyn in Texas.

The Senate Conservative Fund endorses Milton Wolfe against Pat Roberts in Kansas.

Let's look at each of these in turn.

Cornyn is the GOP's number 2 guy in the Senate. That means the top leadership of the Senate is being primaried by reasonable, if not likely, candidates. That's not good from a party perspective. Even if Cornyn and Mitch McConnell win in walks they will spend a lot of money doing it and the party will be subject to a lot of "civil war" stories. No matter the outcome of the races, the GOP is not a healthy party.

Stockman filed at almost the last minute and has almost no money (he's got $32K compared to Cornyn's $7 million). The Senate Conservative Fund hasn't made a decision yet but the Club For Growth has said they are staying out.

Stockman is giving up a safe House seat to take on what's clearly going to be a longshot race. What is hoping to tap into?

'Roots in TX wonders why, when the state has their Senators' backs, would a Senator communicate and act like a Senator from a mod state.

— Melissa Clouthier (@MelissaTweets) December 10, 2013

There was a sense with KBH that she was representing DC's opinion to TX, not the other way around. Lots feel same way abt Cornyn.

— Melissa Clouthier (@MelissaTweets) December 10, 2013

Will it be enough?

People will point to the Cruz/Dewhurst race but there are some major differences.

That was a fight for an open seat, not with a long-term well connected DC incumbent. More importantly, there was a 3rd candidate who go ~13% of the vote keeping Dewhurst under 50% leading to the runoff which Cruz (like a lot of insurgents) won in a walk.

Stockman may not win but he's going to give Cornyn a headache.

The Roberts-Wolfe race is a total mystery to me.

According to Heritage Action's scorecard, Roberts is number 5 on their list of Senators with a 90% score (the same score as Stockman gets in the House).

What's the goal here?

Tuesday Morning News Dump

—BenK

• Republicans Should Reject Paul Ryan's Budget-Busting Abomination
• How The ATF Manufactures Crime
• US Sells Of Last Of GM Stock For 10.5 Billion Dollar Loss
• Steve Stockman Will Challenge John Cornyn For Texas's Other Senate Seat
• Alan Grayson Lost 18 Million Dollars In Fraud Scheme
• John Podesta To Join Obama White House
• Obama Shakes Hands With Cuban Dictator
• Boehner Files To Run Again In 2014
• Tarano: What's The Matter With Alabama
• Obamacare Could Force Volunteer Fire Departments To Close
• MSNBC's Alternative Universe
• Obama Turns To Populism To Boost His Second Term Agenda
• 28 Santa Monica Police Officers Made More Than 200k Last Year
• The New York Times' Homeless Hooey
• One In Five In US Reached Affluence
• Megyn Kelly Appears On Jay Leno
• Dan Rather Still Won't Give Up His Fake Story

Follow me on twitter.

Top Headline Comments 12-10-13

—Gabriel Malor

Happy Tuesday.

In Election 2014 news, Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor trails his GOP challenger Tom Cotton by 7 points. Obamacare gets a lot of the credit.

Rep. Steve Stockman surprised everyone yesterday with a surprise decision to challenge Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary. Stockman announced his candidacy in World Net Daily. He has $36,000 in the bank.

The NY Post editorial board responded to that NYTimes homelessness piece that got medium-sized buzz yesterday to call it hooey. A taste: "If the city is at fault here, it might well be for having been too generous — providing so much that neither the father nor mother seems much inclined to provide for their kids."

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ZeroHedge: dude, we are so so monstrously boned

—Purp

You are in a maze of twisty little passages all alike. Alas, they all lead to:

...Sadly, all of those "emergency measures" do not appear to have done much at all. The percentage of Americans that have a job has stayed remarkably flat since the end of 2009, median household income has fallen for five years in a row, and the rate of homeownership in the United States has fallen for eight years in a row. Anyone that claims that the U.S. economy is experiencing a "recovery" is simply not telling the truth. The following are 37 reasons why "the economic recovery of 2013" is a giant lie...

Even the left is starting to entertain the notion that things could burn, although their prescriptions are as likely to throw gas on the fire as douse it. David Simon (creator of The wire series) recently admitted as much. He used the term "the brick" for the burning times.

...So I don’t know what we do if we can’t actually control the representative government that we claim will manifest the popular will. Even if we all start having the same sentiments that I’m arguing for now, I’m not sure we can effect them any more in the same way that we could at the rise of the Great Depression, so maybe it will be the brick. But I hope not.

Overnight Open Thread (12-9-2013)

—Maetenloch

Milk - The Drink of Conquerors

Most mammals are unable to drink milk after weaning because their bodies stop producing the enzyme lactase which allows them to digest it. But humans are the exception - with most people producing at least some lactase as an adult. But the amount varies quite a bit across different groups as the map below shows.

Most human populations, however, have developed some degree of lactase persistence, enabling them to digest milk beyond the breast-feeding stage. It is estimated that 75% of the overall world population undergoes some decrease in lactase production, but that figure varies widely, in accordance with the genetic heritage of particular populations. Northern Europeans show only a 5% decrease in lactase production throughout their adult lives, whereas that figure is over 70% in Southern Europe. The fraction of adult lactose intolerance can be as high as 90% in some African and Asian countries.

This lactase persistence is due to a genetic mutation that appeared sometime after the last ice age as humans were switching from hunting-gathering to farming. In fact looking at the above map there are clearly several lactase-persistence hotspots and it's believed that multiple lactase-related mutations appeared independently and began to spread outward based on the advantage that a diet supplemented with milk and milk-products gave.

This map shows the lactase hotspots of the Old World [1], with the Lands of the Milk Drinkers marked in the darkest hues. There are four core areas with a population over 90% lactose-tolerant: western Africa (in an area roughly contingent with modern Mauritania), the middle part of the Arabian peninsula, the Indus estuary (in southern Pakistan) and the north west of Europe (including the British Isles, southern Scandinavia and the coastal areas of the continent, with one deep jut into central Europe). The layer-like distribution of consecutive zones of decreasing lactose tolerance seems to indicate that the Milk Drinkers, in each of these four zones, were able to progress deep into the territories of their lacteally challenged neighbours.

MNF Thread

—Dave In Texas

Dallas at Chicago. I keep getting drawn into this mediocre team in this mediocre division for, I don't know why.

Actually mediocre is kind isn't it? Washington and NY are just plain awful. Philadelphia doesn't impress much.

Heard a stat tonight: at this point in the season Tony Romo has 8 fewer interceptions than this time last year. 7 if you're countin.

Speaking of Chicago, yesterday in the snow games I sorta remembered this weird playoff game in Chicago on New Year's Eve in 1988 where around halftime a sunny day got covered up in an ice fog or something rolling in from Lake Michigan. It was funny to watch, they decided to play it out but nobody could see shit except right there on the field. The announcers couldn't see anything, the viewers couldn't see anything but it was kinda funny all the same. Clip below the fold.

Happy Monday morons.

Hersh: Obama distorted Syria sarin intel

—Purp

Shocker eh?

... A former senior intelligence official told me that the Obama administration had altered the available information – in terms of its timing and sequence – to enable the president and his advisers to make intelligence retrieved days after the attack look as if it had been picked up and analysed in real time, as the attack was happening...

...The same official said there was immense frustration inside the military and intelligence bureaucracy: ‘The guys are throwing their hands in the air and saying, “How can we help this guy” – Obama – “when he and his cronies in the White House make up the intelligence as they go along?”’...

Colin Powell: Damn, I Love Single-Payer So So Much

—Ace

Yeah whatever.

They will continue to call this guy a "Republican" forever, because that increases his cachet. Even though he's obviously a progressive Democrat.

Former Secretary of State and longtime Republican Colin Powell...

There ya go. Right from the jump.

... is calling for a universal health care solution in the U.S.

“We are a wealthy enough country with the capacity to make sure that every one of our fellow citizens has access to quality health care,” he said Thursday at a Seattle fundraiser for prostate cancer. “(Let’s show) the rest of the world what our democratic system is all about and how we take care of all of our citizens."

Powell took the opportunity to share some of his own experiences and to publicly call for a health care solution similar to those in Canada, Japan and other countries that have a universal, single-payer system.

...

“I am not an expert in health care, or Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, or however you choose to describe it, but I do know this: I have benefited from that kind of universal health care in my 55 years of public life,” Powell said. “And I don’t see why we can’t do what Europe is doing, what Canada is doing, what Korea is doing, what all these other places are doing.”

I really don't think that progressives and socialists like Colin Powell understand an important fact: The military doesn't provide troops with health care. Powell didn't use that word, but it gets thrown around a lot, and he's certainly talking about providing.

The military pays troops, partly with money, partly with health insurance.

No one the left seems to understand this crucial point. People aren't being "provided" something, gratis. It is payment in lieu of wages.

The Government Is A Good Provider: The word "provide," it occurs to me, is most often used in relation to a father providing for his children, or a husband providing for his life. Or even God providing for his believers.

It's a very paternalistic word, suggestive of a Benevolent Protector giving people stuff.

It doesn't belong in this debate. Employers don't provide workers with paychecks; they pay them money to work.

South Carolina Will Soon Pass Law Purporting to Outlaw Obamacare In the State

—Ace

I say "purporting" because I don't believe any Court will agree that individual States may void federal law at will. The sorts of things South Carolina are claiming now are the same sorts of things they claimed in 1861-- and Courts have of course been hostile towards the idea that state law can trump federal law.

It will, however, spark a fresh round of litigation. Which may be what is necessary.

The bill’s main component prohibits agencies, officers and employees of the state of South Carolina from implementing any provisions of the Affordable Care Act, leaving implementation of the national health-care law entirely in the hands of a federal government that lacks the resources or personnel to carry out the programs it mandates.

I don't believe that's remotely true, that the government lacks the federal officials necessary to, say, issue mandates to local insurers as to what they must offer and take them to court for non-compliance.

Additional provisions of H3101 further neuter the Affordable Care Act by outlawing state exchanges, issuing tax deductions to individuals equal to the tax penalties levied by the federal government, and directing the state attorney general to sue over whimsical enforcement of the law.

I don't think any of this will hold up except for that last part.

Obama is arrogating to himself the powers of the Legislature. This is unconstitutional -- dangerously so.

But there are two practical reasons this point has not been pressed:

1. Courts routinely claim that most persons lack "standing" to pursue a particular claim. The rule of standing means that the average person cannot challenge government lawbreaking unless that person has suffered a particular, individual harm making him especially motivated to press the suit vigorously. Courts routinely find that citizens cannot complain about the general effects of laws: they must be specifically, individually, especially harmed by the law to have standing, and most courts use this to avoid entering political disputes, claiming, essentially, no one has standing to challenge the government.

A lawsuit directed to be filed by this law cannot be so easily dismissed. Now we'd have a state, not a citizen, making the claim about Obama's lawlessness, and a court would be much more likely to find that a state has standing.

2. The other thing keeping a lawsuit being filed against Obama's "whimsical" application of the law is simple: Which Republicans want to be the ones go on the record saying that Obama is required to inflict Obamacare on employers now rather than after the midterms? Which Republicans want to sue to make Obama keep old insurance plans illegal?

Republicans who want to win elections can't really agitate for Strict Enforcement of Obamacare, because Obamacare is so awful.

But in this case, South Carolina's state legislators are stepping up to the plate and taking that political hit: They are directing their AG to sue for the proposition that the law must either be enforced as written or not enforced at all.

I like that part of the law.

But this is going to take a very long time to resolve. The trouble with South Carolina's suit, I imagine, is that by the time the courts even begin looking at it, it will be moot. Obamacare will, likely, be fully enforced in three years.

But what if Obama is still playing games with exactly what parts of the law are in effect this week?

Charlie Cook: This is One of the Most Dramatic Shifts on the Generic Ballot Question I've Ever Seen

—Ace

At Hot Air.

The Democratic numbers from the generic-ballot test dropped from 45 percent to 37 percent, and Republicans moved up to 40 percent. This 10-point net shift from a Democratic advantage of 7 points to a GOP edge of 3 points in just over a month is breathtaking, perhaps an unprecedented swing in such a short period. Occurring around Election Day, such a shift would probably amount to the difference between Democrats picking up at least 10 House seats, possibly even the 17 needed for a majority, and instead losing a half-dozen or so seats.

Look, I have to apologize. This was a post in draft from Friday. I am just not seeing any news I want to write about. It's a slow news day, which is something that I should just deal with (and post what there is of the slow news), but I keep looking for better and I'm not coming up with much.

So, for now, Open Thread.

Obama's Blather About Income Inequality Is Just His Most Recent MacGuffin

—Ace

On Friday I wrote about the MacGuffinization of American politics, a state in which the things we talk about in the national conversation, and pretend to be important, are not at all important to those pushing them upon us (the Left). Like a MacGuffin in a movie, these things are merely plot devices to motivate an audience's interest in the Hero -- Barack Obama, of course.

Mickey Kaus talks about this a little in discussing Obama's latest distraction, income inequality.

4 Things the MSM Won’t Tell You About Obama’s Inequality Speech:

Now that the excitement has died down You have to admire President Obama for choosing to give a speech declaring that the fight against “growing inequality”–specifically economic inequality–is “the defining challenge of our time” and the “focus” of “all our efforts”–given that:

a. Five years into his presidency he so far hasn’t done anything to stop growing income inequality–the problem has gotten worse on his watch.

b. He doesn’t have any proposals (“It’s time to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act”) that come close to solving the problem as he defines it.

c. His one big previous initiative to reduce inequality–the Affordable Care Act–may now be hopelessly screwed up due to his own inattention and non-competence.

d. His remaining big domestic initiative–”comprehensive” immigration reform–would almost certainly make inequality worse by vastly increasing the number of unskilled workers bidding down wages at the bottom of the income scale, with the profits from the cheap labor going to business owners at the top.

Kaus observes that income inequality is the perfect MacGuffin for a long-running melodramatic serial: Because it's a MacGuffin that can never actually be attained.

Greater income equality–quintile shares, Gini coefficients and the rest–is the Great MacGuffin of the Democratic base. It’s a goal they will never reach. Deep down they know they will never reach it. But that doesn’t matter because the goal itself holds their coalition together and gives them a reason to go on.

So the audience will just have to keep coming back, week after week, to be eternally teased that satisfaction is finally at hand, only to discover, once again, that the Cigarette Smoking Man's identity has once again been obscured.

Best Knockout Game Resolution You'll See

—Ace

The victim -- a woman -- beats the shit out of her attacker.

I say that this is the "best" resolution because it involves so much humiliation and in-kind retribution.

But if you're looking for more stringent retributions, some time ago a kid playing the Knockout Game (using a stungun rather than a fist) Tasered the wrong fella, and got himself shot twice.

The punk lived and appears to have suffered no permanent damage whatsoever.

Filthy Bob Filner Sentenced to Three Months of House Arrest and Three Years Probation

—Ace

He'll spend the next three months groping himself.

AP doesn't mention Filner's partisan affiliation until the very last paragraph:

Filner was elected San Diego’s first Democratic mayor in 20 years, promising to put neglected neighborhoods ahead of entrenched downtown business interests. Two city councilmen seeking to replace him in a special election runoff — Republican Kevin Faulconer and Democrat David Alvarez — have embraced Filner’s neighborhoods-first mantra while scarcely mentioning the former mayor by name.

That's a New York Daily News version of the AP story. To make sure NYDN didn't edit out an earlier mention of Filner's party affiliation from the original story AP filed, I checked the version of the story in Politico: It appears to be the exact same story.

Not only does AP withhold from the reader that Filner is a Democrat until the very last paragraph, they completely withhold the fact that Filner was a Congressman serving in Washington, DC, for twenty years, and that many of these incidents of harassment occurred during his Congressional service. The way AP writes the story, it is suggested that Filner was nothing but a purely local politician -- Local Crime Story, yo -- who only rose to some kind of minor prominence this past January, when he began serving as a mayor in an out-of-the-way little backwater.

As far as the slap-on-the-wrist nature of the sentencing: I don't know if this is really a slap-on-the-wrist. I'm not sure people serve hard time, or should serve hard time, for this kind of thing.

Thanks to @rdbrewer4.

The Secret Truth at the Heart of the Male-Female Dynamic

—Ace

Via @benk84's news dump, just a wonderful video of straightforward-thinking, low-drama dogs, terrorized by emotionally-volatile cats who pretend to be "Just Fine" but who actually aren't fine at all.

If you watch through to the end, you'll see the poor dogs -- reasonable, agreeable creatures who just want to live life without any problems -- are well-justified in fearing the cats.

When Obama Claimed He Was "Outraged" By IRS Targeting Scandal, He Was, Get This, Lying

—Ace

Friday night, Mary Katharine Ham traced Obama's "evolution" of mind vis-à-vis the IRS targeting scandal. (Note: A video autoplays when you hit the link, but it's still worth going over there.)

Using Obama's public statements, she tracks Obama going through his typical okey-doke:

First, he claims to be outraged, and filled with steely determination to get down to the facts of the matter.

Second, he began suggesting, without actually stating, that the IRS scandal was a phony scandal and a distraction:

For most of this year, we’ve seen an endless parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals and we keep on shifting our way — shifting our attention away from what we should be focused on, which is how do we strengthen the middle class and grow the economy for everybody?

Finally, during the Matthews interview, he made it explicit that he thought people who were "outraged" by this were rather silly creatures.

No word on whether he finds himself silly, for being "outraged" so many months (um, six months) ago.

OBAMA: That’s not — that’s not something that’s reported about. If, on the other hand, you’ve got an office in Cincinnati, in the IRS office that — I think, for bureaucratic reasons, is trying to streamline what is a difficult law to interpret about whether a nonprofit is actually a political organization, deserves a tax exempt agency. And they’ve got a list, and suddenly everybody’s outraged.

MATTHEWS: 501(c)(4) is tricky to begin with, how to define it.

OBAMA: To begin with.

The president even appeared annoyed that liberal commentators once dared to challenge him on the point:

OBAMA: And by the way, Chris, I’ll point out that there are some so-called progressives and, you know, perceived to be liberal commentators who during that week were just as outraged at the possibility that these folks, you know, had — had been, you know, at the direction of — the Democratic Party, in some way — discriminated against these folks.

Why the shift? As we keep noticing, Obama only cares about the next news cycle. He says what he has to say to get on the news for the next news cycle. He wants to be seen saying the right things for that news cycle. Then, when interest dies down a bit, he attempts a new tack.

But he never gets called on how his Early News Cycle Management Bullshit is wholly contradictory to his Slightly Later News Cycle Management Bullshit. The media never asks him What new information was presented to you to change your opinion on the IRS scandal from "outrageous" to "phony scandal"?

Was it high-ranking partisan IRS official Lois Lerner repeatedly invoking the Fifth Amendment to avoid confessing a criminal act in a Congressional hearing?

Was it learning that a White House lawyer, William Wilkins, coordinated directly with the self-avowedly-at-criminal-risk Lois Lerner, and then testified 80 times that he couldn't remember key details about communications with the Treasury Department about the scandal?

These facts would suggest any evolution should move in the opposite direction -- from outrage to even more outraged.

Instead, when Obama learns that his high-ranking ministers are invoking the Fifth Amendment and clamming up like mobsters, he becomes less outraged, and, apparently, begins to think this is all a "distraction."

The Washington Times' Joe Curl is noticing this odd evolution as well-- and Obama's bizarre claim that the entire scandal was invented by the media in order to punish a President they're hostile towards.

But President Obama, in an interview last week with sycophant Chris Matthews, now says the entire scandal was made up by the media.

“When we do things right, they don’t get a lot of attention,” the president said, no doubt sending a thrill up the MSNBC host’s leg. “If we do something that is perceived at least initially as a screw-up, it will be on the nightly news for a week.”
Like, say, deploying the nation’s tax watchdog to target political opponents? Just a “screw-up.”

You bet. Manufactured in the media.

In the Curious World of Barack Obama, a hostile media makes up lies about him to make him look bad.

Report: Paul Ryan Ready To Cut A Budget Deal That Breaks The Sequester

—DrewM.

Surely you're not surprised that the GOP really isn't committed to cutting spending are your? If so, I've got a bridge to sell you so leave your email address in the comments.

With lawmakers due back in town Tuesday, aides said [House Budget Committee Chairman Paul] Ryan and [Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman] Murray are likely to bypass the committee and take the deal, if finalized, straight to the full House and Senate. Congressional leaders hope to finish work quickly and leave town for the holidays as soon as Friday.

Senior aides familiar with the talks say the emerging agreement aims to partially repeal the sequester and raise agency spending to roughly $1.015 trillion in fiscal 2014 and 2015. That would bring agency budgets up to the target already in place for fiscal 2016. To cover the cost, Ryan and Murray are haggling over roughly $65 billion in alternative policies, including cuts to federal worker pensions and higher security fees for the nation’s airline passengers.

Republican leaders are also seeking additional savings to knock a small dent in deficits projected to exceed $6 trillion over the next decade. But the deal would do nothing to trim the debt, which is now larger, as a percentage of the economy, than at any point in U.S. history except during World War II.

It became clear months ago when the House only passed appropriation bills that increased spending and not the ones that actually cut spending that the fix was in.

And don't buy the nonsense about fees (aka "taxes") or higher pension contributions offsetting some of the spending. First, like almost all stopgap gimmicks they are...gimmicks. Second, in the case of higher pension contributions, that should happen even with the sequester in place to reduce costs, not to offset new ones.

The biggest problem with the "off-set" flimflam is that even if it helps offset hiking the budget and the debt, it does nothing to shrink the size and scope of government. I've said it before and I still mean it, I'd rather a federal budget that takes up 17-18% of GDP and was out of balanced than a budget that consumes 24% and is balanced. Size and scope of government matter more than perfectly balancing the books.

Oh and when Team GOP types say, "well, we told you this would happen because you pushed the shutdown" ask them what in the world prevented the House from passing a "clean CR" that kept the sequester intact? If they answer anything other than "Um, nothing", they are lying.

Keep this betrayal in mind (and it will be a betrayal because you can bet Boehner's going to need Democrats to make this work) when Team GOP says "stop primarying Republicans and focus on Democrats!".

Until Republicans stop kicking conservatives in the shins, I'm all for conservatives kicking Republicans in the balls.

But hey, cheer up! Sure the GOP is going to sell you out on spending but they'll give you amnesty later in the year as a makeup present.

Feel better?

Monday Morning News Dump

—BenK

• If You Like Your Doctor, You Can Pay More For Your Doctor
• Gun-Rights Battle Could Backfire On Town Leaders
• New Affordable US Health Plans Will Exclude Top Hospitals
• The Minimum Wage And The Rise Of The Machines
• Technical Problems, Discord Plagued Maryland Health Exchange
• George Will: "The Education Of This President Is A Protracted And Amusing Process"
• The End Of History Ends
• Taranto: An Education In College Justice
• The Great Ukrainian Knife Fight
• The True Cost Of A Higher Minimum Wage
• The Importance Of Self-Limited Government
• Protestors In Ukraine Knock Down Statue Of Lenin
• Need Another Reason To Hate The ATF?
• WW2 Vet Bumped From Flight To Pearl Harbor Ceremony
• Obama Urges Kids To Study Computer Science, So That One Day They May Fix Healthcare.gov
• Man Calls In Bomb Threat To Get Friend Off Work
• The Tea Party Should Be Doing More Of This Type Of Thing
• Marijuana Set To Become Legal In Washington And Colorado As Of January 1st
• Funny Video Of Dogs Afraid To Walk By Cats

Top Headline Comments 12-9-13

—Gabriel Malor

Happy Monday.

The agency that should be abolished told Congress last year that the case of a field office using mentally disabled teens in a failed sting operation and then arresting them for their participation was "an isolated case of inadequate supervision." It wasn't.

Covered California, the state's Obamacare exchange, gave consumers' personal information to insurance agents even though the consumers opted out of such information sharing. It was for their own good, you see: "I can imagine some people may be upset. . . . But I can see a lot of people will be comforted and relieved at getting the help they need to navigate a confusing process."

Oh, and the Obama administration no longer wants you to use paper forms to try and sign up for Obamacare. There isn't time enough to process them before the deadline.

Yet another state Obamacare exchange confesses it's having the same problems as the federal exchange website.

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Overnight Open Thread (12-8-2013)

—Maetenloch

Even Obama Can't Violate Fundamental Laws of Politics

There is an ironclad law of redistributive politics at play in the ACA (ObamaCare) fiasco.

This law is that concentrated interests almost always conquer diffuse interests.  Milk producers are a concentrated interest.  Milk consumers are a diffuse interest.  Guess which group is favored by the long history of milk price supports?  Dairy farmers get fat checks.  School teachers and plumbers and accountants pay more for milk.

One corollary to this law is that legislators try to create concentrated benefits and diffuse costs by separating the funding mechanism (taxes on all) from the supply of benefits (a local interest). Perhaps your community benefits from a community center, educational program, or a resurfaced highway.  Those projects almost always fail a simple cost-benefit test because if they made sense for local communities to do, they would just do them.  If they don't, they seek assistance from their representatives in Congress.

...Vulnerable Democrats in Congress are starting to panic because they are seeing the consequences of violating the law of diffuse and concentrated interests.  Those insurance cancellation letters and the higher prices faced by a portion of those shopping on the exchange are a small portion of the population (probably less than one percent), but they are highly concentrated, not to mention vocal.

Yep signs like this are a sign of a major politics FAIL:

Spaced-Out Challenge: Orion The Hunter

—CAC

[We Politely Request That All Off-Topic or Political Comments Be Directed to the Thread Directly Below This One, Which Will Serve Officially as the Current "Active Conversation" Thread for All Discussions Not Related To This Topic.

-- Sincerely, the Fascist MGMT]

Welcome again to the Spaced-Out Challenge. Whether you have a question about a scope, a new astronomical discovery you want to expand on, or just want to kick back and enjoy the cosmos above, come one come all on our weekly journey through space and time.

This week, we kick off our comprehensive guide to the Winter sky with arguably the greatest constellation, Orion the Hunter. His seven brightest stars are resistant to the worst light pollution imaginable, and he contains too many wonders to count, but we'll try. Let me show you.

WARNING: slight blowout of margins for detailed map below.

The Myth of Orion
Dominating the nights of Winter, we get our first peak of him in late summer mornings, rising in the East only after Scorpius has set in the West. The ancient Greeks had a dramatic explanation for this seasonal alternation of great constellations, summarized best by Stoney Brook University astronomer Frederick Walker:

Orion was a skilled hunter. He was also boastful, asserting that no animal alive could harm him. Juno, wife of Jupiter, disliked mortal men, especially boastful men, so she decided to teach Orion a lesson. She placed a scorpion on the path that Orion took daily to his hunting grounds. As you might expect, Orion trod upon the scorpion, which stung and killed him. But the story does not end here, for the gods were continuously quarreling among themselves. Diana, goddess of the moon and the hunt, fancied Orion, the greatest mortal hunter. They had often hunted together at night, neglecting her lunar duties (hence the dark nights near the new moon). She insisted that his likeness be memorialized in the sky, with his hunting dogs (Canis Major and Minor) at his feet, where all could see it and remember his prowess. This did not please Juno, who insisted upon similar treatment for the Scorpion. Was it not a mightier hunter to slay the great Orion? Jupiter agreed to similarly honor the Scorpion, but in one of his wisest decisions placed the two constellations on opposite sides of the celestial sphere, where they cannot bother each other. Even today, one does not see both together in the night sky.

Frankly, Juno's full of it: Orion is the superior hunter. At least Orion tried to chase after the seven nymphs, the Pleiades, post-mortum, and Zeus had to throw a monstrous bull in the sky to blunt his appetite. Plus he has his pack of dogs. He's got a crew. Scorpius just sits there, overwhelmed by the milk of Hera's breasts, with Sagittarius' arrow trained at his heart in case he tries anything funny. But most important, Orion brings it when it comes to deep sky objects.

Navigating around The Hunter

Rogelio Bernal Andreo's Orion, From Head to Toes

Without question, Andreo's famous photograph is unmatched in capturing the awesomeness of the treasures within this dominating constellation. The camera is thousands of times more sensitive than the human eye, yet amateur optics and filters have leveled the playing field.

The first shape that jumps out at the observer is the bright belt mid-constellation, surrounded by four bright stars north (Betelgeuse and Bellatrix) and south (Saiph and Rigel). Due south of this belt, the bright star Na'ir al Saif (Arabic for "the bright one in the sword), the Great Nebula, and it's most recent offspring form the long sword. From a dark sky site, the nebulosity, clusters, and newborn stars here stretch close to the Hunter's knees (Saiph and Rigel).
Beyond the Hunter's core, his head is marked by a triangle of slightly dimmer Meissa and a loose cluster of stars beneath; his raised arm and club can be traced from Betelgeuse up to Mu Orionis and arcing through the club shape to x1 and x2; and his shield (or, as some depict, his lion skin) stretches outward from Bellatrix.
You don't need to memorize the names or exact locations of all of these stars. But familiarizing yourself with the general shape, and referencing this chart, will put over two dozen glorious sights within easy reach.

Recommended for your journey

At minimum, a pair of binoculars will reveal several open clusters and the Great Nebula. At maximum, an amateur telescope will reveal everything listed here from a dark sky. The beauty about Orion is that it can be enjoyed from any sky: you don't have to go out into the boonies. A truly dark sky is required to reveal fainter targets like Barnard's Loop, the Meissa nebula, and the Horsehead; and will greatly enhance the views of many of the other targets listed, but just a trek to your backyard will reward you.
If you are going to go after the harder targets, visit Ace's Amazon store and purchase an H-Beta filter (I recommend a 2").

The Journey Begins: From Orion's Club to Betelgeuse

The Monkey-Face Nebula

Image from Astrobin

Just a degree slightly NW of x1, far up in Orion's club, lies the oddly-named but beautiful emission nebula NGC 2174. Situated in a rich field of stars, it appears about a fifth of a degree across and nearly perfectly circular. A seventh magnitude star appears to shine right in it's center, but it is superimposed. Try hunting it down with an O-III from a suburban site. It is the most interesting feature within the club.

The 37 Cluster

Image by Noel Carboni
NGC2169 isn't a remarkably bright star cluster, but its shape certainly is. In either large binoculars or a small telescope, this clump of stars, visible to the naked eye as a smudge from a dark site, seems to form it's namesake. Look for it just a degree SW of Xi Orion.

Abell 12: impossibly easy and easily impossible

Image by Skyhound

Abell 12 is frustratingly close to Mu Orionis, just 3 degrees north of the blazing supergiant Betelgeuse. However, an Oxygen III filter and medium power dims the stars and reveals the round disk of this planetary nebula. Higher power reveals some structure in the expanding dust cloud of this dead star. I'd recommend at least a telescope of 4" of aperture.

Betelgeuse: Doomed to go Boom

Image by Yuuji Kitahara

Incorrectly marked as the brightest star in the constellation for centuries, this bright red-orange variable is my wife's favorite, and every clear night in winter she jokes "well Betelgeuse is still there." There's a good reason for that: Betelgeuse is a red supergiant that has already exhausted it's lighter elements, and with it's incredible mass, it is racing towards supernova sometime within the next 100,000 years. Consider: while most things in the cosmos exist on a timescale utterly dwarfing our existence, many of the stars within orion have ignited, burned, and detonated within the last four million years. The bigger they are, the faster they burn, and Betelgeuse is a giant: it's outer atmosphere would envelop Jupiter if it were placed in the center of our solar system. Enjoy it while you can.

Orion's Belt: Doubles, Nebula, and and a Horsehead Bookend
The Stars of the Belt

Belt Stars of Orion by Martin Mutti

Alnitak, a brilliant double
The easternmost star in the belt, Alnitak is a challenging but rewarding double star: a bright blue primary with a close, dimmer white one.

Alnilam, a doomed one
Alnilam, the middle star, is the fourth brightest in the entire constellation, becoming the third when Betelgeuse explodes. But that title will be short lived: Alnilam is losing mass rapidly and it's internal supply of hydrogen is running low. Within a million years or less, it will balloon into a red supergiant, far brighter than Betelgeuse is now, and detonate in a supernova. Many of the stars of Orion shine brightly but at a great cost: they live fast, and die young.

Mintaka, another brilliant double
The closest bright star to the celestial equator, it rises and sets near exactly east and west. Mintaka is a multiple star system, the two brightest members of which can be split easily in a small telescope, revealing a bright white main star and a fainter blue component, the inverse of Alnitak.

The belt region itself contains a loose cluster of stars that makes for a wondrous sight in binoculars. But most astrophotographers and determined visual observers focus on one region of the belt in particular: the environs of Alnitak.

Nebula, Nebula, and More Nebula Around Alnitak

The Flame, IC 434, Horsehead and NGC 2023 by Walter Koprolin
The brightness of Alnitak is a boon and a pain for visual observers: a boon because it serves as a great starting point for locating dim but exciting nebulae, and a pain because it's light obscures these targets. I recommend keeping one eye eye-patched and dark-adapted as you start hunting these next treasures down, and use it only when you have moved the bright star out of view.

The Flame Nebula
NGC2024 is a bright emission nebula dimmed by it's proximity to Altinak. Center your eyepiece on Altinak, then edge your telescope westward. Crank your magnification up to around 100x to remove the star out of your view, insert a nebula filter behind your eyepiece (I recommend an O-III), and switch eyes. At first, you'll notice a U shaped mass with square edges, but as your dark-adapted eye relaxes and explores, you'll begin to notice the complexity around the edges, and the flames that give this nebula it's name. If you can't spot the nebula, don't bother proceeding to the next three, but if your sky is clear and steady and this mottled nebulosity is obvious, continue onwards.

NGC2023
The next nebula we will explore in this region is NGC2023. It's name isn't the most romantic, but the view on a crisp night with good optics certainly is: a mottled emission nebula just half-a-degree to the Flame's south. If you can catch it easily, then you have the perfect moment to attempt the holiest of holies for amateurs in Orion: spotting the Horsehead.

The Horsehead Nebula (B33) and IC 434
After you've enjoyed the Flame and eyeballed 2023, you're ready to try to spot the Horsehead. Made of the same structure as the famed Pillars of Creation, it is a dark nebula of cold gas whose shape is revealed by the brighter emission nebula IC434 behind it. IC434 stretches well over a degree south from Altinak, and is best revealed using a H-beta filter. After popping in the filter, which will greatly dim the far brighter stars, allow your eyes to adapt to the view in your eyepiece, crank the power up, and start tracing the length of the nebula. If the night is perfect, you'll notice a notch either directly or with averted vision- the Horsehead. The more aperture your scope has, the easier it is to see, but dark skies and a stable atmosphere are more important than carrying around a monster scope. For more tips on hunting it down, these three threads from CloudyNights outline the strategy and success of amateurs, some using equipment as small as an 80mm refractor.

More Doubles in the Belt
Eta Orionis: a rewarding challenge
With just 2" of seperation between the yellow primary and beautiful blue secondary, it can be a bit of a challenge to split in smaller telescopes, but the color difference is beautiful. Photographs like the above fail to really capture it: this is one for your eyes only. It is the brightest star between Mintaka and Rigel.

Sigma Orionis: Quite a Quadruplet
At least three of the four stars in this system are visible in small telescopes, and if you're armed with a moderate-sized dobsonian, all four pop into place. The brightest star in the system is itself a double, but one too close together to split, shining white. A fainter bluer star, a closer, fainter reddish one, and another fainter white one round the system out. A beautiful target when the moon makes nebula observing impossible.

M78, the "Headlights in Fog" Nebula

Image by NOAO/AURA/NSF
When you have astrophoto eye candy like the Horsehead, and the visual blowout that is the Great Nebula, it's easy to ignore M78, a bright emission nebula that is beautiful in it's own right. Finding M78 is a bit tricky not due to a lack of brightness but it's size:much smaller than the nebula complex around Alnitak and a mere fraction of M42. I found the best way to catch this small wonder is to start at Eta Orionis, and trace a line through Alnilam onto the nebula. Alnilam is almost exactly halfway between M78 and Eta. For those living in more urban zones, start at the bright star Alnitak, and drift just a few degrees to the north at low power, looking for two stars with a fuzzy appearance. At higher power, the nebula resembles a pair of headlights in fog, and in larger aperture telescopes, a second reflection nebula appears nearby.

Odds and Ends
Meissa

A beautiful double star marks the brightest of a cluster indicating Orion's head. The double makes for a great telescope target, the cluster a great binocular one, and the region as a whole has recently gotten the attention of amateurs. In the Head to Toes photo, do you notice the round puffy red cloud of nebulosity surrounding Meissa? Turns out it is actually visible (minus the color) from a dark sky site!
Grab your H-beta filter, and hold it up to your eye as you gaze at Meissa. Depending on the quality of the sky when observing, you will pick up anything from a faint halo of gas to a more nebulous ovoid as you wander back and forth across the head. A caveat: a light-pollution-free sky is a requirement to pull this off.

w Orionis: a carbon star

Image by SLOOH

Return to the large map of Orion. Using it as a guide, arc through the various Pi stars in his shield, all the way down to faint Pi 6. Slightly more than the same distance between Pi 5 and Pi 6 down and away from Pi 6 lies w Orionis, a variable carbon star with an impressive rust color. From dark skies, a simple pair of binoculars reveals the color, but if it is at it's dimmest point, a telescope will be required.

Bernard's Loop

Image by Daniel McCauley
The largest feature of Orion is arguably the hardest to see visually- unless you have an H-beta filter. Bernard's Loop takes it's name from its astrophotographer discoverer E. E. Barnard, who discovered it in 1894. This massive expanse of ionized gas is believed to have origniated in a supernova explosion just two million years ago.
Due northeast of Alnitak is the reflection nebula M78 discussed earlier. But just a fraction of a degree away from it lies the faint open cluster NGC 2112. Look for this loose collection of stars in binoculars, then use the same trick applied for teasing out the Meissa nebulosity, holding the filter to your eye. the brightest part of the loop is closest to the open cluster.
A wide-field eyepiece at low power, filter applied, also reveals some of this massive structure. Amateurs have claimed to race nearly the entirety of the loop once thought only visible in photographs. Ty it out yourself, and see if you can claim the same.

Rigel

The brightest star in Orion, Rigel is actually a very close double- the super bright primary star shines blue, while a much fainter, white companion shines closeby. The tightness is so great the secondary often gets drowned out in the diffraction spikes emanating from Rigel in many dobsonians, but it is a rewarding and beautiful challenge nevertheless.

The Main Event: Orion's Sword
The brightest nebula in the northern sky, and it's progeny, form Orion's bright sword. While everything we have discussed thus far has been great for visual observers, this small patch of sky is the heart of the constellation. Ranging from the easy to the challenging, the objects within will keep you hunting and exploring until your hands are frozen solid these long winter nights.

NGC 1981: the "M" Cluster

Image by Tenho Tuomi
Near the top of the sword is the small but bright M shaped cluster NGC 1981. Best viewed in binoculars or a telescope at low power, these are some of the youngest to have left the greater Orion Molecular Cloud Complex.

The Running Man Nebula (NGC 1973,1975,1977)

image by Tenho Tuomi
Actually three separate nebulae and a small star cluster, in low-power and with an O-III filter, the excitement really begins in the sword with the Running Man. Darker skies enhance the view and reveal the namesake.

DeMarian's Nebula (M43)

Image by NOAO
Separated from the main Great Nebula by a darkened mass of Hydrogen, DeMarian's is a region of excitement in it's own right: star formation has been observed within in as close to real time as astronomy could allow. Use an O-III or UHC filter to bring out the finer details within.

NGC 1980, Na'ir al Saif & Struve 747

Image by Tenho Tuomi
A smaller region of nebulosity due south of the Great Nebula, NGC 1980 is partially illuminated by several bright double stars embedded within: Na'ir al Saif, the brightest star in the sword, is actually a colorful triplet, featuring a bright blue primary star and two slightly dimmer white ones. Struve 747 is a fainter but wider double to it's east. An O-III filter helps to bring out the nebulosity in more light-polluted areas.

NGC 1999, the V380 Nebula

Image by Tenho Tuomi
NGC1999 is a reflection nebula illuminated by variable star V380. The beautiful Bok Globule that marks the nebula with it's distinctive keyhole requires dark skies to see and cranking your magnification up to 11 (past 250x will begin to hint it, 300x and the shape becomes obvious). Look for a fuzzy 10th magnitude star south of NGC 1980, and crank it up from there.

The Greatest Nebula: M42

Comparison sketches from (R-L) inner city, suburban, and dark skies of the Orion Nebula by the unsurpassed artist Mark Seibold

The Great Nebula in Orion has been photographed more than any other deep sky object, and it's not hard to see why: bright, expansive, and colorful, it has been observed for over four hundred years yet reveals surprises at a constant pace. The beautiful Trapezium stars, which illuminate much of the nebula, are found at it's heart. This quadruplet actually has two fainter members that can be picked out with larger telescopes, and was first documented by Galileo. At only 100,000 years old, these stars are some of the youngest objects we can spot in the sky. Theta 2 is a nearby double that also helps to illuminate the billowy cloud. The nebula is impressive from even the worst sky, and leaves you at a loss of words from a dark one. Color is absolutely visible with adapted eyes from a dark site. I've noticed traces of purple, blue and green through my 8" XT8.

***
The full Beginner's Buyer's Guide, our Comet Guide (featuring additional grab-and-go telescopes), and any other edition you're looking for can be found in the master index of all Spaced-Out Challenge threads here, but of course you can always inquire about binoculars, telescopes, and all the rest in the comments. As always, if you have astrophotography, product recommendations, or astronomy news you'd like to see on a future Spaced-Out Challenge, email me at theoneandonlyfinn (at) gmail.com, or tweet me @conartcritic.

Until next week, clear skies to you, and keep looking up!

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Open Thread

—CAC

Open thread for all your political and off-topic needs.

Late NFL Game Open Thread: Cam Newton vs. Saints [OregonMuse]

—Open Blogger

"In order to win this game, Carolina is going to have to score more points."

--from Stuff Chris Collingsworth Likes To Say

Gaming Thread 12/9/2013

—Gang of Gaming Morons!

Another week, another gaming thread. Bunch of videos from last night's VGX thing. From the small bits I looked at during commercials during the football game, it was painful.

More below the fold.

Sorry for the late post but I was waiting for something to happen in a game and it didn't come to fruition

News
VGX wrap up:

New Witcher 3 trailer

The Division tech demo

Also get a story trailer for the upcoming Thief game

Nintendo showed off Cranky Kong in Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. Wish Retro was making another Metroid

Telltale finally admitted that yes, they are working on a Game of Thrones game

Telltale also announced that they're trying to make Borderlands not have a crappy story

Respawn also showed off two new mechs for the upcoming TitanFall
Stryder

Ogre

Remedy made a new trailer for the upcoming Quantum Break

Double Fine also showed off their Broken Age game

HelloGames (Joe Danger series) also announcing an upcoming game called No Man's Sky

New Destiny trailer

Of course Bungie also announced that the game isn't going to make it's spring release as they pushed it back to September 9th. That's a gamble and a half and hopefully doesn't make it be lost in the Fall avalanche of games.

Capy announced why their Super Time Force was delayed, it's getting a simultaneous release on the 360 and the Xbox One. Kinda curious if this will end up coming out after their Xbox One launch exclusive, Below hits.

DICE is apparently stopping everything till Battlefield 4 isn't a big steaming pile of bugs. Yeah.....

Valve buying into the Linux Foundation. Yeah....

Come on now, Nintendo people searching for Hentai on Pornhub shouldn't surprise anyone. The other stats are a bit more interesting

New Releases

Not much new out this week.

Peggle 2 (Xbox One) - It's going to be out for everything under the sun next year but it's coming to the XBox One on Monday for $11.99.

Wii U Fit (Wii U) - Well, it's been digital for awhile now but the standard retail package comes with a meter for $50 or if you don't have a balance board lurking in your closet, you can spend $90 on Friday to get everything you need for it.

PC Peripherals

Was asked to talk about PC peripherals and you know, I am curious in what you guys are using. Personally, my setup at the moment is:

SteelSeries Sensei mouse (HATE the mousewheel and wish I bought another G9X which I think is the finest mouse ever made)

For mousepad, I'm using a large Razer Goliathus Alpha Speed mousepad. I got it as a gift a few years ago and though it's seen better days, I dig it and it's a perfect size for my desk.

I fried my G19 with beer so I'm currently using a cheap ass Logitech K120 $15 special which is okay but you get what you pay for and I really miss the damn backlighted keys. I've got a SteelSeries Apex board coming for Christmas and I really can't want to toss this thing back into my closet.

As for a controller, I'm using a 360 one like everyone else till I get around to picking up a DS4 or till Microsoft releases some PC drivers for the One controller next year.

I play a lot of racing games aka I play a lot of iRacing and my wheel is a G27 (wait for a sale) which with the NIXIM spring mod and chillicoke's paddles is a really damn good wheel. One of these days I'll finally upgrade to a Fanatec's Clubsport wheel and pedals

And for flightsims, I'm stuck with my beat up Extreme 3D Pro. It's gotten me through quite a few years and it's still ticking. I would get something better but outside of DCS, I really don't play many flightsims as much as I used to.

As someone who kinda despises the concept of a gaming headset (they cost too much for a crappy product), I just rock my Grado SR 60i and a cheap but great Zalman mic. That being said, if I didn't already have those Grados, I would buy honestly buy another pair of Superlux's HD681 which are arguably the best headphones for under $100 (non sale price) which happen to cost under $35.

So toss your setup into the ring

Also want to give a big thanks to ConservativeMonster for the recommendation of King of Tokyo. Only got to play a few games with my nephews and cousins but this game warmed my jaded boardgaming heart. Of course now, I need to buy the expansions to the game and my nephews really seemed to want their own copy.

That's it, I'm out, Catch me on Twitter

The Dude

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