Narcissist Fix of the Day

From Timothy Kincaid at Box Turtle Bulletin, we find that Bristol Palin's appearance on Dancing With The Stars is all about homophobia and hatred for gays.

And, should anyone wonder, those who support equality for gay people (or who question continued institutionalize discrimination based on race, gender roles, or other identifiers) are “elites” and “Hollywood types” and not “real.” In fact, contempt for “Hollywood” is one of the central themes of anti-gay activists and those who object to entertainment’s embrace of gay people and lack of enthusiasm for religious conservatism.

Or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that "Hollywood" openly endorses drugging and having sex with thirteen-year-olds, goes wild over socialist dictators, and openly muses about how wonderful it would be to just abolish democracy in this country.

Of course, Timothy Kincaid and the rest of Gay, Inc. don't care; after all, Whoopi Goldberg, Sean Penn, and Woody Allen all support gay-sex marriage. That's what counts.

Completely Expected News of the Day

Turns out that the Harvey Milk LGBT Obama Party Club and the union puppet organization Pride at Work both support and endorse gays and lesbians who sexually harass others in the workplace.

But the real kicker came just the other day, when the city's Human Rights Commission concluded that Atos had repeatedly made flirtatious, sexually charged and inappropriate comments on the job - and had even pressured one male employee to "come out" against his will.

In short, the investigators said, Atos was "terminated for inappropriate sexual conduct in the workplace."

So let's see; the Obama Party that endorses and supports this sort of behavior by gays and lesbians in the workplace is now demanding that our soldiers be forced to put up with it.

I think not.

An Open Letter to GOProud

Not bad, guys.

At least you've started the conversation; there is much to be said for that.

And you've made an excellent point; this election was not a mandate by any stretch of the imagination, nor should it be read to be more than what it was.

But the key to dealing with social issues is not to ignore them completely. Indeed, by making them off-limits, you infuriate those whose support you need and leave yourself open for the Obama Party to exploit them against you.

Realize that this election has done two useful things; it's put Republicans in control of the House, and it's driven the left even farther in the direction of shrieking madness.

So don't discard social issues; pick them up and use them. Dare I say it? Triangulate.

Take, for instance, abortion.

Regardless of how you feel about it, the simple fact is this: Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi rammed through a bill that not only requires you as a taxpayer to fund abortion, but for that money to be sent to organizations who are covering up statutory rape and refusing to notify parents -- and then donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to that same Obama, Reid, and Pelosi.

Call me crazy, but last I looked, older men getting fourteen-year-olds pregnant, blocking parental notification in the name of getting an abortion, and demanding Federal dollars from the very same people to who you're donating don't poll well with many people other than Pelosi, Reid, and Obama.

Use it. Don't avoid it. Grab the abortion issue by the throat and paint the picture for Americans: Obama, Pelosi, and Reid demand that you fork over your hard-earned money to pay off their cronies who are pushing abortions on middle-schoolers and covering up for rapists.



Same with gay marriage. Put bluntly, regardless of how you feel about it, the core value of the American system, the Tea Party, and anyone outside the Beltway is this: We the People have the right to determine our own laws and what they say.

Not racist Latinas in black robes. Not lazy Attorneys General and Governors. We the People. And that means you're going to get votes like in Iowa. You're going to get Proposition 8. And you know what? Until you start focusing on changing minds instead of trying to ram things through courtrooms and disenfranchise voters, those will continue to happen.

The onus is not on people to not change their constitutions. The onus is on you to explain why there's no need for them to do it. So the answer is very simple; "The Tea Party and GOProud supports the right of Americans at the Federal and state levels to amend and update their own constitutions as they see fit."


And last, but not least, we come to DADT.

The math isn't there, guys. Bluntly put, even if the leaked results of the survey are correct, you're demanding that we piss off 30% of our current military to please a minority of 3%, two-thirds of which are irrevocably wedded to a party that calls our military uninvited and unwelcome intruders, demands that it be abolished, and funds the very people who are out to attack and kill those serving in it.

One percent versus thirty percent and divided by two wars is a major loser. I understand that this hurts; you can't understand why something that you feel is supported by the majority of the country should have to wait. But the choice now comes down to whether you are going to put what the gay community wants first, or whether you are going to put what's best for the military and our country first.

And doing the latter will go a long way towards easing any concerns about the former.

Especially if you make it clear what the so-called "repeal" is; Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid holding the whole of our military hostage so they can pander to their base that is still rationalizing its addiction to trying to kill our soldiers.

You've gotten this far. Take the next steps. Instead of avoiding social issues, grab them. Reframe them. Own them. And realize that you have a lot more in common with social conservatives than you don't.

Your friend,

North Dallas Thirty

Did You Know....

that the plight of gays and lesbians in the United States who cannot marry their sexual partners is exactly the same as American citizens of Japanese descent in internment camps?

It's true! The gay and lesbian community says so!

Apparently this is a response to the fact that the gay and lesbian community's claim that Republicans are building actual concentration camps never seemed to come true. This must be some new sort of virtual victimization, where you can actually claim similar brutalization without having to go through the effort.

What's With That Tagline, Anyway

You mean this?

Yes.....yes....your anguish sustains me.

That would be a reference to Family Guy, Season 4, Episode 4, "Don't Make Me Over".

Stewie: Oh there there, let me dry those tears. [licks his fingers with Meg's tears on them] Oh, oh yes yes, your anguish sustains me.

For those of you who aren't fans, Meg, in a fit of teenage angst, whines how unpopular she is and how awful her life is, so Lois takes her to the mall and gets her a makeover. Her new looks go to her head, she turns into a spoiled brat, and she ends up being humiliated by being taped having sex with Jimmy Fallon for the opening sketch of "Saturday Night Live".


On a meta level, a perfect summary of the behavior of the gay and lesbian community that I skewer.

Which is an added bonus, because I just happened to like the quote.

Time for an Update

When you can't remember the last time you fixed your template, it's probably time to refresh it anyway.

Unfortunately, as quite often happens with remodeling, certain things had to be removed and reshuffled. Over the next few days, or when I get around to it, links will be restored, dirt will be vacuumed up, and general order restored.

Until then, thank you for your patience!

Sunday Morning Rebuttal

I think QuakerJono deserves a post answer to his comment on my previous post.

Who else could take an informed critique of current health insurance practices and a plea for insurance coverage of proactive treatments for chronic conditions, which prove to be more effective and cheaper, possibly even avoiding the condition in the first place, and reduce it to Cuban-style communism?

Someone with a broader view of these things. :)

First, as someone who works with health insurance organizations, I can tell you right off the bat that they would sell their grandmothers into prostitution to get people to engage in proactive treatments if it would reduce the amount of money they have to pay out on claims.

The problem is that overall, as they are very well aware, it doesn't.

Sweeping statements about the cost-saving potential of prevention, however, are overreaching. Studies have concluded that preventing illness can in some cases save money but in other cases can add to health care costs. For example, screening costs will exceed the savings from avoided treatment in cases in which only a very small fraction of the population would have become ill in the absence of preventive measures. Preventive measures that do not save money may or may not represent cost-effective care (i.e., good value for the resources expended). Whether any preventive measure saves money or is a reasonable investment despite adding to costs depends entirely on the particular intervention and the specific population in question. For example, drugs used to treat high cholesterol yield much greater value for the money if the targeted population is at high risk for coronary heart disease, and the efficiency of cancer screening can depend heavily on both the frequency of the screening and the level of cancer risk in the screened population.

And can even make matters worse.

To see why, let's use an example. Your cholesterol levels are too high, which increases your odds of catastrophic and expensive heart disease. What are your choices?

1) Eat less, exercise, and lose weight

2) Take a pill for it.

So let's see; from your perspective, you either can eat less, exercise, and lose weight, all of which will cost you more in time and money and deprivation and increase the likelihood that you won't do any of them, or you can take a pill for it.

From the insurance company's perspective, they can pay for you to have better food, have access to a gym or whatnot, and to lose weight, none of which they are certain you will actually do, or pay for a simple pill that has been scientifically proven to lower your blood cholesterol and requires you to do nothing more than open a bottle once a day.

That's problem one.


The second problem comes in the fact that, if one is actually going to do preventative medicine, one actually has to make it worth peoples' while by rewarding those who do it and punishing those who do not. The best and most effective method in that regard has been shown to be premium discounting -- as in, those who follow healthy practices pay lower premiums than those who continue to engage in unhealthy practices.

However, under ObamaCare, that's illegal.

Second, the bills would ban insurers from charging differing premiums based on the health of their customers. Again, that's understandable for folks with diabetes or cancer. But the bills would bar rewarding people who pursue a healthy lifestyle of exercise or a cholesterol-conscious diet. That's hardly a formula for lower costs. It's as if car insurers had to charge the same rates to safe drivers as to chronic speeders with a history of accidents.

So let's summarize:

1) The insurance companies cannot reward you for doing something; they can only pay for you doing it.

2) They can either pay more for you to do something which requires a significant amount of time, effort, and commitment on your part and has unpredictable results in terms of lowering your cholesterol, or less for something that requires no effort on your part and which has scientific trials showing predictable results in lowering cholesterol.

In short, if the goal is to lower your cholesterol to prevent heart disease, the pill IS the more effective and cheaper treatment.


What this all boils down to is that, ultimately, you can't make people do the right thing; you can only, as we used to say in horse training, make the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult.

And what the whiny article cited was about was avoiding that basic fact and making the argument that the whiner's stepfather wouldn't have eaten himself to death if the United States had single-payer government-controlled universal health insurance.

The way around this is pretty straightforward. Repeal community rating and allow health insurance companies and group plan owners like employers to set premium costs based on likelihood of payout, similar to what car insurers do. Give people who elect to follow healthy lifestyle proscriptions decreased premiums, and charge more for people who want to engage in lifestyle behaviors that are detrimental to health.

But all of that is antithetical to the basic principles of ObamaCare that the whiny article was trying to push.

We Have Finally Reached the Point of Insanity

There is really little more that can be said about this pathetic excuse for a whinefest.

My stepfather, who had diabetes and heart disease, was a victim of our modern Tuskegee experiment. He ultimately died last year as a result, and cost our health care system $400,000 along the way. If he were simply provided the choice of a different treatment--a treatment that is proven to be more effective and cost less than medication and surgery--namely a program for sustainable and comprehensive lifestyle change, perhaps he would still be alive and our national debt would be reduced by $400,000.

Translation: "It's not my stepfather's fault that he sat on his fat ass and ate junk food all day despite knowing he was a diabetic who needed to lay off the Ho-Hos and do some exercise. It's not my fault that I, the so-called 'doctor', presumably used my magic snake oil and programs on him and failed miserably. It's society's fault!"

And my answer: if this halfwit wants to live in a totalitarian state where his diet, exercise, and medical care are completely controlled by the government, I hear Cuba is lovely this time of year.

(h/t to Protein Wisdom)

Karma Karma Karma Karma Karma Chameleon

I cannot possibly improve on this little gem from The Michigan View (h/t to AoSHQ as well)

Following the embarrassing news that Mayor Dave Bing’s GMC Yukon was hijacked by criminals this week, Detroit’s Channel 7 reports that the Reverend’s Caddy Escalade SUV was stolen and stripped of its wheels while he was in town last weekend with the UAW’s militant President Bob King leading the “Jobs, Justice, and Peace” march promoting government-funded green jobs.

Read that again: Jackson’s Caddy SUV was stripped while he was in town promoting green jobs.

Dear God, it's like a news version of the Heart Attack Benedict.

Friday Night Algebra

Cause = Effect.

Not that anyone really buys that Moonbeam would do anything of the sort, of course. But it's fun to watch him delude himself into believing that he's fooling us.

Short and Sweet

In the year's hiatus or so, I've taken to doing a lot more talking on Twitter. Not surprisingly, the address is NorthDallas30.

Enjoy. Feel free to tweet back. Or twit, or whatever it is that these things do, I don't know.

Cobwebs for Sale, Cheap

I think enough time has passed to come back. :)

Patterico Explains It All

This cannot possibly be improved.

Looks like the cash-for-clunkers program may be near an end. I don’t qualify; I made the mistake of buying a fuel-efficient car in 2000.

Didn’t get any money for my house either. I made the mistake of getting a mortgage I could afford.

I’d love to get my student loans paid off — but dammit, I paid them off myself.

I’m trying to think if there’s some area of life where I can be stupid and irresponsible now, so I can get paid by Obama in the future. Because so far I’ve really screwed myself by doing things right.

And the winner of best comment on the thread so far:

Why work for a living when you can vote for one instead?

Tax Cuts For The Rich!

(and other assorted fiction).

Newly released data from the IRS clearly debunks the conventional Beltway rhetoric that the "rich" are not paying their fair share of taxes.

Indeed, the IRS data shows that in 2007—the most recent data available—the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. This is the highest percentage in modern history. By contrast, the top 1 percent paid 24.8 percent of the income tax burden in 1987, the year following the 1986 tax reform act.

Remarkably, the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1 percent now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined. In 2007, the bottom 95 percent paid 39.4 percent of the income tax burden. This is down from the 58 percent of the total income tax burden they paid twenty years ago.

To put this in perspective, the top 1 percent is comprised of just 1.4 million taxpayers and they pay a larger share of the income tax burden now than the bottom 134 million taxpayers combined.

Taxes For Thee, But Not For Me

Or, as my grandfather always puts it, "Never a problem to order steak for everyone when you're not paying the bill".

Wait For It....Wait For It....

and there it is!

The intraparty dispute had racial overtones. One African-American Democrat, Representative Hank Johnson of Georgia, pointed out that the seven Blue Dog Democrats holding up the health care bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee were “a nondiverse group” of white men.

Question to all liberals: what, exactly, is the amount of minorities that you need to have in a group for it to be "diverse"?

So Right, Yet So Wrong

You know the whole healthcare dog-and-pony show is in trouble when even Pravda DC is saying it's a bad idea.

But what I thought particularly hilarious was the equivocating paragraph used to at least preserve some shred of leftist cred.

THERE IS a serious case to be made that the U.S. income tax system should become more progressive. The average rate paid by the top 1 percent of households shrank from 33 percent in 1986 to about 23 percent in 2006. At the same time, the share of adjusted gross income claimed by that highest-earning sliver of American society doubled, from 11 percent to 22 percent. So, in principle, higher taxes for the well-heeled could make sense -- as part of a broader rationalization of the unduly complex tax code.

However, what the non-mathematicians leave out is the fact that, while their share of income doubled (increased by 100%), their taxes only fell by 30% (23% divided by 33% = 70%). In other words, if you were making $100 before and paying $33 in taxes, you're making $200 now and paying $46 in taxes.

That explains why a) the total share of Federal taxes paid by the top 1% has gone steadily UP since 2001 and b) the Treasury was collecting record revenues prior to the crash.

Question: What, exactly, SHOULD the top 1% be paying, then?

What Newspapers Does Pelosi Read?

Because evidently one of them isn't the New York Times.]

The Bush administration has prepared a list of terrorist leaders the Central Intelligence Agency is authorized to kill, if capture is impractical and civilian casualties can be minimized, senior military and intelligence officials said.

The previously undisclosed C.I.A. list includes key Qaeda leaders like Osama bin Laden and his chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, as well as other principal figures from Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups, the officials said. The names of about two dozen terrorist leaders have recently been on the lethal-force list, officials said. "It's the worst of the worst," an official said.

President Bush has provided written legal authority to the C.I.A. to hunt down and kill the terrorists without seeking further approval each time the agency is about to stage an operation. Some officials said the terrorist list was known as the "high-value target list."

But of course, the Obama Party insists they never knew anything about it.

What Founding Father Am I?

It's the ginger thing, I guess.

New Truisms for Our Society

If you even consider airing an advertisement critical of socialized medicine, Obama will shut you down.

If your legal case that you won threatens the confirmation of an Obama nominee, Obama will have you publicly smeared.

Hope and change!