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POPS Advance To The Rear!
(Well, in fairness, even if the president did declare back in 2008 this war was a vital national security interest, and he did signal last spring he was on board with counterinsurgency, and even if he did appoint Gen. Stanley McChrystal to get the job done in May, the general’s recommendations only arrived in August, and the president didn’t look at them until, what, late September, and he’s been really busy this whole time letting Congress bollix his health-care initiative, throwing Eastern Europe under the bus and flying to Copenhagen, that kind of thing, so he’s only been able to squeeze in seven high-level national security meetings, or is it eight? Is it so unreasonable to ask for new options on top of the new options that he asked for on top of the new options that McChrystal gave him? Meanwhile, China’s ass wants kissing and then we’re into the holidays … ) OK, I get that the political piece is vitally important, and for Eikenberry, up to his armpits in scheming
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POPSObamaCare: A Bad Deal for Young Adults Massachusetts benefits from another type of subsidy that props up its regime of mandates and price controls: large subsidies from the federal government. In contrast, the United States as a whole has no external party it can exploit to subsidize a nationwide Massachusetts-style health care overhaul"unless Congress finances that overhaul through additional deficit spending, which is really just another way of taxing the young to subsidize the old. by Aaron Yelowitz Aaron Yelowitz is an associate professor of economics at the University of Kentucky and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. This paper is based on a lecture delivered to the Undergraduate Economics Society at the University of Kentucky on October 1, 2009.
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POPSShhhh! Census Worker May Have Committed Suicide * The Democratic Underground quickly posted a ‘Handy Guide to how Republicans and Fox News are responsible for Census worker being hanged'. * Rachel Maddow suggested Sparkman was killed simply because ‘he was a federal employee'. * Time chalked it up to government distrust, a sentiment fanned by ‘talk media, tea parties and white-hot town-hall meetings'. * The Huffington Post immediately assumed this was a case of right-wing paranoia. * True/Slant opined that the body of Sparkman should be shipped to Glenn Beck. * Think Progress pointed the finger at Michelle Bachman and her ‘inflammatory and fear-mongering rhetoric against the Census'. * New York Magazine linked the death to that of ‘some wide-eyed, hysterical woman' named Michelle Bachman. (The irony in this is that the reference to a wide-eyed, hysterical woman was made in an article mentioning Nancy Pelosi).
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POPS“Apocalypse: The Second World War” ~ Veterans Day November 11, 2009 remember the guys who have been fighting them in the sand, fighting them in the dust, fighting them in the mountains, and now fight on in the hospital wards. The Valour IT push is on, to give laptops to wounded servicemen. At the invitation of Cassandra at Villainous Company, whose Marine husband is forward deployed in Afghanistan, we’re with Team Marines this year. Pushing the Marines ahead is just the fun part of the drive. It all goes to everyone in all branches. Give as you can. Donate via Team Marines Apropos of all of the above, VC offers up a good quick read: "Marines though the Lens of History".
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POPSPakistan Dawn, Pakistan Trutherism Obama's military problem is getting worse President Obama is presiding over a slow-motion civil-military crash occasioned by his meandering Afghanistan strategy review. The crash has not yet happened and is avoidable, but it also foreseeable. Of concern, the latest reports out of the White House suggest that Obama's team is not yet fully aware of the dangers. If it happens, it will be a problem entirely of Obama's own making and it could have a lasting impact on the way his administration unfolds. As Rich Lowry has observed, President Obama rarely misses a chance to blame a challenge he is confronting on his predecessor. This rhetorical tic served Obama well during the campaign and probably still resonates with partisans who post anonymous comments on blogs or who suffer from chronic Bush Derangement Syndrome. . . .
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POPSPETA: Vegetarianism for Sexist Assholes More: You will undoubtedly be 100% unsurprised to learn that there are no videos or national tour featuring Rav, Paul and Ricardo making out with each other in their underwear to promote a healthier, planet-friendly lifestyle. That would be gay, and in its desperation to connect vegetarianism with priapistic heterosexuality, this site makes it very clear that vegetarianism is not for fags. In fact, there aren’t any other pictures of the Broccoli Boys…just their little bio sketches so we don’t miss the important point that they, unlike the Lettuce Ladies, are people. Any other treatment would, of course, violate Patriarchy’s First Law – you don’t treat guys like mindless dick-receptacles, because that’s what the ladies are for!
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POPSDick Cheney's losing his old black magic It's great to watch people step up to smack Cheney down. Retired Gen. Paul Eaton blasted back today, and I couldn't say it any better: "The record is clear: Dick Cheney and the Bush administration were incompetent war fighters. They ignored Afghanistan for 7 years with a crude approach to counter-insurgency warfare best illustrated by: 1. Deny it. 2. Ignore it. 3. Bomb it. While our intelligence agencies called the region the greatest threat to America, the Bush White House under-resourced our military efforts, shifted attention to Iraq, and failed to bring to justice the masterminds of September 11. "The only time Cheney and his cabal of foreign policy 'experts' have anything to say is when they feel compelled to protect this failed legacy. While President Obama is tasked with cleaning up the considerable mess they left behind, they continue to defend torture or rewrite a legacy of indifference on Afghanistan. …
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POPSPenalized At Work For Being A Mom Here's one piece of irony to consider. Research has shown that employers actually prefer fathers to childless men. Unlike working mothers, they are perceived to be more stable.
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POPSIrony of Obama's Opposition And now, as President, Mr. Obama consistently speaks of solving problems by using "what works" rather than employing ideological approaches. This too is reasoning and judgment, rather than resort to theory without consideration for the facts on the ground. It does not mean that the President will not consider free-market economics, on the one hand, or government intervention, on the other, but he looks for solutions that take into account the myriad of consequences rather than simply going with a principle, results be damned. What is ironic, although maybe karmicly inevitable, is that this king of reason is being confronted with logic's nemises -- emotion, belief and intentional deception. Take, for example, Mr. Obama's first acts as President. The economy was diving into a deeper recession. The financial industry was frozen. The President supported a huge rescue program.
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POPSOn ableist language More: If you think you should use a word because no other has the same impact, well, you’re right about the impact. Your usage has such an impact because it draws its power from disability=bad. You are forming a powerful sentence from disablism, our deep-set pain. It’s so much easier and better to just change your words. If you still insist on such usage, that’s lazy and cruel. If you’re not sure if your use of a word is offensive, err on the side of caution. Another message to take away is this. 1. If you are calling yourself progressive 2. and you are harming people with disabilities 3. you are not, in fact, progressive.
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POPSNone Dare Call it Art When 40 months seem a heavy load And every day makes your head explode Read Ott and Steyn and Iowahawk And Life won't feel like such a crock. David Hussein Burge! Mmmm -- mmmm -- mmmm Thanks, DB, I'm proud as hell, Of America -- just like Michelle! We're finally rising from the pits Cuz we elected YOU the King of Wits! David Hussein Burge! Mmmm -- mmmmm -- mmmm! Is This for real? A contest? Panderhawk Oh, Iowahawk! Who leaps into action when all the other blogsters just talk? Iowahawk! Who rushes in where angels fear to walk? Iowahawk! Who packs more irony than any other kid on the block? Iowahawk! Who causes the targets of his incisive satire, whether high or low, left or right, real or imaginary, to throw up their figuratively blood-stained hands and squawk? Iowahawk! Oh, Iowahawk, Your intelligence compares favorably to sixties Star Trek character Spock! Your masculine beauty is without any flaw or pock!
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POPSIs the Internet melting our brains? I start with Plato's critique of writing where he says that if we depend on writing, we will lose the ability to remember things. Our memory will become weak. And he also criticizes writing because the written text is not interactive in the way spoken communication is. He also says that written words are essentially shadows of the things they represent. They're not the thing itself. Of course we remember all this because Plato wrote it down -- the ultimate irony. We hear a thousand objections of this sort throughout history: Thoreau objecting to the telegraph, because even though it speeds things up, people won't have anything to say to one another. Then we have Samuel Morse, who invents the telegraph, objecting to the telephone because nothing important is ever going to be done over the telephone because there's no way to preserve or record a phone conversation.
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POPSAmericans are being sacrificed on the altar of big business First manufacturing, then IT. And, even in midst of the worst "recession" since the Depression, it continues on. Yet we, the still employed, don't care. We stock our homes with foreign made goods and spend our money with companies that are slaughtering our middle class. The irony is starting to show itself. Good luck to our children with the future. They are going to need it.
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POPSFDA Approves Experimental H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccine Prior to Children Safety Trials Beginning Moreover, it appears that the Novartis Swine Flu vaccine insert is mostly a copied and pasted from the FLUVIRIN insert. Both inserts indicate that the vaccine is not for use for children under four years of age. Yet, Novartis is having a trial as I write this on three year old boys and girls. Even harder to grasp is the CDC’s recommendation that pregnant women and children 6-months of age are being shoved to the front of the line for being vaccinated. The cruel irony on page 2 of the Novartis Swine Flu vaccine insert remarks, “Safety and effectiveness of Influenza A (H1N1) 2009 Monovalent Vaccine have not been established in pregnant women, nursing mothers or children less than 4 years of age. (8.1, 8.3, 8.4)“
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POPSForced Pregnancy Although this is in Australia the same sort of hubbub rages here in the States. The irony is the same folks that scream the loudest about "government interference" are all in favor of denying the ability for women to make very difficult and painful choices in their own lives.
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POPSSurprise winner of Obama stimulus spending: gun industry Gun culture magazines in the ‘90s named President Clinton ‘gun salesman of the year’, but Obama has become the gun salesman of the century. As police departments order new firearms using stimulus funds, there's more than a little irony in the fact that a president whom the gun industry looked upon with suspicion has put forward a federal program from which gunmakers are benefiting. It seems the Democrats have realized they have become victims of their own antigun propaganda. Among the general public, a record 1 million guns were sold across the U. S. in August alone, rebuffing expectations that, after 10 months, the post-Obama election gun-buying spree would abate. Gunmaker Smith & Wesson on Wednesday reported a 30% rise in sales in the first quarter, leading to unexpected profits and a rising stock price. For those of you who are for gun control, how do you like your president now?
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POPSTila Tequila Allergic To Alcohol Tila Tequila Allergic To Alcohol: Tila Tequila on her allergy to anything contianing alcohol: 'I am allergic to alcohol. It has been publicly known for years. That is how I got the name Tila Tequila cuz the irony. I can't drink.' Tila Tequila on her small height... Tila Tequila allergic to alcohol, tila tequila, tila tequila myspace, tila tequila twitter, tila tequila pregnant, tila tequila lyrics.
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