Posts Tagged ‘LinkSwarm’

LinkSwarm for September 13, 2013

Friday, September 13th, 2013

My schedule is finally close to getting back to normal after Worldcon, so here’s the latest Friday LinkSwarm:

  • Greek unemployment hits 27.9%. Remember: For all the mentions of “austerity measures,” they’ve never balanced a budget.
  • Why we were in Benghazi. Short answer: Smuggling arms to Syrian rebels. Remember: No Americans died in Iran-Contra.
  • Syrian rebels do what they do best: kill women and children.
  • Obama’s Syrian policy is “is an unmitigated cl*st*rf*ck.” And that’s from his friends at The New Republic.
  • Charles Krauthammer calls it epic incompetence.
  • Today is the 20th anniversary of the Oslo Accords, which, as we all know, finally brought long-lasting peace and stability to the Middle East. “Decadal stasis points to the sterility of the Arab-Israeli diplomatic process.”
  • Mark Steyn on ObamaCare.
  • Mickey Kaus is worried that Republicans can still snatch amnesty defeat from the jaws of victory.
  • How often does Defensive gun use occur? “From about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year.”
  • PPP’s poll data showed Giron was in trouble, but they didn’t release the poll, ostensibly because they didn’t believe it. That may be the case, but their explanation is suspect, given they actually testified in court as part of the effort to get the recall effort thrown out. Also, they didn’t do Giron and the gun-grabber side any favors by suppressing the results (the Liberal Reality Bubble strikes again). Bonus: Pollster Twitter slap fight!
  • Is the House Republican leadership actually stupid enough to kill the sequester in a deal with Obama? Let’s hope not…
  • Jihadi rapper killed by fellow jihadis. And you thought Vanilla Ice’s reviews were brutal…
  • To a visitor from India, America looks like a classless society. “I’ve noticed that most Americans roughly have the same standard of living. Everybody has access to ample food, everybody shops at the same supermarkets, malls, stores, etc. I’ve seen plumbers, construction workers and janitors driving their own sedans, which was quite difficult for me to digest at first since I came from a country where construction workers and plumbers lived hand to mouth.” (Hat tip: Ace.)
  • How can Newspapers make money these days? How about by selling off their old photo morgues?
  • UK’s NHS: Now With Added Death.
  • Million Muslim March falls a mere 999,970 marchers short of their goal.
  • Rep. Peter King of Long island is running for President. Expect GOP voters to greet his campaign with the same enthusiasm with which they greeted Jon Huntsman’s.
  • Super-genius astronomer wants to name an asteroid “Trayvon”.
  • New Jersey police: hate crimes don’t happen to white people.
  • Police Chief meeting with Sheriff Joe Arpaio on his own time and money? That’s a suspension.
  • Austin: 13 murders in 8 months. “Otherwise known as a slow weekend in Chicago.”
  • Holly Hansen takes a look at Williamson County judicial races.
  • LinkSwarm for August 23, 2013

    Friday, August 23rd, 2013

    Another Friday LinkSwarm on Friday, to make your Friday seem more like Friday:

  • Why work when welfare pays better?
  • Europe’s Jews fear that their days are numbered.
  • Ted Cruz: traitor to his class. From the number of MSM attacks on Cruz, they obviously see him as the biggest threat to derail Hillary’s coronation in 2016.
  • And since there was a little mini-boomlet of “Ha, conservatives must hate that Cruz’s given name is Rafael!” stupidity from the leftosphere, here’s a video that reminds you that Ted Cruz’s father Rafeal is all kinds of awesome as well:

  • Surprise, surprise, surprise! Greece will need another bailout.
  • Hospital called LICH just can’t seem to die. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Well, this is lovely: The Department of Homeland Security employees a black supremacist preparing for a race war against white people and gays.
  • Forced sterilization of “mental defectives” returns to the UK.
  • Dear Jeff Bezos: Maybe the Washington Post could make more money if they didn’t alienate half their potential audience by hyping anti-Republican witch hunts.
  • Fail to wear a veil when you leave the house? That’s a dismembering.
  • “Bradley Manning Is Not a Woman. Pronouns and delusions do not trump biology.”
  • Foreign aid is destructive.

    To improve the socio-economic development of Africa, the continent desperately needs private innovations, empowered by rule of law and an ambience of free enterprise, free of restrictive government regulations.Economic growth and development is indeed a vital ingredient towards achieving prosperity and a free society. However, it takes a spontaneous market driven approach without state interventionist barriers to achieve the noble aim, not foreign aid.

  • Remember folks: Partisan redistricting is perfectly constitutional. And Texas Democrats of it were masters of it for decades.
  • Sears posts $194 million loss. In other news, Sears is still in business.
  • Basketball statistician kills himself, and leaves behind meticulous suicide website explaining why he did it. One reason (among many others): “Economic collapse is inevitable (see U.S Financial to the left). The United States’ annual debt and cumulative deficit is way beyond the “out of control” label usually associated with it. It’s spiraling into oblivion and it will take society with it. Today the deficit is $16.9 trillion dollars with another $125 trillion of unfunded liabilities such as social security, medicare, prescription drug and federal pensions. It’s hopeless.”
  • What happens when rats have all their food needs met and are allowed to breed without restrictions? Social death followed by physical death. Though usually interpreted as an indictment of overpopulation, it could just as easily be about the the pitfalls of a purposeless life…
  • State Rep. (and Appropriations Committee chair) Jim Pitts will not seek reelection. Pitts, one of Speaker Joe Straus’ allies, recently was accused of seeking preferential treatment of his son at UT law school. Pitts was also one of the legislators pushing for…
  • The Impeachment of UT regent Wallace Hall for the crime of actually investigating wrong-doing, such as the law school slush fund.
  • Egypt: Dispatches From the Continuing Crackdown

    Tuesday, August 20th, 2013

    There’s a lot of Egyptian news going on, much of it of the classic Middle East Problem Solving variety. In particular, the Egyptian government seems to be doing most of the “solving,” so expect to see some 50-100 members of the Muslim Brotherhood develop acute lead poisoning every day for the foreseeable future.

    Beyond that, I can’t tell you. My knowledge of Egypt is basically that of a one-eyed, myopic man who can at least see shapes in strong sunlight. Here’s an Egypt news roundup in mini-LinkSwarm form.

  • The Muslim Brotherhood’s supreme leader is arrested. That’s going to be a big blow to them, and probably indicates the Egyptian military is fairly confident they’ll not only win the current test of wills with the Brothers, but win it decisively.
  • The Muslim Brotherhood isn’t dead yet, but they are severely weakened. “The army seems determined to decapitate the Middle East’s oldest and arguably most resilient Islamist movement, to prevent it from preparing a political comeback.”
  • Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss?
  • The Coptic Kristallnacht.
  • Hosni Mubarak has been found innocent and should soon be released. Don’t expect to see him return to power, as the military opposition to his turning the country into a dynastic fiefdom by anointing his son Gamal as his successor is the reason they let him get toppled in the first place.
  • Egypt’s burning, Obama’s golfing.
  • Is Obama secretly suspending aid to the Egyptian government? If so, he’s once again superbly crafted a policy to please no one and accomplish nothing.
  • Thomas Sowell on Obama’s (and America’s) illusions about democratizing the Middle East.
  • “The President and his team have been taken in by two very old American mistakes about the rest of the world. One is to confuse the end of history with the morning news. The other is to exaggerate America’s importance to the rest of the world. ”
  • Evidently the rest of the Arab world is pissed at Qatar (and Qatar-owned Al Jazeera) for backing the Muslim Brotherhood.
  • I’ve been seeing a lot of very dubious reports about Obama secretly giving the Muslim Brotherhood $8 billion. Look, as much as I think Obama is an incompetent failure whose Administration has played footsie with the Brotherhood, I don’t buy this for a minute. Setting aside the why, not even President Trillion can conjure $8 billion from thin air to hand out on his own.
  • LinkSwarm for August 16, 2013

    Friday, August 16th, 2013

    A Friday LinkSwarm on Friday. Will wonders never cease?

  • Ted Cruz hails from the Republican wing of the Republican Party.
  • Speaking of Cruz: “Cruz acquired his citizenship, at birth, through his mother. He is a natural born US citizen and eligible to be President of the United States. Let us never have to speak of this again.”
  • Victor Davis Hanson does an Obama scandalrama roundup.
  • A few Democrats appear to be defying the idea that Hillary is unbeatable, just like she was in 2008.
  • 163 Ohio poll workers dismissed for that voting fraud that doesn’t exist.
  • Teen complains that Facebook just isn’t like it was when they were 7.
  • Why is Dennis Franz shooting Martin Luther King?
  • Muslim Brotherhood calls on followers to tourch Coptic churches.
  • The Jewish community isn’t wild about Alice Walker’s new book. Uh, guys? Given that Walker believes in David Icke’s shapeshifting lizard people, I’d say rational political discourse isn’t in her wheelhouse.
  • Jesse Jackson Jr. sentenced.
  • Generation parasite.
  • NPR Ombudsmen rips them a new one, but NPR itself stands by the lies: “At NPR, commitment to leftist ideology trumps any fealty to the facts.”
  • Dead Goblin Report, Texas Edition: “A couple of Texas criminals had the tables turned on them when a Texas man — taken as a hostage along with his wife and forced to rob a bank — decided he’d had enough and pulled a gun out of his glove box and shot them, killing one.”
  • Terry McAuliffe: Parasitic tick on the body politic.
  • Ashton Kutcher actually making sense. “Opportunity looks an awful lot like hard work.” Also: No job is beneath you.
  • Dear dumbass: Don’t put out a call on Twitter for people to sell you drugs.
  • Washington Post headline writers evidently have no idea what the word “surreal” means.
  • Speaking of the Post, evidently their biggest problem is that they still have one token conservative on staff.
  • LinkSwarm for August 6, 2013

    Tuesday, August 6th, 2013

    Still catching up, so enjoy your complimentary LinkSwarm and beverage (minus the beverage):

  • No, the IRS did not target liberal groups like they targeted conservatives.
  • The scary truth about state and local debt.
  • The U.S. government has $70 trillion in unfunded liabilities. I don’t happen to agree with everything in that assessment (a situation in which the FDIC would actually have to make good on all $7 trillion in deposit guarantees would pretty much be tantamount to the complete collapse of civilization), but the rest is scary enough.
  • Powerline’s John Hindraker wonders what the Benghazi cover-up is really about. I still think the secret CIA interrogation center that David Petraeus’ mistress Paula Broadwell claims was there is a strong possibility.
  • Thanks to ObamaCare, insurance premiums will increase in most states.
  • How liberals managed to turn wealthy Connecticut into just another broke Blue State.
  • Obama’s Nixonian scandals just keep churning.
  • The Black Hole in China’s shadow banks
  • Washington Post to be sold to Jeff Bezos. But he wasn’t stupid enough to take over existing pension liabilities. Bezos seems to be a liberal, but isn’t an overly active donor for a billionaire.
  • “Coming this fall on Cinemax: Leathers and Slutbag! They both got nailed by the same slimeball, and now they’re out for justice! Democratic politician not paying you your promised hush money? Call Leathers & Slutbag!”
  • Tawana Brawley finally starts paying for her 1987 rape hoax.
  • Liberal race-hustler Rep. Charlie Rangel takes time out of his busy schedule of defrauding the American taxpayer to suggest Tea Partiers are the “same group” who fought for segregation during the Civil Rights movement. Hey, Rep. Rangel, you know what the name of the group that fought for segregation was? The Democratic Party.
  • Attorney general Greg Abbott nails Texas Planned Parenthood for Medicaid fraud In fact, it was $4.3 million worth of fraud. More from Holly Hansen.
  • More show trails in Turkey.
  • Advocates of “green” energy cronyism seem to have found some Tea Party patsies.
  • On the differences between Austin and Texas.
  • Ace of Spades offers up an epic takedown of movie critic Andrew O’Hehir. “The man masturbates stupid and ejaculates embarrassment.”
  • And then does the same on Amanda Marcotte’s theory that men men hate sex and only use it to procreate.
  • Liberals get firebrand Twitter Gulag Defense Network founder Todd Kincannon’s Twitter account suspended. For all of two days.

  • Heh:
  • LinkSwarm for July 29, 2013

    Monday, July 29th, 2013

    The July grind is about to turn into the August grind. Enjoy the LinKSwarm while you can:

  • Mark Steyn on Detroit’s downfall.
  • America may not be Greece, but neither was Detroit.
  • Gun Owners are right to oppose all measures, because the goal of gun banners isn’t reducing crime, but the complete confiscation of all civilian firearms.
  • If Obama ever drew a crowd of 3 million people, the MSM would never stop proclaiming how awesome he is. But when the Pope does it? Meh.
  • When you shop at Costco, you’re buying ObamaCare.
  • Is it too much to ask that the director of the freaking 9/11 Museum not hate America?
  • I guess Anthony Weiner chose Carlos Danger as his sexing pseudonym because it sounds so much cooler than Prematuro Ejaculatoree.
  • Thanks to Slate, I now know that my twitter sexting pseudonym is “Pablo Kill”.
  • Maybe the MSM should stop doing fawning spreads on how elegant Huma Abedin is and start asking how she could earn $135,000 as a part-time government employee and still pull down $355,000 as a consultant.
  • That is, when she’s not playing footsie with Islamic radicals.
  • And now those Taiwanese animators on Anthony Weiner (possibly not safe for work):

  • Peaceful Treyvon protestors assault mother taking her 7-year old to the hospital.
  • A nifty neighborhood crime analysis tool for Austin. (Hat tip: Stuff From Hsoi.)
  • Given the chance to escape from unions, more than half of Wisconsin union members do just that.
  • Indonesia is banning bikinis for the Miss World contest. Well, Siberia isn’t having any of that foolishness.
  • Remembering World War II, Korean and Vietnam war vet and Congressional Medal of Honor winner Bud Day.
  • LinkSwarm for July 19, 2013

    Friday, July 19th, 2013

    Detroit went bankrupt. One stranger was acquitted for shooting another stranger. Which do you think the media spent more time covering?

  • “Progressive politicians, wonks, and activists can only blame big corporations and other liberal bogeymen for so long. The truth is that corrupt machine politics in a one-party system devoted to the blue social model wrecked an entire city and thousands of lives beyond repair. The sooner blues come to terms with this reality, the greater chance other cities will have of avoiding Detroit’s fate.”
  • The IRS scandal now leads to the chief counsel, one of only two Obama appointees at the agency.
  • “The Democratic Party is a machine for inciting grievances in order to consolidate its power.”
  • The Wall Street Journal makes the case for dismantling ObamaCare piece by piece.
  • Republican Insiders are very, very upset that Jim DeMint is exposing them for the RINOs they are.
  • My precious snowflake is extremely gifted. He’s also 29 and unemployed because so many jobs are unworthy of his Promethean talents. Matt Walsh: SMACKDOWN.
  • “The Democratic Party is a machine for inciting grievances in order to consolidate its power.”
  • Charles Barkley on the Zimmerman trial: “Just looking at the evidence I agreed with the verdict.”
  • A few facts about Marissa Alexander that may not be apparent from a two panel picture comparison with George Zimmerman.
  • “Reason for termination: Disabled veteran.”
  • “Negative perceptions of young black men are rooted in hard data on who commits crimes.”
  • Near empty New York hospital losing $3 million a week. Naturally, unions are demanding it stay open. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Charles Murray on American exceptionalism.
  • Marco Rubio was riding high. Then he became a shill for amnesty, and now his life is all sad trombones. I haven’t seen a serious national political aspirant fall so far since Gary Hart went boating.
  • Today’s serial Democratic Party groper who felt-up at least six women and who the state party forced their members to cover up for comes to you from California.
  • LinkSwarm for July 12, 2013

    Friday, July 12th, 2013

    Last night was the night when we, as Americans, set aside our political differences and came together to watch Sharknado. But time hurries on! Time for another Friday LinkSwarm:

  • 50+ years of Democratic rule turn Detroit into a failed city.
  • David Stockman says the recovery is bunk.
  • Ted Cruz would make a formidable Presidential candidate.
  • Thomas Sowell: The Left refuse to grapple with the issue of Evil. “Disarmament means making decent, law-abiding people more vulnerable to evil people.”
  • ObamaCare mandate delayed. “It has become a trope among defenders of the law that its flaws are the fault of Republicans because they don’t want to fix them. They must have seen their own peculiar version of Schoolhouse Rock!: The first step in making a law is jamming a massive bill down the opposition’s throat. The second is whining that the opposition won’t fix problems inherent in the bill jammed down their throats.”
  • The FEC is another IRS scandal waiting to happen.
  • Speaking of the IRS, they’ve been told to audit Americans, but to give out fraudulent refunds to illegal aliens.
  • A week after he’s deposed, the Obama Administration suddenly realizes that Morsi is an undemocratic asshat.
  • Vladamir Putin’s thugs put on a showtrial for a guy three years in the grave.
  • Big Jolly notes that Texans overwhelmingly support Attorney General Greg Abbott on Voter ID.
  • Salt is no longer bad for you. Now, when do we get an apology from Nurse Bloomberg?
  • A Quick LinkSwarm on Syria

    Monday, June 17th, 2013

    So Obama is (maybe) going to be shipping arms to Syrian rebels. I think this is a remarkably bad idea for a number of reasons, none of them that Bashar Assad isn’t a murderous thug who oppresses his own people, supports terrorism, and attacks and destabilizes neighbors like Lebanon and Israel. All that is true, and Assad certainly deserves a bullet in his head for his sins.

    But there’s zero compelling evidence that toppling him is in the United State’s best interests, that America has any vital interests at sake in the Syrian civil war, or that al Qaeda-related Islamslist thugs won’t come out on top, impose Sharia law, and export Sunni-branded terrorism every bit as vicious and deadly as Assad’s Shia-backed variety. Indeed, the history of Libya and Egypt suggests that they are likely to be considerably worse. And predicting that Sunni Islamists are likely to come out on top of a post-Assad power struggle is like predicting that guys are going to wake up with no memory of last night in a Hangover sequel: we’ve seen this movie before.

    Anyway, here are a few links for the current situation in Syria.

  • Who makes up the opposition to Assad in Syria? “An array of rebel militias heavily infiltrated by radical Islamists and al Qaida loyalists with no central command.” In other words: exactly who those of us paying attention have said they are.
  • Victor Davis Hanson makes the case that intervention in Syria is a bad idea. I’m glad I’m not the only one.
  • Michael Totten can’t make heads or tails of Obama’s plans for Syria…including whether we’re actually arming the rebels or not.
  • Speaking of Totten, he links to this piece that argues. “The Islamic Republic[of Iran]’s headlong intervention in Syria is akin to Nazi Germany’s surge of military forces into the Battle of Stalingrad in the fall of 1942 – an operationally competent, strategic blunder of epic proportions.” Not buying it, especially the part that says “Syrian President Bashar Assad’s ultimate defeat is a foregone conclusion.” His argument of Irnaian-backed losses being unsustainable also sounds remarkably like the “flypaper strategy” some said would kill off the supply of radical Islamists by drawing them to the insurgency and killing them in Iraq, and we all know how well that theory turned out…
  • LinkSwam for June 8, 2013

    Saturday, June 8th, 2013

    It’s hard to find time to do an ordinary LinkSwarm with so much Obama scandal news breaking. It’s like ScandalPalooza. And there are some scandal tidbits here as well.

  • Inside the life of Kim Il-Sung’s personal sushi chef.
  • Obama’s arguments for vast NSA powers amounts to “Terrorism is on the run. That’s why we have to tap all your phones and read all your email.”
  • You know what the great weasel word in common for tech giant non-denial denials on the NSA PRISM scandal? “Direct access.” Or “we give them boatloads of indirect access.”
  • The IRS scandal is like Enron: criminality by underlings empowered by a toxic culture at the top by people who think the rules don’t apply to them because they’re smarter than everyone else. “Any good CEO will tell you that ethical meltdowns like the IRS political-targeting scandal are rarely the work of a few rogue employees. Such messes are the result of a toxic culture that has been allowed to fester.”
  • That Gibson guitar raid now makes sense as part of Obama’s weaponizing of the federal government.
  • ObamaCare advocates are just fine with doubling premiums for the poor.
  • Code Pink learns that Michelle Obama may not be criticized any time, ever, for anything.
  • Oh, come on! You can’t even parody this stuff any more. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
  • Fake EPA employee wins real EPA award. (Also from Ace of Spades, which has a lot more EPA malfeasance, including the same sort of conservative targeting the IRS used.)
  • The idea that conservatives oppose Obama just because he’s black is an outrageous, pernicious lie that harms America.
  • Mark Steyn: Why are we spending billions on the NSA when we don’t have the guts to actual screen Muslim immigrants?
  • A former Communications Intelligence officer looks at PRISM.
  • 24 Turks arrest for anti-Erodgan Tweets.
  • Complex regulation i strangling American business.