Month: February 2012

A bit of a relief about ME3, really.

Tycho knows a guy – yeah, that kind of freaks him out, too; that he’s now a guy who knows a guy – who let him know that using the multiplayer feature in Mass Effect 3 is going to be critical for getting an optimal outcome… unless you’re the kind of player who does all the side missions.

(pause)

Well hell, kids, you go have yourselves a good time with your multiplayer missions, then.  Don’t mind me at all, at all.  I’m good.

Administration on wrong side of CNN freedom of conscience poll.

And BOOM goes the Dynamite.

Here is something that needs to be pointed out (as Hot Air did): this poll on the public reaction to the Obama’s administration’s attack on freedom of conscience is skewed toward the liberal position in at least two ways.  First, it polls adults, which traditionally skews things a couple points towards the Democrats; second, it took place after the administration/mainstream media blitz touting Obama’s compromise.  And said poll still shows a majority of respondents opposed to the Obama administration requiring religious organizations from funding procedures that violate those organizations’ religious beliefs.  50/44 opposed/for, and anybody out there willing to take a bet on those numbers changing in the administration’s favor when it comes to likely voters? Or even registered ones?  Actually, we already know; Rasmussen polled likely voters, and came up with 50/39 opposed/for.  Pew polled adults, but also polled Catholics (48/44 and 55/39 for exempting religious organizations, respectively).

CNN is left scratching its metaphorical head at its own results, given that the poll results also show extremely broad support (81/17 for/against) for birth control among Americans, including American Catholics (77/22).  Speaking as somebody who himself in opposition to the Church on this, let me explain the divergence between the two questions: yes, I and many other American Roman Catholics are functional if not formal heretics of the Church* over contraception.  We are, in fact, engaged in a long-term and probably ultimately unresolvable conflict over the doctrine involved. Continue reading Administration on wrong side of CNN freedom of conscience poll.

#rsrh QotD, Don’t Get Me Started Edition.

Ben Shapiro, on the news that we’re now all done with debates, apparently:

The big question is: now the debates don’t matter?  For months, all we heard was that debates were the best way to select our candidates.  On that basis, we ousted Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry. Now debates have taken a backseat to basic campaigning.

Continue reading #rsrh QotD, Don’t Get Me Started Edition.

#rsrh Glenn Reynolds offers a syllabus for classes on the Occupiers.

And it is subtly, entertainingly vicious, too.  I don’t quite feel comfortable excerpting any single one of them, so let me give you some of the suggested course titles:

  • The Higher Education Bubble and Debt Slavery Throughout History. This one is particularly subversive, since it’s aimed at the universities themselves (Glenn is a law professor at the University of Tennessee).
  • Bourgeois vs. Non-Bourgeois Revolutions: A Comparison and Contrast. This one would get the most broad-spectrum screaming.
  • The Fragility of Public Health.  Now this one was just mean.  Depressingly accurate, but mean.

So – ahem – read the whole thing.  You might as well, because there’s not a chance in Perdition that anything like these classes will be taught in our current academic atmosphere.  At least, not in Establishment academia…

(H/T: Hot Air Headlines)

Moe Lane

#rsrh Got a problem with this Susie Tompkins Buell story.

Not the main point, which is that she’s self-identifying as one of those rubes who doesn’t quite understand why the Democratic party considers her a handy cash cow.  There’s something darkly entertaining about watching a California liberal whine about how she’s not going to give any money to Obama until he starts acting like a ‘leader;’ madam, if the President was capable of such things we would have seen it on, oh, January 20th, 2009.  That was when I knew that Obama was incapable of seizing the opportunities given unto him.  That’s when I truly knew that this man was weak.

Anyway, my problem is with this:

Ro Khanna, a Democratic rising star in the South Bay, also has Buell’s support and donations, as he mulls a future run against 20-term incumbent Rep. Pete Stark in the new 15th Congressional District.

Continue reading #rsrh Got a problem with this Susie Tompkins Buell story.

#rsrh Hey, when is a tax not a tax?

When it’s a mandate, of course!

In a hearing of the House Budget Committee Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., pressed [Acting OMB Director Jeffrey] Zients on whether the penalty that the health care law imposes on individuals who do not purchase health insurance constitutes a tax. Eventually, Zients said it did not.

So what?  Philip Klein goes on:

But this directly contradicts one of the arguments the Obama administration is making before the Supreme Court in defense of the health care law, which is that the mandate is Constitutional because it’s a tax and government has taxing power.

Which is kind of an important point, here: I mean, we’re all used to the idea that Obama lies when it suits him.  Too much of the rest of the country is not at that stage of awareness, though.

Yet.

Moe Lane Continue reading #rsrh Hey, when is a tax not a tax?