Global warming

Forget global warming, Alaska is headed for an ice age

Alaska is going rogue on climate change.

Defiant as ever, the state that gave rise to Sarah Palin is bucking the mainstream yet again: While global temperatures surge hotter and the ice-cap crumbles, the nation's icebox is getting even icier.

That may not be news to Alaskans coping with another round of 50-below during the coldest winter in two decades, or to the mariners locked out of the Bering Sea this spring by record ice growth.

Then again, it might. The 49th state has long been labeled one of the fastest-warming spots on the planet. But that's so 20th Century.

In the first decade since 2000, the 49th state cooled 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

Widespread warming

That's a "large value for a decade," the Alaska Climate Research Centerat the University of Alaska Fairbanks said in "The First Decade of the New Century: A Cooling Trend for Most of Alaska."

The cooling is widespread -- holding true for 19 of the 20 National Weather Service stations sprinkled from one corner of Alaska to the other, the paper notes. It's most significant in Western Alaska, whereKing Salmon on the Alaska Peninsula saw temperatures drop most sharply, a significant 4.5 degrees for the decade, the report says.  

The new nippiness began with a vengeance in 2005, after more than a century that saw temperatures generally veer warmer in Alaska, the report says. With lots of ice to lose, the state had heated up about twice as fast as the rest of the planet, in line with rising global greenhouse gas emissions, note the Alaska Climate Center researchers, Gerd Wendler, L. Chen and Blake Moore. After a "sudden temperature increase" in Alaska starting in 1977, the warmest decade on record occurred in the 1980s, followed by another jump in the 1990s, they note. The third warmest decade was the 1920s, by the way.

Too chilly for king salmon?

But now comes cooling. Researchers blame the Decadal Oscillation, an ocean phenomenon that brought chillier surface water temperatures toward Alaska. Some contend the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is harming the state's king salmon runs, too. 

One effect of the oscillation is to weaken the Aleutian Low -- a storm-breeding center known for spitting out winter tempests that help regulate weather in the Lower 48. With that low-pressure center above the Aleutians weakened, polar storms raking Alaska from the north linger longer.

People have noticed the new chill in King Salmon, but slightly colder  temperatures don’t bother you much when you're already bundled up for 20-below, said Don Hatten, the National Weather Service forecaster there. Most noticeable was that for the first time last year, the Bering Sea ice shelf extended south nearly to the edge of the Alaska Peninsula, he said.    

The single exception to Alaska’s cooling trend came in Barrow along North Slope, where the mercury rose as it has across most of the Arctic. That's because that northernmost slice of Alaska is secluded from the rest of the state by the Brooks Range, researchers say. Temperatures for the decade were 3.1 degrees higher in Barrow. That trend continued earlier this year, with weeks of above average temperatures in Barrow, apparently driven in part by Arctic Ocean ice melting.

Some like it cold      

Will Alaska’s frigid spell last long? The researchers don't know. The report notes, however, that Alaska endured three decades of relative cold starting in the mid-1940s. Many Alaskans pray the current cold stretch abates sooner.

But Bethel's Myron Angstman, a pilot, musher andlongtime organizer of the Kuskokwim 300 sled dog race, isn’t one of those Alaskans.  He’s glad it's chillier in Southwest Alaska, because increased freezing creates safer trips for mushers, snowmachiners, skiers and others.

Too much warm weather leads to freeze-thaw cycles that create unpredictable layers of ice and hidden water. Even a plunge into a few feet of overflow can prove life-threatening when the subzero temperatures have returned and your snowmachine is stuck -- or you're drenched.

"There's nothing worse than a winter in rural Alaska with temperatures of 35 degrees," he said.

Very cold December

Alaska’s cold trend may even be strengthening this winter. National Weather Service meteorologist Shaun Baines reported Saturday that as of Dec. 21, Anchorage had already spent 10 days below zero this month.  The city's average temperature this December is just 5.3 degrees, nearly 8 degrees shy of the December average of 13.2 degrees.  Even though warmer air is due by Christmas Day, Anchorage was already enroute to the coldest winter since 1982.

Could it warm up a bit during the second half of Alaska’s winter?  Anything is possible, but the National Weather Service in Anchorage recently completed its 90-day forecast and calls for colder-than-normal temperatures at least through the end of March, said meteorologist Dave Stricklan.   

The lawyers win by perverting the law

Toyota Settling Lost-Resale-Value Lawsuits: Why It’s Insane and Why Everybody Loses (Except the Lawyers)

Lawsuits have created a warning-label culture, but where are the warning labels on the lawsuits themselves? For the cover of a 237-page settlement proposal that Toyota filed yesterday, we’d propose “Beware: Contains Idiocy and Greed.” Pending approval from a federal judge, Toyota will buy its way out of a class-action lawsuit that claims perfectly functional cars depreciated in value after the Sudden Unintended Acceleration Circus of 2009 and 2010. (The DOT ultimately ruled in 2011 that the vast majority of instances were the result of driver error.) Why spend time and money going to court and potentially losing? Most civil lawsuits end with settlements for these very reasons. Following logic from The Price Is Right, the total package value is over $1.3 billion. Then again, a toaster costs $159.99 on The Price is Right. Here’s why each of the parts of the settlement are insane and/or stupid—plus we name the actual winners. 

What The Lawsuit Is Supposedly About

Despite being an extraordinarily complex lawsuit, which ended up with a single federal court managing over 200 cases from courts around the country, the case is fairly simply explained. As we wrote when the suit picked up steam earlier this year, the plaintiffs argued that “because Toyota’s cars were involved in this phenomenon, every example of each model in question is now worth less on the used market. Toyota, the plaintiffs say, owes its customers the difference between what the cars were worth before people started crashing them and what they’re worth now.”

These claims fit into a controversial legal category called “Economic Loss.” People usually can’t sue if they haven’t suffered an “injury,” whether that’s physical or economic. The plaintiffs might have had to prove cars did accelerate unintentionally and that Toyota was to blame—this would be almost impossible. You can read more about why this was so unusual our original article.

Term 1: Toyota puts $250 million into a fund to compensate former owners who sold or returned a leased example of select Toyota models (almost all of them) between September 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010

This sounds like a lot of money. It’s not. Depending on the model, its age, mileage, and other bookkeeping stats, the estimated payout spread among potentially millions of sellers is “in the range of hundreds of dollars to over a thousand dollars.”

Actual Winner(s): Big used-car dealerships, which may have sold hundreds of Toyotas and Lexuses during that time.

Term 2: Toyota pays to install Brake Override Systems on eligible vehicles

These systems, which are common in many new cars, essentially lock out the gas pedal when the brake pedal is depressed. Toyota will pay to have these installed on eligible cars—most of its non-hybrid lineup from 2005 to 2010, estimated to be roughly three million vehicles. Take a moment and think about what Toyota is doing here: It’s paying to buy parts and to have Toyota dealers install them. In other words, Toyota is pumping a giant load of cash into its suppliers and dealers’ service departments. What are the odds that all of these vehicles will come down off the lifts without the discovery of additional parts needing replacement or service?

Actual Winner(s): Toyota dealerships, Toyota’s suppliers, and—somewhat indirectly—Toyota.

Term 3: Toyota puts $250 million into a fund to pay people who still own certain Toyotas that aren’t compatible with Brake Override Systems

Some of the vehicles on the master list cannot, for mechanical and electronic reasons, be fitted with a Brake Override System. The current owners of these vehicles will receive a cash payout, determined by the model, its age, mileage, and other factors. Compensation will range from $37.50 to $125 per car.

Actual Winner(s): Nobody, really.

Term 4: Toyota spends $30 million for automotive safety research and education

Toyota will give approximately $800,000 to a major university, which the settlement says is likely be the University of Iowa’s Public Policy Center, to conduct a study “focusing on identifying critical gaps in awareness and practice regarding defensive driving skills.” If that’s not passive-aggressive enough, among those “specific driver behaviors” to be studied: “issues relating to driver pedal misapplication.” Toyota will then spend up to $14.2 million dollars on a public safety campaign to raise awareness about the issues it discovered in the study. Translation: This is how we think you crashed our cars, and this is how you can avoid doing that again.

The other $15 million (maximum) will go to fund university research into safety technology.

Actual Winners: The University of Iowa, other universities, billboard owners.

And the Grand Prize Winners Are . . .

Weighing in at some 85 attorneys spread over 25 firms, the grand prize winners are: the law firms. Toyota’s settlement proposal agrees to pay up to $200 million in fees to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, with an additional maximum of $27 million allocated to cover their expenses. (It’s distributed proportionately to how much work the firms put into the suit.)

Officially, the millions of members of the “class” in this class-action lawsuit—the owners and sellers—are the ones suing and negotiating with Toyota, and ultimately the class members and the federal court have to approve the attorneys’ fees. (Although it happens as frequently as a friendly Michigan-Ohio State game, class members do occasionally revolt and even sue their lawyers.) But in reality, this is and was an attorneys’ show all along. These folks were, after all, the ones who made this monstrosity of a class-action lawsuit possible. Law firms took the initiative to bundle together individual clients, to manage the litigation, to spend their time working without income on the expectation that they’d win a settlement or judgment against Toyota. And, in a sense, nobody actually hired them—they work with a few representative plaintiffs, post updates on their websites, and generally communicate with any potential class members who want to do so. But once involved, the firms really run the operation.

The lawyers who sued Merck for selling the anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx took home $315 million in fees. In their cases, people had actually died. This class action against Toyota specifically excludes anyone who was physically injured or killed in a collision.

Who Loses Next?

Even though Toyota admits nothing—and very likely would have won this lawsuit eventually—this big settlement shows that (1) the economic-loss category of lawsuits has legs, which means the classes in class-action lawsuits can potentially be much bigger in the future, and (2) car companies are still willing to make blockbuster payouts.

Hyundai is now facing a class-action lawsuit for misstating its vehicles’ fuel-economy ratings, even though the company already offered to compensate owners. (The firm pursuing this case is the same one that quarterbacked this Toyota suit.) Ford is dealing with a similar lawsuit in California regarding its mileage claims for the C-Max hybrid.

Warning: The next few years are going to be messy.

Meet the new boss...

Popular Egypt satirist accused of mocking president

Hypocrites...on tax loopholes

FISCAL CLIFF DEAL: HOLLYWOOD GETS TAX INCENTIVE EXTENSION

by BREITBART NEWS 1 Jan 2013, 12:33 PM PDT 266POST A COMMENT

The Senate passed legislation meant to end the "fiscal cliff" crisis in the wee hours of the morning. And it seems Hollywood's rigorous backing of President Barack Obama and his Democrat peers in the waning months of 2012 paid off.

Section 317 of the freshly approved legislation includes an extension for "special expensing rules for certain film and television productions." Congress first enacted production tax incentives favorable to the domestic entertainment industry in 2004, and extended them in 2008, but the deal was meant to expire in 2011. 

The fiscal cliff deal extends the tax incentives through 2013--even as payroll taxes rise on ordinary Americans.

The original tax incentive applied to productions costing less than $15 million to make ($20 million in low-income areas). The 2008 extension applies to all films, up to a deduction of $15 million (or $20 million in low-income areas). The incentive is especially generous to television series; it applies to each TV episode.

Hollywood players routinely beg the government to raise their taxes so they can pay their "fair share." 

Yet the industry moves new productions to places where existing tax breaks help its bottom line. That means plenty of shows and films are shot in states like New Mexico, which feature highly favorable tax rates, as well as destinations north of the border with similar perks.

Now Hollywood has used its clout to ensure that its generous tax incentives will continue in a time of fiscal crisis.

Laws Are for Little People

Mark Steyn:

A week ago on NBC’s Meet the Press, David Gregory brandished on screen a high-capacity magazine. To most media experts, a “high-capacity magazine” means an ad-stuffed double issue of Vanity Fair with the triple-page perfume-scented pullouts. But apparently in America’s gun-nut gun culture of gun-crazed gun kooks, it’s something else entirely, and it was this latter kind that Mr. Gregory produced in order to taunt Wayne LaPierre of the NRA. As the poster child for America’s gun-crazed gun-kook gun culture, Mr. LaPierre would probably have been more scared by the host waving around a headily perfumed Vanity Fair. But that was merely NBC’s first miscalculation. It seems a high-capacity magazine is illegal in the District of Columbia, and the flagrant breach of D.C. gun laws is now under investigation by the police.

This is, declared NYU professor Jay Rosen, “the dumbest media story of 2012.” Why? Because, as CNN’s Howard Kurtz breezily put it, everybody knows David Gregory wasn’t “planning to commit any crimes.”

So what? Neither are the overwhelming majority of his fellow high-capacity-magazine-owning Americans. Yet they’re expected to know, as they drive around visiting friends and family over Christmas, the various and contradictory gun laws in different jurisdictions. Ignorantia juris non excusat is one of the oldest concepts in civilized society: Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Back when there was a modest and proportionate number of laws, that was just about doable. But in today’s America there are laws against everything, and any one of us at any time is unknowingly in breach of dozens of them. And in this case NBC were informed by the D.C. police that it would be illegal to show the thing on TV, and they went ahead and did it anyway: You’ll never take me alive, copper! You’ll have to pry my high-capacity magazine from my cold dead fingers! When the D.C. SWAT team, the FBI, and the ATF take out NBC News and the whole building goes up in one almighty fireball, David Gregory will be the crazed loon up on the roof like Jimmy Cagney in White Heat: “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” At last, some actual must-see TV on that lousy network.

But, even if we’re denied that pleasure, the “dumbest media story of 2012” is actually rather instructive. David Gregory intended to demonstrate what he regards as the absurdity of America’s lax gun laws. Instead, he’s demonstrating the ever greater absurdity of America’s non-lax laws. His investigation, prosecution, and a sentence of 20–30 years with eligibility for parole after ten (assuming Mothers Against High-Capacity Magazines don’t object) would teach a far more useful lesson than whatever he thought he was doing by waving that clip under LaPierre’s nose. 

To Howard Kurtz & Co., it’s “obvious” that Gregory didn’t intend to commit a crime. But, in a land choked with laws, “obviousness” is one of the first casualties — and “obviously” innocent citizens have their “obviously” well-intentioned actions criminalized every minute of the day. Not far away from David Gregory, across the Virginia border, eleven-year-old Skylar Capo made the mistake of rescuing a woodpecker from the jaws of a cat and nursing him back to health for a couple of days. For her pains, a federal Fish & Wildlife gauleiter accompanied by state troopers descended on her house, charged her with illegal transportation of a protected species, issued her a $535 fine, and made her cry. Why is it so “obvious” that David Gregory deserves to be treated more leniently than a sixth grader? Because he’s got a TV show and she hasn’t?

Anything involving guns is even less amenable to “obviousness.” A few years ago, Daniel Brown was detained at LAX while connecting to a Minneapolis flight because traces of gunpowder were found on his footwear. His footwear was combat boots. As the name suggests, the combat boots were returning from combat — eight months of it, in Iraq’s bloody and violent al-Anbar province. Above the boots he was wearing the uniform of a staff sergeant in the USMC Reserve Military Police and was accompanied by all 26 members of his unit, also in uniform. Staff Sergeant Brown doesn’t sound like an “obvious” terrorist. But the TSA put him on the no-fly list anyway. If it’s not “obvious” to the government that a serving member of the military has any legitimate reason for being around ammunition, why should it be “obvious” that a TV host has? 

Three days after scofflaw Gregory committed his crime, a bail hearing was held in Massachusetts for Andrew Despres, 20, who’s charged with trespassing and possession of ammunition without a firearms license. Mr. Despres was recently expelled from Fitchburg State University and was returning to campus to pick up his stuff. Hence the trespassing charge. At the time of his arrest, he was wearing a “military-style ammunition belt.” Hence, the firearms charge.

His mom told WBZ that her son purchased the belt for $20 from a punk website and had worn it to class every day for two years as a “fashion statement.” He had no gun with which to fire the bullets. Nevertheless, Fitchburg police proudly displayed the $20 punk-website ammo belt as if they’d just raided the Fitchburg mafia’s armory, and an obliging judge ordered Mr. Despres held on $50,000 bail. Why should there be one law for Meet the Press and another for Meet Andrew Despres? Because David Gregory throws better cocktail parties?

The argument for letting him walk rests on his membership of a protected class — the media. Notwithstanding that (per Gallup) 54 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the NRA while only 40 percent have any trust in the media, the latter regard themselves as part of the ruling class. Which makes the rest of you the ruled. Laws are for the little people — and little people need lots of little laws, ensnaring them at every turn.

Continue here.

Letter from a Marine to Dianne Feinstein

Senator Dianne Feinstein,

I will not register my weapons should this bill be passed, as I do not believe it is the government's right to know what I own. Nor do I think it prudent to tell you what I own so that it may be taken from me by a group of people who enjoy armed protection yet decry me having the same a crime. You ma'am have overstepped a line that is not your domain. I am a Marine Corps Veteran of 8 years, and I will not have some woman who proclaims the evil of an inanimate object, yet carries one, tell me I may not have one.

I am not your subject. I am the man who keeps you free. I am not your servant. I am the person whom you serve. I am not your peasant. I am the flesh and blood of America. I am the man who fought for my country. I am the man who learned. I am an American. You will not tell me that I must register my semi-automatic AR-15 because of the actions of some evil man.

I will not be disarmed to suit the fear that has been established by the media and your misinformation campaign against the American public.gun

We, the people, deserve better than you.



Respectfully Submitted,
Joshua Boston
Cpl, United States Marine Corps
2004-2012

Amen.

Regulating the Militia

Kevin D. Williamson:

My friend Brett Joshpe has published anuncharacteristically soft-headed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle arguing that in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook, conservatives and Republicans should support what he calls “sensible” gun-control laws. It begins with a subtext of self-congratulation (“As a conservative and a Republican, I can no longer remain silent . . . Some will consider it heresy,” etc.), casts aspersions of intellectual dishonesty (arguments for preserving our traditional rights are “disingenuous”), advances into ex homine (noting he has family in Sandy Hook, as though that confers special status on his preferences), fundamentally misunderstands the argument for the right to keep and bear arms, deputizes the electorate, and cites the presence of teddy bears as evidence for his case.

Brett, like practically every other person seeking to diminish our constitutional rights, either does not understand the purpose of the Second Amendment or refuses to address it, writing, “Gun advocates will be hard-pressed to explain why the average American citizen needs an assault weapon with a high-capacity magazine other than for recreational purposes.” The answer to this question is straightforward: The purpose of having citizens armed with paramilitary weapons is to allow them to engage in paramilitary actions. The Second Amendment is not about Bambi and burglars — whatever a well-regulated militia is, it is not a hunting party or a sport-clays club. It is remarkable to me that any educated person — let alone a Harvard Law graduate — believes that the second item on the Bill of Rights is a constitutional guarantee of enjoying a recreational activity.

There is no legitimate exception to the Second Amendment for military-style weapons, because military-style weapons are precisely what the Second Amendment guarantees our right to keep and bear. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to secure our ability to oppose enemies foreign and domestic, a guarantee against disorder and tyranny. Consider the words of Supreme Court justice Joseph Story — who was, it bears noting, appointed to the Court by the guy who wrote the Constitution:

The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.

“Usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers” — not Bambi, not burglars. While your granddad’s .30-06 is a good deal more powerful than the .223 rifles that give blue-state types the howling fantods, that is not what we have a constitutional provision to protect. Liberals are forever asking: “Why would anybody need a gun like that?” And the answer is: because we are not serfs. We are a free people living under a republic of our own construction. We may consent to be governed, but we will not be ruled.

The right to keep and bear arms is a civil right. If you doubt that, consider the history of arms control in England, where members of the Catholic minority (and non-Protestants generally) were prohibited from bearing arms as part of the campaign of general political oppression against them. The Act of Disenfranchisement was still in effect when our Constitution was being written, a fact that surely was on the mind of such Founding Fathers as Daniel Carroll, to say nothing of his brother, Archbishop John Carroll.

Continue here.

The road to serfdom

The Socialist Mind Game: A Brief Manual

By Oleg Atbashian

We are being played; it's time we learned the game.
Conservatives have their Constitution.  Progressives have their Narrative.  The current battle for America is between these two concepts, and each side uses different rules to fight it.
One set of rules is consistent with an unchanging objective: limited government and individual freedoms.  The other side's rules are as fickle as their goals, which are never fully disclosed beyond the equivocal references to fairness and hyphenated forms of justice.  They will have to remain vague and deny their true allegiances until a time when American voters will no longer squirm at the word "socialism."
And yet spotting them isn't that hard.  As a bird is known by his feathers, socialists are known by their Game.
First tried and mastered in the USSR, the Game has since been popularized around the world, assuming various forms, names, and colors -- from red to brown to green.  It is now taking hold in the United States under the blue web banners of Obama's campaign infomercials.
The laws of society and human nature are such that socialism can only be achieved through a certain sequence of steps and manipulations.  For instance, the only way to attain material equality is to confiscate someone's property and give it to others.  That necessitates a centralized mechanism of coercion, redistribution, and control.  Such a system gives extraordinary corrupting powers to a small centralized elite, while turning the rest of the citizenry into a compliant, obsequious herd.
All those who claimed they can do it differently were doomed to retrace the same path.  Once you unleash the ancient powers of collectivism, you have only two options: control the human herd or be trampled underfoot.
Drawing blood is always an option, but there's also a "cleaner" way to control the crowds by manipulating their minds with the cattle prods of collectivist morals and a fictional narrative that supplants the reality. 
Let's call it the Mind Game of Manipulative Illusions.                                                  
The Game existed since Cain and Abel, but it developed into an art form in the 20th century, with the rise of totalitarian regimes armed with state-controlled education, entertainment, and the media. 
For a dictatorship to run efficiently, a sufficient number of people must give the regime a moral license to rule over them.  The Mind Game of Manipulative Illusions secures and extends such a license.
Even the Soviet Communists, with all their tools of repression and fear, with all their power over anyone's life and death, were still pressed to play mind games to make the people feel good about the Party rule.  Towards the end they went easy on the Game and relaxed their grip on the media, entertainment, and education, accepting the policies of Glasnost.  Once they lost the ability to control people's hearts and minds, they also lost their moral license and, with it, the country.
The Game can mutate and adjust to different cultures, but its basic rules always remain as follows:
Socialism is not just about taking away your money; it's also about making you praise the takers as your saviors.  You are expected to feel good about being robbed of opportunities, talents, and success.  You must agree that "you didn't build that." There must be a popular consensus that the crumbs you are getting back from the government are a sign of caring and largess -- not a meager fraction of your actual earnings.  Last but not least, you must sincerely believe that those who are trying to protect you from the thieves are really your enemies and deserve to be destroyed. 
Building up and maintaining such an illusion on a massive scale requires participation of the media, education, and entertainment industries in a coordinated, long-term propaganda campaign. 
Once the illusion reaches a critical mass, those afflicted by it become immune to facts, numbers, or rational arguments.  Confronting them with logic will only cause more resentment, name-calling and, sometimes, violence.
The little game of illusions that President Obama is running under the name of "tax cuts for the middle class" is part of the larger Game; it contains all of the above elements.
The plan is to pass yet another extension of Bush's tax cuts - i.e., to keep the status quo for the most -while excluding families with a joint income of over $250,000.  In plain speak, it's a tax hike.  But calling things by their real names would be against the rules; this isn't how the Game is played.
This mass mailing from Obama's Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter shows us how to play it:

I hope you had a lovely holiday and all is well.  I'm writing with a quick update on the "fiscal cliff" and how you can get involved.

Right now, President Obama is asking you to think about what $2,000 a year means to you and your family -- because Congress needs to hear it.

The Senate has passed a bill that stops taxes from going up for 98 percent of American families, and asks those who can afford it to pay a little more.  If the House follows suit, President Obama is ready to sign it as soon as it hits his desk.

If they fail to do so, a typical middle-class family of four will see their taxes go up by $2,000 in just a few short weeks.

President Obama is asking Congress to do the right thing and act before the New Year, but he needs our help.  We've got a good track record here: When we make our voices heard and urge Congress to take action -- whether it's about health care, student loans, Wall Street reform, or "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" -- they listen.
Watch this new video about the President's tax plan, and take a moment to share your story: What does $2,000 a year mean to you and your family?

Listening to Obama now, one could have never guessed that these are the same "Bush's tax cuts," against which he had vigorously campaigned in the past -- just like one could have never learned from his previous speeches that the reviled "tax cuts for the rich" had been saving middle-class families as much as $2,200 a year.
Until recently, the $2,200 amount was treated as classified information, which the Administration and the compliant media deemed unfit for consumption by the unwashed masses.  Now that Obama wins reelection and needs to postpone the economic disaster caused by his first term, he "declassifies" the previously subversive amount and parades it on My.BarackObama.com as a centerpiece of his new glorious campaign for the people.
Simply put, Obama first discredits his predecessor's idea, then steals it, bundles it with a job-killing tax hike, and rebrands it as his own benevolent gift to the toiling masses.  Judging by responses on Obama's official blog, WhiteHouse.gov, andTwitter, many of his supporters believe they are actually getting something out of it -- but in reality they are about to lose what they have due to the resulting cutbacks, layoffs, and price increases.
As the Game goes on, just feeling good about the imaginary gift is no longer enough.  You are expected to participate in spreading this Orwellian fantasy by haranguing Congress with demands of a tax hike while calling it a tax cut.
Join the herd and you will experience the collectivist sense of belonging, entitlement, and empowerment by engaging in quixotic class-struggle against the mythical windmills and all those mean-spirited capitalists who are conspiring to rob you of the rightful $2,200 disbursement.  Forget the phrase "policies that got us into this mess"; these policies are now all about "doing the right thing."
You end up with a sincere belief that greedy corporations, Republicans, the Tea Party, and the rest of the profligates opposing Obama's policies are the perfidious enemy who deserves to be punished and purged.
If you're wondering what kind of ignorant, misinformed, and morally misguided fools would fall for this trick, look no further than Obama's most recent 56% job approval rating in the midst of a needlessly prolonged recession.  The White House propagandist Stephanie Cutter knows her demographic and constructs simple phrases she believes they can understand.  However, one question remains: if the Obama voters are the best and the brightest half of this nation, why does Ms. Cutter talk to them in the tone of a condescending kindergarten teacher?
The Game has a part for everyone, from top to bottom.  As the top players obtain unprecedented powers, those at the bottom get high on the palliative illusion of safety and well-being.
That illusion is as powerful as it is addictive; a mere exposure to facts of life will cause the addict to writhe in agony.  It is truly the Oxycontin for the masses.  No presidential candidate can win on the promise of withdrawal; those who feel entitled to a pain-free existence will only vote for better and stronger illusions.  The more the addiction spreads, the slimmer the chances of a realist ever occupying the White House again.
This can last for as long as there are enough productive taxpayers to support the habit.  Once they also get hooked, stop working, or the system runs out of resources, expect a fearsome, excruciating withdrawal of epic proportions.  Until then, keep rational arguments to yourself unless you crave losing friends and alienating people.
If you tell them that there is no such thing as a pain-free life, they'll think you are some sadistic fascist who thrives on pain and takes pleasure in hurting people.
The problem with that attitude is that pain is nature's way to warn us of danger.  If it burns, don't touch it.  If it hurts, don't repeat it.  People who are born without an ability to feel pain are incapable of learning safe behaviors and are doomed to live a short life of bumps, burns, broken bones, and worse.  A pain-free society would be even less viable.
The real choice, therefore, is between the occasional sharp pain of individual effort and the dull, permanent pain of collective misfortune, since redistributive economies always end in misery, shortages, and corruption.  Western Europe's gradual introduction of socialism is directly proportional to its gradual economic and moral decline, as evidenced by violent riots in response to inevitable austerity measures.
In the U.S., the pain-free life will be even shorter if the country falls off a cliff.
When the painkillers become useless, The Game remedies it by directing the massive anger toward the opposition.                                                                                          
The perception of a relentless struggle with the opposition must be permanent and persuasive.  Even in times of calm and prosperity the people must believe that the opposition is holding them hostage and only the firm, wise guidance of the People's Leader is saving them from imminent ruin.  When the opponents are too few, too weak, and too disoriented to put up a real fight, their power and influence must be exaggerated.
The Game has its logic: for socialism to work, there has to be unanimity and compliance.  Dissent leads to system malfunctions, causing hardship for all those in the care of the state.  That effectively makes the dissenter a traitor and a public enemy.  The need to suppress opposition necessitates a totalitarian form of government.  While we aren't at that stage yet, the demonization of dissenters has already begun.
Until a time when the opposition can be eliminated completely, having opponents can still be useful: you can steal their ideas, take advantage of their desire to help the economy, and blame them for any of your own failures.  In the meantime, certain rules must be followed to control the public opinion and, through it, the opposition itself.
Maintain the perception of being constantly under attack.  Don't examine the opponents' beliefs, nor answer their arguments.  Discredit any media channels that offer them a platform.  Enforce the following media template: the opposition is evil, treasonous, unfathomable, and psychotic.  They can't be reasoned with.  They are inspired by fascism and financed by a conspiracy of shady oligarchs.  Defame their donors.  Whatever the mischief you're planning to pull off, accuse them of doing it first; then proceed as planned, describing your actions as a necessary intervention.  And above all, ridicule, ridicule, ridicule!
Imagine a scenario in which a theoretical group of left-wing radicals takes over America by playing the Game as described; then answer this question: how would their actions be different from what Obama, the Democrat Party, and their allies are doing today?
The stated intentions and the feel-good, vague rhetoric are just words.  If the result is the same, nothing else matters.  We lose.
Oleg Atbashian, a writer and graphic artist from the former USSR, currently lives in Florida.  He is the creator of ThePeoplesCube.com, a satirical website where he writes under the name of Red Square.  He is also the author of Shakedown Socialism.

The forces of darkness at work

Pakistan: Seven charity workers shot dead

Seven charity workers, six of them women, have been shot dead in north-west Pakistan, police say.

The women, some of them teachers, were attacked near a children's community centre. A male colleague died with them. All were Pakistani citizens.

Their vehicle came under gunfire near the centre run by Pakistani charity Ujala, or Light.

Militants targeting a vaccination programme are suspected. No group has said it carried out the attack.

The incident happened in the Swabi district close to a road connecting Peshawar to the eastern city of Lahore.

The centre was part school and part clinic, specialising in maternal health.

"Four men came on two motorbikes. They attacked their van. They opened fire to the right and left of the van and fled on their motorbikes," Swabi district police chief Abdul Rashid Khan said, according to AFP.

He added that the driver of the vehicle had also been injured in the attack, which took place near a motorway junction.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool, in Islamabad, says that, according to police, this is the first such attack on NGO workers in the area.

Our correspondent says that those running the centre said they suspect its vaccination programme was the reason it was attacked.

Of the seven people who were killed, two were health workers and five were teachers.

Last month, in a series of attacks, gunmen killed nine health workers taking part in a national polio vaccination drive.

While the Pakistani Taliban have denied carrying out the killings, they have long denounced the vaccination drive as a Western plot either to gather intelligence or to sterilise Muslim children.

The killings prompted the UN children's agency and the World Health Organisation to suspend work on polio campaigns in the country.

Doing what bureaucracies do best...wouldn't this be major news if it were a black neighborhood or a Republican was President?

Sandy Victims Still Stranded As ‘Red Tape’ Hinders Help From FEMA

Reaching for new lows...

Kathy Griffin Kisses Anderson Cooper's Crotch On National Television

No matter what vulgar things Kathy Griffin does on CNN's live New Year's Eve broadcasts, the folks at the supposedly most trusted name in news continue to invite her back.

On Monday night's program, after first telling co-host Anderson Cooper "I'm going to tickle your sack," she shortly after midnight actually kissed his crotch (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Roughly eleven minutes into the program which began at 10 PM, Cooper commented about how on Twitter folks were suggesting that there should be a game that whenever he giggles nervously during the show, contestants have to take a drink.

Then, completely out of the blue, Griffin said, “I'm going to tickle your sack. You can say sack. That's not bad.”

An obviously nervous Cooper responded, “I don't know what you're talking about. I have no sack of gifts here.”

Griffin then suggested the camera pan lower so the audience can see her “naughty gestures.”

When Cooper continued to try and clean it up by again referring to a sack of Christmas presents, Griffin asked, “You’re calling your privates your Christmas presents?”

When Cooper said, “No,” Griffin replied, “That’s typical hot guy. ‘Let’s open up the Christmas presents.’”

But Griffin wasn’t finished with her lewd behavior.

Shortly after midnight, Cooper showed viewers how they celebrate New Year’s Eve in Eastport, Maine.

National correspondent Gary Tuchman reported live that there’s a custom in the town to kiss a statue of an eight-foot sardine that they drop from the museum at the stroke of midnight. People were then shown kissing the sardine.

As Tuchman finished his report, Griffin in the left split-screen bent down and kissed Cooper's crotch.

As she continued to try to kiss it, Cooper asked her, “Did you drop something?”

“No, I was kissing your sardine,” Griffin replied.

“Thank you. I got it,” giggled Cooper.

“I can do it again,” Griffin said kneeling. “I can do this all night long."

“No, sweetie,” said Cooper lifting her back on her feet.

“I'm going on Letterman in two nights, and he wants a moment,” argued Griffin as she went down again.

“I'm going down,” she said. “You know you want to.”

“Believe me, I really don't,” said Cooper as he once again pulled her upright.

“It's after midnight,” protested Griffin.

“I never have,” argued Cooper.

“No one's even going to, what's the big deal?” responded Griffin as she went down again.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Cooper said pulling her up as he handed it off to Brooke Baldwin in New Orleans.

Is this what the self-described "most trusted name in news" considers acceptable fare?

Consider that during the 2009 show, Griffin dropped an F-bomb. The year before she directed a vulgar oral sex reference to a heckler. Last year she stripped down to her underwear.

Yet CNN keeps inviting her back.

Boggles the mind, doesn't it?

Happy New Year