That was my thought as well - of course, everyone knows that Republicans never engage in such activities, except, of course, if circumstances require it (like if they find out that a Democrat running for office).

Niall Ferguson's argument reminds me of the classic advice given to young lawyers: * If the law supports your position, argue the law * If the facts support your position, argue the facts * If neither the law nor the facts support your position, just argue. By arguing "ignore Keynes, he was gay", Niall Ferguson reveals that his position is completely unsupported.

My understanding of the Victorian era is that although they loudly proclaimed various moral beliefs, they didn't necessarily practice what they preached.

Sarah Palin, translated: "Republicans have a business method patent on using emotional backdrops to pass their legislation - and must therefore prevent Democrats from using that tried and true tactic to pass legislation that Republicans oppose." It is particularly ironic for Tea Party folks to object to the use of emotional backdrops (like, say, images of the Founding Fathers) to advance a political agenda. Brought to you by the "Save Our Children From 9/11 By Voting Republican" committee.

Sarah's just jealous because she used a scene of turkeys being killed as a backdrop for pardoning a turkey. It isn't that she disapproves of using backdrops - it's just that she feels that the backdrops should contradict one's message rather than support it.

Liberals considered George W to be an evil, vindictive, and stupid little jerk because we're a reality-based community.

No, no - if you're a white male KKKristian, you're a freedom fighter. (Christians believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ - KKKristians use cropped quotes from the Bible to justify their disdain for Christ's teachings).

Indeed - imagine how much better our country would be if we had citizen-soldiers that were fully as competent as our citizen-journalists at identifying bad guys. Those innocent boys and the "Saudi national" incorrectly identified by the brave Reddit Regiment as "suspects" wouldn't have stood a chance of escape. (/snark)

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how these evil foreign terrorists were able to acquire the weapons needed for their foul deeds. Isn't it lucky that we have such strong laws regarding firearm ownership, thanks to the National Rifle Association? Imagine how much more frightening a world it would be if crazy people could just walk into a store and buy everything they needed to conduct a terrorist attack with no restrictions other than the money needed to pay the seller? Oh, wait.

My personal guess is that somebody took a look at dwindling resources, applied the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of mass/energy) and decided to do something about the excess population.

The interesting thing is going to be when the mean family income is no longer sufficient to purchase a mean-value home. We saw this during the bubble - and as real wages decline, we'll start seeing it again as people are no longer able to purchase the current housing inventory. This is one reason we're seeing a push toward selling repossessed homes to real estate management companies. However, they won't be able to simultaneously maintain and manage these homes profitably for an affordable. The result is likely to be multiple families living in poorly-maintained homes, and steady diminished value of those homes.

P.S.: If anyone is curious as to how it will all turn out, here's a good example: Soaring Charges by a Contractor With Special Education New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/12/nyregion/for-special-ed-contractor-huge-fees-and-shoddy-care.html?hp ...Billing fraud appears to be common. Some contractors labeled overseas vacations and spa trips as business travel, or used corporate credit cards for jewelry or groceries. Others hired relatives for no-show jobs, or gave themselves exorbitant salaries and perks like fancy cars, even as they seldom showed up for work. One contractor put a grown son on the West Coast on the payroll, claiming he had opened a satellite office there. Another contractor lived out of state herself. The bar to entry was low. One preschool contractor had a previous career in Medicare fraud, federal records showed. Another was convicted of weapon possession and workers’ compensation fraud.

Funny how the Republicans think that the answer to college accreditation is - more government! Of course, the true rigor of a course can only be measured by two factors: 1) ideological purity 2) How much the parent organization has contributed to the right political organizations. Hey, it takes away decisions from those communist elitist professors and puts it in the hands of a government bureaucracy - what's not to like?

Ah, wedge issues. Playing the game of: "the reason your program got cut is because those other (undeserving) people got all the money." Isn't it interesting how they can tell that same story to each separate group, and nobody puts the pieces together? At some point, we need to point out that the volume and quality of scraps being thrown over the shoulders of the rich and powerful have gone down - and that we may want to unite and raid the main table rather than fight over an ever-smaller quantity of lower-quality scraps.

No zombie unicorns?

Ever see the movie "Tarantula!" where the giant spider attacks a small desert community? My favorite part is the ending - the giant tarantula is crawling toward town, and all seems lost. Until, of course, the town doctor thinks to call the Air Force and report a giant spider is crawling down the local highway toward town. Does the Air Force suggest drinking less? Do they call the local mental hospitals? NO! They send up some fighter-bombers and napalm the heck out of the spider! Never knew that small-town doctors were authorized to call in air strikes...

Republicans tend to sanctimoniously proclaim that people needing help should become more self reliant, or should have planned better. Unless, of course, the folks needing help are rich Republican donors - whereupon all the power of government must be mobilized to shift any losses onto the taxpayers.

Ultimately, some form of Eurozone-wide bank deposit insurance will be needed. Banks choosing to purchase that insurance would be able to use that fact in their advertising. Banks without such protection would also need to prominently display this in their advertising. Only insured banks would be protected, and folks with funds at uninsured banks would know up front what risks they were taking. Insurance policies, of course, are only as good as their underwriting policies. There would need to be strict disclosure and risk analysis policies in place, monitored by folks whose salaries depended on making correct risk assessments. There would also need to be a European version of Glass-Steagall in place. Each Eurozone member country would need to pass strict laws criminalizing violations before the insurance could be sold in that country, and repeal of those laws would automatically void the policies. Of course, the odds of something like this happening are quite small. Playing roulette with other people's money where you get to keep most of your winnings and the losses are palmed off on others is quite addictive. It's also profitable, so investing a small percent of one's profits in the re-election campaigns of the appropriate politicians is a necessary cost of that business model. Nothing will change until the disaster is of such proportions that it can't be plastered over with taxpayers' funds, or cries of "austerity now!" Still, it's worth thinking about now.

Does the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood have a text explaining how the Bible defines marriage as between one man and one woman, using King Solomon as an example?

Ah, yes - boys should only play with "action figures". For a bonus, if we fund insurgents that kill civilians for the purpose on intimidating the population, are they "terrorists' or "freedom fighters"? You make the call...

Know why Assrocket's eyes are blue rather than brown? After spewing for a bit, he's a quart low...

If the Evil Overlord's devices are so easily disabled - why are we worried? P.S.: what about your credit cards? They have magnetic strips as well - will the "car magnents" of freedom also make it impossible to track our credit card use? (Possibly by rendering the credit cards useless?) Incidentally, what IS a "car magnent"? Is it like a magneto? THE Magneto?

I'd say the government was giving the person notice that they might be declared incompetent in an administrative hearing - which they could contest. In a tyranny, the tyrant's forces would simply come and take you away (undoubtedly in black helicopters - black is so stylish this year.)

I wonder what would happen if President Obama nominated Rush Limbaugh for a Cabinet post? As all wingnuts know that anyone nominated by President Obama is a crypto-islamic communist who hates America, would Rush then start condemning himself on his own radio show? I wouldn't recommend this, though - the number of exploding heads plus the heightened CO2 releases from all the screaming might affect global weather.

The current Greek economy provides a better example: by refusing to collect taxes, the Greek government ran out of money to run the social safety net. Rather than enforce their existing tax laws, they tried to help the rich by starving the poor and middle class. Social disruption resulted. The King of Id observed: "he who has the gold, makes the rules." In a democracy, this causes "one person, one vote" to change into "one dollar, one vote." The laws are inevitably changed to keep favoring the haves by placing further burdens on the have-nots. Observing that the have-nots outnumber the haves, and eventually object forcefully to the rigged system, is to claim that the social unrest caused the rigged rules, rather than the reverse. We need to update the old cliche to: "absolute wealth leads to absolute power, which then corrupts that society's elites absolutely."