What a way to start the new year...

with a bunch of things that make you shake your head in wonderment.

In no particular order: 

Commie Bill de Blasio is sworn in as New York's mayor at one minute after midnight with his "ex-lesbian" (wait - I thought you were born one way or another) wife holding some book or another and watched over by his daughter wearing a witch's hat and his hopelessly out of date son sporting a big afro and scruffy jeans.

 His first announcement is the imminent banning of horse drawn carriages in Central Park, because we all know what an important issue that is.


Now read this and let it roll around in your mind for a few minutes.  The absurdity is stunning. (emphasis mine)

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted a temporary exemption late Tuesday to a small group of Catholic nuns that shields it from having to comply with a part of President Obama's healthcare law that requires it to provide contraceptive coverage in its insurance plans. source

The amount of money and man hours (which is really the same as money), to force the taxpayers of this country to pay for the birth control of those too stupid or lazy to buy their own, and then to further call it a "women's health issue"...well, words escape me. We all know how badly a bunch of nuns need birth control, now don't we?

Are people so severely math-challenged that they can't add up the skyrocketing cost of a monthly premium, a huge deductible, and still having to pay 40% - 60% of a medical bill while doing the happy dance over getting "free" birth control?  No, you moron - your "free" birth control just cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

Yep, ranks right up there with the huge number of "health" policies that will pay for abortion on demand, after the individual pays, of course, an exorbitant monthly premium and shells out a huge deductible, and an additional percentage of the bill, because nothing says freedom like a dead baby.

Moving on to Obama's most urgent priority, after he returns from his luxurious vacation in Hawaii;  why, it's extending unemployment insurance to people who have lost their jobs because of the policies of this administration.

Nancy Pelosi thinks unemployment is the "biggest job creator and boost to the economy", because for the math challenged, we all know that taking, for instance, $100.00 away from one person and giving it to someone else to spend means there is now $200.00 floating around in the ether - or something. 
 


And in an effort to relieve one of our other huge problems, income inequality, we are witnessing the push for a higher minimum wage.  I work in a grocery store a few hours a week, and if they had to pay the teenage baggers and cart pushers $10.00 per hour, I can safely predict that the entire bunch of the aforementioned teenagers would be out of a job.

You may also expect to see robots making your hamburgers at your favorite fast food place in the very near future.  A robot will do a better job, cost less, not show up late, call in hungover sick, and won't have disgusting eyebrow or nose rings.

Fun in the Mile High City:

Denver, in living up to its name as the "Mile High City", has residents lined up to fork over two hundred plus dollars for an ounce of marijuana. Can you use your unemployment bennies to buy your pot?  Expect a surge of really fat people in Denver soon.

As many as 30 stores throughout Colorado will sell recreational weed. But it's uncertain how many will open on the holiday, according to marijuana advocates and state officials.

Of the estimated 30 stores, 18 are in Denver, and several were expected to be open for business at the earliest allowed time, 8 a.m. MT. One Denver shop scheduled a news conference for the occasion.

"With Washington state next to implement marijuana legalization and other states strongly considering enacting similar laws, we believe this marks the beginning of the end of the nation's decades-long war on marijuana and its harmful human and fiscal toll," Ezekiel Edwards, a director at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. source

 Sheeple Report out of Connecticut:

Connecticut gun owners are rushing to register certain firearms and ammunition that will be considered illegal contraband in the new year.

Under a wide-ranging gun control law passed after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, they have until Tuesday to submit the paperwork with the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection. source

Emergency Services and Public Protection???  If this doesn't send chills down your spine, you must be dead.

 Here's what I've got to say about all this crap:

Something lighter:

Golden wordsmith, Francis Porretto, has convinced me to try some science fiction reading.  Naturally, I will take this foray into a literary genre I'm not fond of with one of his books, Which Art in Hope since he is capable of stringing together words with such magnificence that I am almost ashamed to put fingers to keyboard.  The question of the century is, "Can Frank Porretto make me actually like science fiction?  A full report will be issued upon completion of the book.

It's time for breakfast and later today a full-on feast.  After reading the "food porn" post my husband wandered into the dining room and rather wistfully asked, "Are we really having french fries?"  Um - yeah, we are.

Have a wonderful day, peeps...

Trifecta: Dumps on the Pope?...

Bill Whittle goes off...

and

we thank him.

Income Inequality:  The next war.

Trifecta: President Obama Says Income Inequality is the Defining Challenge...

as he heads off for seventeen sun soaked days in Hawaii.

Is income inequality really a problem?...w/ Update

no, it's not.

One thing I've noticed about people who complain most about the "greedy" rich is the way they have of wrapping it all up in their concern for the poor.  It's really no more than a clever way of masking their own envy.  My question is, "Where are all these "poor" people?  Oh sure, there are folks living under bridges, most of whom suffer from mental illness or substance abuse problems; none of which can really be remedied through laws.

In my dealings with the poor through different charitable organizations, one thing stands out for me; such people live way better than I do.  They have more and better electronics, are able to buy better food through the food stamp program, and receive free medical care.  While I'm reviewing my cell phone contract and trying to decide on switching to a lower cost pay-as-you-go phone, they receive free phones and airtime through several programs.  I'd like a free cell phone, but I'm not going to get one.  Clip coupons or shop sales?  Why bother when the government is going to electronically fill up your food stamp card each month, which incidentally, in many states can be used at a cash machine. 

In 2011, Health and Human Resources declared a family of four with a household income of $22,350.00 as "poor."  While 22k per year is not a huge amount of money, believe it or not, many families are living on that amount.  While it would be a stretch to live in downtown Manhattan on this amount, there are plenty of places in this country where they could live fairly well.  It would take some dedication to thrifty living, but it's doable.

It would never occur to these "champions of the poor", to suggest that people not have illegitimate children when they're 14 or 15 years old, or that finishing school would be a good idea; two of the leading indicators of future "poorness."  Instead, they cling to the notion that if we just give them more of whatever they want, someday they will magically be, if not rich, at least middle class.  It simply doesn't work that way.  Never has, and never will.

The uproar over Newt Gingrich suggesting that young people should have jobs at school was met with such a barrage of outrage it was stunning.  When did it enter our national consciences that doing janitorial work was somehow demeaning?  The last job my grandmother ever held before she died was doing janitorial work at night in a large office building, and she was a well-educated person.  She loved it.  But now, we think a 15 year old doing such things is tantamount to slave labor.

I'd take Newt's idea one step further.  From first grade on, the children should be responsible for cleaning their own classrooms.  When I taught at a private school, this was considered normal.  Every Friday, the last period of the day was spent with the kids washing down desks and blackboards, vacuuming, and straightening the book shelves.  Also, we had rotating teams every week that were responsible for cleaning up the lunch room after lunch.  These kids learned to take pride in their classrooms and their school. Why are we paying adults to clean up after children?  Is that not backwards?

Most of the people buying into this class warfare rhetoric are doing it so they can sit around with their five dollar coffees and feel good about themselves.  The facts are inconvenient, and they'll avoid them at all costs.

Bruce McQuain, at Questions and Observations, in an excellent article today, talks about income inequality:

Income inequality: why you shouldn’t care

James Q Wilson makes many of the same points that have been made here over the last few months concerning the argument about income inequality that the left has been trying to use as a reason to tax the rich even more than they’re taxed now.   In sum, most of the left’s arguments rest in the premise that the economy is a zero sum game and that the income the “rich” are taking had to come from someone else’s slice.

That argument, much like the climate change debate, depends on a measure of ignorance among those they’re trying to influence. 

In reality, income inequality is nothing to be concerned about when it meets certain conditions.   Or, in other words, it isn’t a zero sum game and everyone has an opportunity to do better.  read the rest of this excellent article

and

Silverfiddle, over at Westen Hero, has another wonderful article about this whole class warfare meme.

Socialism's Sad Propagandists

The entire Class Warfare agenda collapses under serious scrutiny

President Obama's demagoguery surrounding wealth, taxes and everybody paying their "fair share" (what ever the hell that is) has passed its freshness date, but still it sits there in the public square, rotting like a sack of bloody fish heads in the harsh noonday sun.  read the rest

Update: 

  Feds: ‘Poor’ Consume Like The Rich  Be sure to read the comments