[Guest post by JD]

The Black Keys
Gotye
Carrie Underwood won over Dierks Bentley and Eric Church. Ugh
Fun! won a couple
I am trying to understand Jack White III but I don’t get what others see.
Kelly Clarkson had, I think, they only genuine acceptance speech.

—JD

[Guest post by JD]

Words fail me.

—JD

UPDATE BY PATTERICO: We can’t let them talk about “cuts” because they use that word to describe reductions in planned spending increases. Say they spent $10 billion this year, and planned to spend to $20 billion next year. Now they decide instead to spend $15 billion next year. They will call that a “cut” — even though they’re spending $5 billion more. Because it’s $5 billion less than they planned to spend.

Cute way to lie, huh?

Never ever ever talk about cuts. Talk about how much they’re spending.

UPDATE x 2 – Senior Dem Senator admits sequestration, their idea, was just a threat, a stunt, nothing ever intended to be put into effect.

Ken at Popehat has a post that begins:

Today the Los Angeles Times ran a review of a book by a professor named Grace Lasdun. Lasdun describes her terrifying ordeal of being stalked by a madman. “Imagine,” the review bids us, that a stalker “seemed affectionate, then convinced of a deep connection, then became furious and set upon destroying your life.” The book — and review — tells the tale of how a stalker became convinced of a relationship with Grace Lasdun, then went on campaign of deranged hate, deluging Ms. Lasdun with dozens of anti-Semitic emails and an internet campaign of untruths, accusations of plagiarism, and vile communications with Lasdun’s employers and colleagues. Her life was changed.

But this review asks something that is too rarely asked. What responsibility does Lasdun bear for a deranged stalker pursuing her, imagining a relationship that she did not want? Did she lead him on? Did she give the wrong signals? Does her language in describing the stalking suggest an unbecoming entitlement? . . . Kellogg explains how Lasdun’s description of the stalker suggests a preoccupation with appearance and a lack of awareness of power differentials that might have contributed to the stalking — “Lasdun reveals actions that may have contributed to her problems without seeing the connections.” . . .

Reviewer Carolyn Kellogg also shows an admirable sense of empathy for the stalker, asking us to question “could Lasdun have managed his growing affections differently”?

I suggest you read Ken’s whole post before proceeding further. I’ll tuck the rest of this entry beneath the fold.

(more…)

You want a guy talking about how much political correctness sucks while Barack Obama sits six feet away?

You want actual humility?

Watch this (linked by JD the other day, but I have my own comments on it):

Kinda the opposite of Mr. Non-Humility.

Seriously, watch to the end, so you can watch this guy harp on the deficit while Obama has to sit there and take it. So you can watch him extol the virtues of a flat tax, and how you don’t have to hurt rich people just because they’re rich — and Obama has to sit there and take it.

I mean, it’s a great speech by itself. But it’s so much better because Obama has to sit there and take it.

Watch it all.

P.S. Clearly the guy is a racist.