The conventional wisdom is that European high taxes and welfare states are a yoke, strangling growth, sinking productivity, and mixing metaphors all over the place. But is this really true? I decided to crunch some numbers and find out.

Check it out over the break. WARNING: math involved.

The great Objectivity, dearly beloved among many people on the American left, has passed away today, of an excruciating wasting disease.

Objectivity had a lifelong support of progressive causes including reason, debate, introspection, and questioning. However, in mid-September he came down with a hideous disease. His passing at such a young age leaves questions among many of his friends and followers....

I published a diary on Ron Paul's comments about Huckabee yesterday. Imagine my surprise when this shows up on the side of the screen:
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Of course, I know this is just a Google ad, but still. It's the spirit of the thing. I just thought, you know, there was some corporate motto about 'Don't be Evil'.

What are your thoughts?

Hahahahaha! :D

I am probably the diametrical opposite of a Paul-supporter but this is priceless:

Ron Paul went on Fox and Friends today and pulled out that Sinclair Lewis quote we know and love: "When fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in a flag carrying a cross."

Well, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

I hope this signals a crack-up in the Republican base - if Hucky get the nom, will Paul run third-party? Ah, schadenfreude is fun.

Speaking of which, shouldn't Ron Paul's money bomb be a gold bomb?

I'm overjoyed to hear the news of the new NIE; this totally cuts the legs out from under Bush's war arguments. Unfortunately, I am concerned about its accuracy; after all, the 2005 NIE said that Iran WAS developing nuclear weapons. So, how do we reconcile these two reports? I'd love to trust it, but it's done a 180. Can anyone help me out here?
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As some of you may know, the Dolchstoss was Hitler's term for why Germany lost WWI. You see, apparently Germany had lost because of a lack of 'will', and been betrayed by 'internal enemies'. Dolchstosslegende literally means 'Stabbed in the back legend'.

With that in mind, take a good gander at this cartoon, from the Investor's Business Daily back in February:
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All resemblance to this cartoon is entirely coincidental:
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Yes, that's lovely. That Democrat congress, stabbing the troops in the back.

The fucking gall.

What religion are you? Just curious.

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I just had a deliciously evil thought. If Rudy Giuliani gets the nom, could we run an ad campaign about his actions as Mayor of NYC, how he's 'unfit to command'? And... to make the irony even more delicious, we'll call the ad campaign.... are you ready?

'New York Firefighters for Truth'.

Someone requested in a thread comment today someone make an ad of Rudy morphing into Dubya. Inspired, I came up with this:

I ended up performing Photoshop plastic surgery on Rudy to make this work; I lowered his eye a bit to make level with Dubya's and changed his lips to have the same expression. Anyway, I think it turned out pretty good.

Thoughts? Comments?

Edit: Fixed Rudubya's tie. It's amazing what you can do with a simple Gaussian blur.

Minitrue must issue a malreportment correction. Minitrue malreported Inner Party statement that 'Osama Bin Laden has always been working closely with state enemy, Iraq.' This was malquoted. Inner party truthwise stated that Osama bin Laden has always been working with Iran. Oceania is at peace with Iraq. Minitrue staff responsible for malreporting have been sent to joycamp.

Innerparty has announced newproof fullshowing Iran has always worked with doubleplusungood enemy of the state Osama Bin Laden for doing doubleplusvicious 9/11 attack on Oceania. With this fact bellyfelt Minipax has sent sixteen floating fortresses to Persiangulf. Iranwar will continue speedfullwise. Oilrats will be raised from six units to four units per month for the continued war.

Oceania is at war with Iran. Oceania has always been at war with Iran.

Now for the Two Minute's Hate:
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There are serious reasons to doubt the claim that Iran is supplying weapons to Shia militants in Iraq (not the least of which is they already own their government lock stock and barrel). But here we're going to dissect some photos from the Bush Administration's own slideshow.

More after the break.

Until recently I was one of those who thought Hillary hadn't learned any lessons from giving Bush the go-ahead on his war in Iraq.

Until now.

(more after break)

Hello guys, this is my first posting on dKos. Anyway I was bored today so I made an ad about this Rudy quote:

"Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."

This is total bullshit, so I couldn't afford to pass it up.