“What happened that my SS withholdings in my paycheck just went up?” A Democratic Underground.com post: “My paycheck just went down by an amount that I don’t feel comfortable with. I guarantee this decrease will hurt me more than the increase in income taxes will hurt those making over $400,000.” The lord Obama giveth and the lord Obama taketh away: “Workers making $30,000 will take a bigger hit on their pay than those earning $500,000 under new fiscal deal.” Elections have consequences, but you don’t find out until January.

155,000 jobs added in December, unemployment rate 7.8% “The unemployment rate was 7.8%, vs the 7.7% expected: who else is surprised that the rate is now rising with Obama reelected and when a lower unemployment rate means an earlier end to QE4EVA? The labor force participation rate: 63.6%, same as November.” Our hunch is that the excuse the month will be the Mayan Calendar end-of-the-world scare.

FBI: More people killed with hammers, clubs each year than rifles. Not to mention that hammers are responsible for breaking fingers and driving health care costs UP. (Wow, we’re starting to think like statists and it’s making our head hurt… sorta like somebody conked us with a hammer.)

AGW Bombshell? A new paper shows statistical tests for global warming fails to find statistically significantly anthropogenic forcing. “…our rejection of AGW is not absolute; it might be a false positive, and we cannot rule out the possibility that recent global warming has an anthropogenic footprint. However, this possibility is very small, and is not statistically significant at conventional levels.” Hey, if they didn’t fudge data, ignore contradictory evidence and call anyone who disagreed vile names, then they’re not real climate scientists.

Glenn Beck tried to buy Current TV, too, but his offer was rejected, as he didn’t share Al Gore’s worldview. “And you know who did? Why, Al Jazeera, of course.” Confirmation that Al Gore thinks conservative Americans are the only enemy. BTW, “Al Gore tried to hurry up the sale so he could avoid the increased taxes beginning January 1st.”

50 reasons why it rocks to be a progressive in 2013. “Examples: –Whatever your heart desires, it’s a ‘right.’ –You can make other people pay for your stuff, and call them selfish and greedy if they refuse. –Stealing is no longer crime, but an act of redistributive justice. –All you have to do is agree with the mainstream media, and you’re automatically right.” Wait, is this a satire or an Obama campaign ad?

“I felt like there were three angels in the room. And, interestingly, they had New York accents…” Sen. Mark Kirk returns to the Senate after his stroke and recounts an interesting story. Forget the fiscal cliff, there’s a real cliff we all have to face – but unlike in politics, the guiding higher power won’t be vacationing in Hawaii.

Surprise: Obamacare-wary employers not hiring, cutting hours. “…instead of complying with the mandate and spending money they either (a) don’t have or (b) need for other purposes, cash-strapped small business owners are planning to shave hours and provide less work for their employees. That’s not greed; it’s business reality in a stagnant economy.” No, that’s just another form of raaaaacism!

Calpers seeks to sue bankrupt San Bernardino over pension payments. “The issue is, do Calpers obligations supersede unsecured bondholders? There’s an awful lot of unsecured bondholders in California. If you put pension obligations to Calpers as secured and senior to unsecured debt, in effect those bonds have been downgraded.” Downgrading drives bond prices down. A lot of those bonds are held by retirees and other savers, either directly or thru funds. You do the math.

Wind industry gets to keep their taxpayer-funded lifeblood for another year. “According to wind energy industry players, the PTC remains crucial for the continued ascendance of wind power…” The wind industry generates power by burning fiat money.

Al-Jazeera to buy Al Gore’s Current TV? Will Current TV’s audience notice the change? If someone knows him, please inquire.

Recipe for a long life: overweight people have LOWER death risk. “…the new study shows that people who are modestly overweight have a 6 per cent lower rate of premature death from all causes than people of ideal, ‘healthy’ weight, while even those who are mildly obese have no increased risk.” In other news, Nanny Bloomberg sets up new group, “Mayors Against Illegal Opinions”. (Not yet, but stay tuned…)

“Fiscal Cliff” deal doles out millions for Hollywood, railroads, rum producers. “Under the plan, the federal government would eat nearly $100 billion in forgone tax revenue over the next two years by extending special tax credits for select businesses that had been set to expire.” And the winner is… Crony Capitalism! Unexpectedly!

‘The game is rigged:’ Matt Damon says he’s done with ‘fixed’ Washington politics: This does not mean that Damon is going to stop providing all the valuable efforts he has, over the years, performed for those rigging the game. Rather it means that the price of those efforts have risen significantly and now only foreign oil concerns trying to prohibit American energy independence can afford them.

Forbes: Republicans Raised Taxes And Redefined Wealth In America. A generation ago President George H.W. Bush was cajoled -by Democrats- into going back on his pledge of “no new taxes”. During the next Presidential election many of the same Democrats used that occasion to pulverize the man for having broken his promise. The GOP may have an elephant for their mascot, but they certainly do not have the memory of one.

Ten Most Corrupt Politicians for 2012. No surprise, eight of the ten are Democrats. Also no surprise, Obama is among the ten.

Does government create a wealth gap? “The political classes would like you to believe that putting more money into government makes things more equal. They’d like you to believe that because, in fact, putting more money into government puts more money into their pockets. The truth is, government doesn’t create wealth, it consumes it. And it doesn’t create equality, either. It undermines it.” And it’s also very good at blaming the problems it causes on someone else.

Germans agog over tightrope walking gorilla. The new gorilla at the Krefeld zoo went through a period of depression, then started practicing on the rope much to everybody’s delight. It’s Hogan’s Heroes all over again – the Germans never seem to recognize an escape attempt until it’s too late.

Not sure how to get rid of your Christmas Tree? Inventors reveal how to turn it into a ROCKET. Is this is NASA’s new space program now that Obama has cut their funds? If so, we wonder how they’re going to get Muslim’s engaged if they’re using Christmas Trees as Atlas rocket substitutes.

http://youtu.be/xsDZbRankCs

Health Care, Housing, Education worse when government helps. “But policies trying to extend the benefits of health insurance, housing and higher education that tended to sever the connection between effort and reward have backfired and hurt many of the intended beneficiaries. Government policymakers failed to anticipate the responses of third parties attempting to game the system and grab some of the money government was making available.” And as we have seen, the third parties attempting to game the system are often the loudest proponents in favor of government “help”. Crony capitalism isn’t capitalism.

“Demand a plan” satire. A small pin lets the air out of a lot of over-inflated balloons.

More eliminationist rhetoric from an allegedly respectable newspaper columnist. “Then I would tie Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, our esteemed Republican leaders, to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control.” As Tolstoy said, “Everyone wants to change the world, but nobody wants to change himself.”

Woman of privilege and her boyfriend — a Harvard grad and Occupy Wall Street activist — charged with having a cache of weapons and a bombmaking explosive. But they’re part of a mostly peaceful leftist activist movement. The people we gotta control are those wingnuts who want to defend themselves against enlightenment and otherwise be left alone.

Year-end guide to progressive sexuality: LGBTQQIAAP2SB. They keep adding letters to the vicronym (an acronym of victims… we just invented that word). The letters stand for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, Allies, Pansexual, Two-spirit, and Bestiality fans. Now you’re ready for another year of the culture war.

Evan Thomas, Charles Krauthammer rip Obama for lack of fiscal cliff leadership. “This is not Congress’ fault,” Thomas said. “Congress is behaving like Congress. This is the president’s fault. The president needs to go to the country and explain why they need to get this done. He has never done that.” Well, Obama is, as Thomas once said, a sort of god… the golden calf or hollow statue sort. [Video at the link.]