Warning: you are about to enter the Obamacare Tax/Penalty Matrix

I saw this headline on Drudge this morning: Algorithms now 'writing' articles for newspapers and websites... and I thought: “Wow - Global Warming must really be over if Al Gore is back to working as a hack.”  Then I read the story and realized that algorithms involved math, which automatically eliminated Al Gore from the equation.

Al Gore dancing with his Rhythms: “Is it just me, or is it hot in here?”

The Drudge story is actually about how media companies are outsourcing their news writing to  computer programs - comprised of a series of algorithms - to process masses of raw data and spit out a story:

While computers cannot parse the subtleties of each story, they can take vast amounts of raw data and turn it into what passes for news, analysts say.

"This can work for anything that is basic and formulaic,"

Wow! This is HUGE! Journalists everywhere writing what “passes for news” could be endangered. That means that all of the human reporters at The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, The Atlantic, Slate, The Nation, Harpers…along with every Blog in the Democratic Underground blogroll, can be replaced with an algorithm.They’re about to be “off-shored!” How can this happen on Big Guy’s watch!? How is this going to help the unemployment numbers?

Worse yet, this  could hit even closer to home. What could be more “basic” than one of Lady M’s campaign speeches? Or more “formulaic” than one of Big Guy’s? Do you realize what this means!? We could soon be replacing our loyal human political cyphers…

with real ciphers!

     

Encryption machines that move faster than a politician’s lips!! I cannot over-emphasize how huge this is! Can you imagine: you just speak into a microphone and the algorithms encrypt your words into political-Newspeak. Say, for example, we need to transmogrify this: 

“I can make a firm pledge.  Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.  Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes,” (Big Guy, Sept. 12, 2008)

…into something more like  “I’m going to have to raise everybody’s taxes on everything by 150% or more to pay for this healthcare monstrosity”  without getting the people who will actually be paying for it upset.That’s where we currently employ our human cyphers; they translate this “irrefutable fact” into something a little…uh, “softer” – starting with Big Guy himself:

“If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime.  I repeat: not one single dime.” (Feb. 24, 2009)

Did you see how he did that? How he parsed it into “Not one single “dime” – hee! That’s why we call him the Won!

Our go-to cypher used to be Gibbsy: first, and still the best!

Human cypher #1’s attempt - dissimulate: “The statement didn’t come with caveats.”  (Robert Gibbs April 15, 2009, when asked if the pledge applies to healthcare)

Cypher #2 is no slouch either:

Human cypher #2’s attempt - obfuscate: “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it” (Nancy Pelosi March 9, 2010)

Human cypher #1’s second attempt - impersonate:  “individual responsibility portion in the law” (Robert Gibbs December 2010 – explaining that the “individual mandate” is now an individual “responsibility”)

Human cypher #2’s  second  attempt: – free-associate “It’s a ta—; it’s a penalty for free riders.” (Nancy Pelosi July 1, 2012, nearly uttering the dreaded T-word before cutting herself off. An algorithm never would have done that.)

Human cypher #3  weighs in by confounding and equivocating:

Look, it's a penalty.  It affects 1 percent, and perhaps less, of the population.  It is a -- I don't know about you, but you don't get to choose whether you pay your income taxes -- most people don't.  I certainly don't.  This is not a tax in that sense at all.  It is a penalty you pay if you fail to buy health insurance but can afford it. - (Jay Carney July 7, 2012 – and for the record Jay, I’d check my contract if I were you: some of Big Guy’s cyphers, like Toxic Timmy, don’t have to pay their income taxes; or at least they get to choose whether they do or not.)

So you can see where a ciphering machine might come in pretty handy around here, especially if you could program it to obfuscate, dissimulate, impersonate and triangulate all at once. Hey wait! We’ve already got one of those ciphers!

Butt we’re going to have to make sure we classify all of our documents, emails, phone calls and text messages relating to the existence of these super-secret cipher machines. We don’t want this falling in the wrong hands. As it is, it looks like some of our most valued foreign allies are catching on to our cyber antics:

H/T Ellen K

 

Disregarding Cipher’s warnings, Morpheus still believed that Neo was THE WON

The Matrix

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Recruiting in the belly of the beast

Ouch!

“It would be nice if we had a candidate for president who was committed to America.”  Debbie Wasserman Schultz

The good news: she wasn’t talking about Big Guy.

Is being committed to transforming America the same as being committed to America?

Debbie was referring to Romney of course; here’s her comment, in context:

It would be nice if we had a candidate for president who was committed to America. Mitt Romney is committed to making sure that either he makes the most money as humanly possible, or his investors do.

Regardless of whether that’s true or not, and whether Sargent Schultz can prove it, or not, I just have one question: since when did it become un-American to make money? For either  yourself or your company? Because I always thought capitalism (which as far as I know still involves making money) was as American as apple pie and ice cream.

BO attacks a shovel-ready project on the Iowa campaign trail

Because I remember when making money was more American than taking money. Did I miss something important? Maybe they’ve changed the rules. Like they have for EBT/SNAP/Food Stamps?

Liquor, KFC, Jack in the Box? I wonder if Lady M knows about this?

I guess there aren’t any rules any more about what you can spend your taxpayer funded EBT (electronic benefits transfer) on. Because restrictions like that would be un-American, or something. You’re free to buy healthy foods like lobster (because rich people get to eat lobster so you should too) if you want, butt if you just want to “fill your kids bellies” you’re free to buy them sodas because that’s your right as an American. No matter what Nanny Bloomberg says. And there’s nothing else cheap available in America these days to “fill their bellies” with. Or something.

Well here, allow Rosa DeLauro, food stamp advocate, to explain all this. Whatever you do, do not skip this video! It explains everything you need to know about what Big Guy’s party has done for America.

In which we explore the belly of the Progressive beast

Speaking of Lady M, I promised an update on our trip to Florida. It was hot, and so was she.

     

Both coming and going

You might notice that she’s wearing her post-modern green and blue globe dress designed as a commentary on global warming. We last saw this frock on the set of Extreme Home Makeover last summer in North Carolina where it was also very, very hot:

    

…and so was the weather.

Maybe we should have laundered it right after the show, because it looks to me like there’s more green in it now than there was when we “bought” it.

Anyway, yesterday was all about lining up new recruits to take our war Betting on America Tour to the battleground states.

Ready to Launch

Five words: “Four More Years” (to ruin)

We dropped by a couple of schools in order to target the youth who proved themselves to be such useful little pawns in our last big election. As usual, Republicans tried to make Lady M’s inspirational words all about them (h/t Fausta) claiming that it was inappropriate to come to a public school for “the sole purpose of advancing the interests of a political campaign.”

Or as Miami-Dade School Board member Renier Diaz de la Portilla (another white Hispanic?)put it:

“The use of public schools whose only focus should be to educate our children for political gain is downright wrong. Don’t these liberals have boundaries? Our schools are places for learning, not places for politicking.”

Not to nit pick; and while the first sentence in that quote is factually correct as it stands, I might have written it “The only focus of public schools should be to educate our children, and to use them for political gain is downright wrong.” At least I think that’s what Diaz de la Portilla meant. Butt like I said, it works the other way too.

Anyway MO ran some drills with the new recruits in the morning, demonstrating proper blocking techniques to prevent undocumented Democrats (i.e. Republicans) from getting to the voting booths.

Whoops! Who let all those unauthorized butt-shots slip through!

Meanwhile, BO was in Iowa busy recruiting one of our other most reliable special interest groups for the campaign:

OMG! You’re so awesome man!!

Although, seriously, I think we’ve pretty much got a lock on the votes of people who find BO “awesomely phenomenal.” 

Coming soon: a tutorial on how to use your EBT card to make easy, multiple contributions to the the Obama; Betting America Again, fund.

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Super-Tax Man Bites Again

“When Barack Obama got the keys to the bus it was trapped in the ditch with three flat tires. We've changed the tires, we've pulled the bus out of the ditch, and we’re starting up the road to strengthening the middle class," Gibbs said this morning.                                                                          H/T Weasel Zippers

Watch as Big Guy’s coach demonstrates how it’s done:

Who says all Big Guy can do is play golf and raise taxes! With this kind of coaching

“Whatta you think Bubba?” “Well, first, let go of your balls, Little Man”

he’ll have us out of that ditch in no time!

“Would you look at all these damn weeds that Bush planted!”

And speaking of raising taxes; You can putt Big Guy down for being for it – as well as being against it too.  Since we went on record yesterday as being officially on board for extending some of the Bush TAX-CUTS,

(shhhh! we don’t want to give Bush credit for that!)

while simultaneously helping all those millionaires and billionaires making “over $250,000” spread their wealth around by RAISING their taxes. And that last part’s non-negotiable. Because that’s the way we negotiate around here.

Charlie Gasparino (full disclosure: Fox Business Analyst) says that means that 840,000 small business job creators will get nailed with higher taxes. Something we don’t need during another “economic slowdown” that we are loath to call a double dip recession, because well, frankly, it’s starting to look more like a triple decker. Thanks to George W. Bush!

Careful: that much ice cream could lead to brain freeze.

Anyway the naysayers at Fox are already complaining about Big Guy’s plan, before they even give it a chance. Charlie went so far as to call it “economically insane” butt even he was forced to admit that “politically, I don’t know, maybe it works.”

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie: “politically” is ALL we really care about! So we’ll put you down as “on board” with us on the tax increases on millionaires and billionaires. Thanks for your support.

I have to make this short as I’m going to be very busy today: Lady M and I leave this morning to take battleground Florida by storm. And as you know, it’s not the heat,

Which will wilt first, Lady M or that mess of organic vegetables?

it’s the humility.

Vote for Buh-rock, because I said so. Oh, and we need more of your money too.

So while I’m busy dealing with all that humility in Florida, why don’t you all scoot over to MOL Citizen Director’s Occupied site and enjoy her latest video on Big Guy’s Un-Affordable Health Care Taxes and Control Act.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a full report on our heat and humility tour.

Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and AnnieLaurie76 on twitter, and BlogsLucianneLoves, and NOBO2012 on Free Republic, Thanks!

My So Called Recovery

Do you remember My So Called Life, the “critically acclaimed but short-lived” series about adolescent angst?

Well, check out “My So Called Recovery”  - it makes adolescence look charming.

In which we track the % of the civilian population actually working these days

Wow! Now there’s a hockey stick graph that Al Gore would die for!

This is another way of looking at all those people that Big Guy’s mathamagical team  “disappeared” from the workforce. Now you know where they all ended up: unemployed. Just like the ones we officially count. What makes them different? The unemployed people who’ve dropped out of the workforce have officially abandoned HOPE.

If counted, the actual workforce unemployment stands at 17% (Gulp. That’s pretty close to Argentina’s, just before everything fell apart!).That is a BIG GULP! That’s over 27 million people in need of a job! In America! So what do you say; let’s get out there and protest the RICH people, who create jobs!

What if you gave an Occupy protest at a Romney fundraiser and nobody came? Other than the local gendarmes?

The protesters were bused into the tony beachside village from Manhattan to demonstrate against Romney and his host — but several made use of the free bus ride just to sit out on the beach.

Cops, to the left, protestors, to the right. Wait; shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Well, it was hot. Still, it looks like the Occupiers  have passed beyond angst and moved right into ennui.

Butt enough of that angsty stuff; here’s some real life sorrow. We received news yesterday of the passing of another iconic actor, Ernest Borgnine – no relation to Jeri Ryan, the Borg’s 7 of 9.

You may recall that Jeri was the Borg that Big Guy’s election team used to cut down his Senatorial opponent Jack Ryan back in 2004. Ha! What a prankster! Her allegations that caused Ryan to drop out of the race were never proven. As it turns out Jeri, being an actress and all, just made up a composite story about all the kinky sex! Who would do such a thing?

Anyway, for those paying attention to such things, Ernie’s passing marked the second of three (2 of 3) in the rule of three’s – with Andy of Mayberry being the first.

So let’s see, that’s one from the left hand side of the leger, although I prefer to think of Andy in his pre-senile years as Andy of Mayberry rather than Andy of Late-Life-Care-Managed-by-Team-Obama.

If they ever want to do a re-make of Andy of Mayberry, I’d nab American Idol winner Scotty McCreery

Although, even back then Andy was pretty liberal; he did make his only deputy, Barney, walk around with an unloaded gun.

Anyway, I’m not sure about this butt I think we could say that old Ernie was from the right side of the ledger. After all, Lt. Commander McHale used to let the crew ski behind the boat and he broke just about every other rule in the book while defending his country against the enemy. So at a minimum, I think we can put him down as a libertarian.

And at least Lt. Commander McHale knew about the proper care and feeding of his dog. Unlike certain other Commander’s. If you know what I mean.

Butt I digress: the rule of three’s requires that one more famous person pass in the short term, and our Rule of Fairness indicates that it should be someone from the left hand side of the ledger this time. I would throw this open to speculation, butt I’m concerned that this heat wave might overwhelm our normally well-controlled angst and natural decorum. The results might end up looking like something you’d find over on any of the Lefty sites.

So to prevent that eventuality, and as a preemptive strike for “Web-neutrality,” allow me to choose two well-scrubbed, authorized suggestions for you to pick from for “the next famous person to bite it”

1. Hugo
2. Fidel

Naturally, you’re allowed to vote for anyone else you’d like to, butt your vote won’t count.

Carry on now. That is all.

All Aboard!

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Obama: he has a great future and he always will.

I know that when Charles de Gaulle said it he was speaking of Brazil, butt his observation actually applies better to its neighbor now: “Argentina has a great future and it always will have.”

Argentina, as you may or may not recall, has only recently recovered from a crippling default on its bonds which left investment in the country virtually nil for over a decade and development levels slightly below that level. Adding to the misery index was another round of hyperinflation. Now they seem inclined to head back in that direction for some reason.

It’s not important how they got into that mess – well, actually it is: “years of lavish public spending and reckless borrowing” caused a decrease in real GDP which lead to high unemployment, (calculated at 18% ,though official figures claimed just 5%) resulting in considerably lower levels of tax revenue. That sounds vaguely familiar.

Anyway, they clawed their way back by bravely adopting a few free market rules before changing their minds and crawling back to the fascist ways that have always worked so well for them in the past, as Doug Ross explains.

To Advance Slides:

Click in Slide or

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H/T Dewey from Detroit and Doug Ross (click to advance)

So I guess whether you have a good idea or not, you can keep running it up the flag pole till that pig learns to fly.

Butt some pigs learn to fly easier than others

Big Guy ascribes to this premise too: having the pigs bend to your will, that is. So if that dawg won’t hunt, take another big old bite out of it!

Sooner or later, socialism becomes not only digestible, butt downright tasty!

So advancing the back-to-the-future mentality of socialist South America, Argentinian Perónista Presidente Cristina Fernendez continues along its path. She nationalized YPF, Argentina’s largest oil company earlier this year and has now ordered private banks to lend companies 15 billion pesos by the end of the year at rates well below private inflation estimates. This will, or so the thinking goes in Central Planning, shore up business and increase production.

BTW, in order to exercise this fiat, Central Planning of Argentina announced last Spring a change in the Central Bank charter which allows el Presidente to set the lending rates. See? How hard is this ruling against the will of the people crap? Not so much.

And surely Big Guy can muster more power than an Argentinian woman. Maybe he can just use his Executive Privileges to issue some more of those Executive Orders to clean up this economic mess that Bush stuck us with. After all, this is an emergency, BO could lose.

Which is why we’re doubling down on our bet against America

Butt back to Argentina: Reuters notes that “The move... marks an escalation in [President Christina Fernandez] war on private enterprise which may spread further…and it would absolutely not surprise us if this is precisely where the US is heading as command economies become the new normal globally.”

Gulp.

So I guess the only answer is for Big Guy to raise more money. To fight the rich. Or something.

So people, the decision couldn’t be more critical. It’s time to pick your favorite Perónista to lead America through the shoals.

The original Perónista, no longer available for benign dictator role

 

Clearly, Big Guy is still the leading contender for the job:

 

Unless he’s taken out by the enthusiasm gap – his:

not the crowd’s:

So just in case BO decides to throw in the towel,

“I just want to eat my waffle.”

We have to have our backup Perónistas standing by.

Lady M is, of course, a contender:

 

As is Joey:

No enthusiasm gap here

Butt let’s face it: we already have a natural in the wings who has clearly demonstrated all of the prerequisites for the job:

Don’t Cry for me Afghanistan, the truth is, I was never really with you anyway. Nor was my boss.

 

Goodbye. And good riddance. Afghanistan, I mean.

Don’t cry for Barack, Ameritina; the truth is he never loved you.

 

Don’t Cry For Me Argentina by Andrew Lloyd Webber

UPDATE: Gateway Pundit thinks the “good riddance” meme might have legs

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