Mario Piperni dot Com

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I foolishly spent about 40 minutes today listening to Rush Limbaugh. He was in overdrive ranting about email-gate and how climate change is a hoax and polar bears are not in any danger. His claim is that the photos of polar bears on ice floes are staged. How does he know this? Well, because polar bears, he informs us, can swim 60 miles.

The sheer ignorance of this man is mind-blowing.

Every line was an Obama knock down and he’s not going around stating that Obama is making mistakes. Nope. According to Limbaugh, Obama wants to bankrupt the country for then it would be easier to impose his dreaded socialist agenda. It was 40 minutes of pure nonsense with no factual basis for any of his claims.  A true waste of one’s time.

To think that this buffoon has 15 million listeners is disconcerting to say the least. Any country with at least 15 million idiots cannot be a good thing.

Here is more Limbaugh asininity.
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No one would ever accuse the Cato Intstiute, a libertarian think tank, of bowing to President Obama and his administration. They are no friends of Democrats or liberals.  So when Cato comes to the defense of Obama, it’s worth noting.

Two weeks ago, Foxnews.com posted this story…

President Obama has shattered the budget record for first-year presidents — spending nearly double what his predecessor did when he came into office and far exceeding the first-year tabs for any other U.S. president in history. In fiscal 2009 the federal government spent $3.52 trillion …That fiscal year covered the last three-and-a-half months of George W. Bush’s term and the first eight-and-a-half months of Obama’s.

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When Mr. Obama was sworn into office the federal deficit for this year stood at $422 billion. At the end of October, it stood at $1.42 trillion.

Daniel J. Mitchell of Cato, who wrote he felt nauseated by the Fox story, felt a need to set the record straight.

I’m a big fan of criticizing Obama’s profligacy, but it is inaccurate and/or dishonest to blame him for Bush’s mistakes. At the risk of repeating my earlier post, the 2009 fiscal year began on October 1, 2008, and the vast majority of the spending for that year was the result of Bush Administration policies. Yes, Obama did add to the waste with the so-called stimulus, the omnibus appropriation, the CHIP bill, and the cash-for-clunkers nonsense, but as the chart illustrates, these boondoggles only amounted to just a tiny percentage of the FY2009 total — about $140 billion out of a $3.5 trillion budget.

So if we do the math, President Obama is responsible for 4% of the 2009 federal budget. The other 96% is Bush’s handiwork. How strange that Fox did not mention any of that. It was left to the Cato Institute to set the record straight.

I like their analogy…

Obama’s FY2009 performance is like a relief pitcher who enters a game in the fourth inning trailing 19-0 and allows another run to score. The extra run is nothing to cheer about, of course, but fans should be far more angry with the starting pitcher.

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I could not care less how Tiger Woods or any other athlete conduct their private lives (unless they’re operating a dog fight operation, of course).  Whether or not Woods is having an affair should be of concern to only his wife and their children.  But in a world where the public is fixated on the minutiae of rock stars and athletes, it turns out that it is a big deal…for Woods…and I’m not referring to his rocky marriage.

Tiger Woods is a money machine, and while many fans might think he earns most of his money by winning golf tournaments, it’s his outside commercial endorsements and ventures that bring in 90 percent of all his money. He’s made an estimated $1 billion in endorsements in his 13-year career, the most of any athlete ever, far eclipsing Michael Jordan’s athlete-as-mega-business model of the 1990s; Sports Illustrated estimates he’s now bringing in almost $100 million a year pitching products.

What this all means: Tiger Woods is not dealing just with medical recovery, marital strife, and legal headaches following his car crash early Friday morning. Enormous financial issues are at stake.

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…some of his largest endorsements—brands with more mainstream images—could be threatened if Tiger dithers and the personal story gains a tawdry steam. With a large pool of athletes to choose from, large companies are extremely reticent to tie their products to anything with the whiff of scandal.

As we’ve seen in politics countless times (Sanford’s Appalachian trail anyone?), the intoxicating allure of sex numbs the rational part of even the strongest minds. It is only with this understanding of sex and human nature, can we begin to fathom how anyone living in a fishbowl can for a moment convince themselves that inappropriate behavior can go unnoticed. Combined this with the sense of invincibility which comes with power, fame or wealth and it’s not difficult to figure out at all.

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The Nation argues that the filibuster is not what democracy is supposed to look like.

When Americans vote, by overwhelming majorities, to place control of the executive and legislative branches in the hands of a party that has promised fundamental change, they are supposed to get that change. They are not supposed to watch as a handful of self-interested and special-interested senators prevent progress by exploiting the arcane rules of the less representative of our two legislative chambers–rules requiring that not a majority but a supermajority be attained in order even to discuss necessary reforms, and that a similar supermajority be in place to thwart a filibuster.

Yet this is where America, a nation often inclined to tell other nations how to practice democracy, finds itself as the debate about healthcare reform reaches its critical stage. We have a president who is prepared to sign legislation to expand access to healthcare while establishing at least some controls against profiteering by insurers. We have a House of Representatives in which a majority has voted for imperfect but real reform. We have a Senate in which a majority is ready to vote for what could be even better reform. Unfortunately, that majority is sidelined as a few wavering senators game the system.

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The filibuster is not constitutionally mandated. It was established by rules that have been repeatedly altered over the years. Besides, as Thomas Geoghegan recently noted …, the proper reply to the history buffs is, “Yes, well, slavery and segregation are also part of our history, and that’s what the filibuster was used to defend. I’m all in favor of history and tradition, but I see no reason to go on cherishing either the filibuster or the Confederate flag.”

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No matter where the healthcare debate takes us, Reid and Senate Democrats should commit to getting rid of rules that stifle debate and prevent action, and they should eliminate the filibuster and implement majority rule. That, after all, is what democracy is supposed to look like.

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The first time I saw a Picasso live was at New York’s Guggenheim a number of years back. It was one of his early works before he ventured off into Cubism. A Picasso lover was born.

One of his signature pieces is Guernica, the gigantic (25′ wide x 11′ high) masterpiece depicting the horrors of war.  In the following video, Guernica is masterfully brought to 3D life by use of software (Maya and After Effects).
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Here’s a float we would of liked to see.
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It’s all about this.

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Here’s a story on the latest chain email making the rounds.

It’s a recipe for a great conspiracy theory: a big health care bill, an effort to centralize medical records and a new microchip that can be implanted under your skin.

A chain e-mail warns darkly that an “implantable radio frequency transponder system for patient identification and health information” would be “implanted in the majority of people who opt to become covered by the public health care option” — the government-run insurance plan designed as an affordable option for people who are uninsured or whose employers don’t offer health coverage. The chip would “collect data in medical patients,” including “claims data” and “electronic health records.”

Americans, the e-mail continues, would likely flock to the the public option. This would mean that “the number of people chipped will be plentiful as well. Children conceived by parents who are already covered under the public option will more than likely be implanted with a chip by the consent of the parent. Eventually everyone will be implanted with a chip. And with the price and coverage of the public option being so competitive with the private companies, the private company [sic] may not survive.”

One would like to think that anything as ridiculous as this would be quickly dismissed as pure nonsense. But then we realize that we’re not living in sane times.  In the world of wingnuttia, no claim against liberals and dems is too outlandish or insane to not take hold with some.  After all, this is the party of birthers and “death panel” claims.  This is the party that attracts loonies like you-know-what attracts flies.

Here’s my prediction: some conservative whack-job will soon bring this bit of craziness up and claim that President Obama wants you implanted with a microchip.  The likely suspects, of course, are Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann, Virginia Foxx and Sarah Palin.

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You know it’s going to be exactly like this…
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Another reason why Fox News should be part of the Comedy Network.

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63 + 70 + 60 = 193

Not bad. Their pie chart  was only off by 93.

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Very cool.
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Open thread.

(Hat Tip: Daily Dish)
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