And now for something completely different.

Conservative radio host talks to gay caller and doesn't suggest that caller kill himself or should have his voting rights suppressed.

Bigotry - you find it on the left.

The Amazing Leftist Business Strategy...

...it's not just for media outlets anymore!

Arby's has decided that it can survive by focusing on leftists and pissing off the 80% of Americans who aren't leftists.

According to the Atlantic Wire:

On Wednesday, Arby's inflamed the conservative blogosphere with the announcement on Twitter that it will no longer advertise on Rush Limbaugh's show. Big mistake. The statement probably would've blown over, like all the rest of them, but Arby's moves following the announcement have awakened a sleeping giant. Shortly after its statement, the Arby's Twitter account went on a rampage blocking users who disagreed with the franchise...

And:

Arby's! Not a smart move. Maybe you think you're serving a lot liberals with your delicious Jamocha shakes but you're first and foremost a fast food chain, and if you knew anything about fast food customers, you'd be careful not to anger conservative America. As we speak, the blogging foot soldiers of the right (Michelle Malkin, Instapundit, iOwn the World, etc) are raising hell and the sandwich peddler better hope it doesn't catch on. As studies have shown, conservatives are more likely to consume fast food than liberals. The latest of these was gathered by a collective intelligence decision-making system at Hunch.com last year, which found that "liberals are 92 percent more likely to eat fast food rarely or never." Meanwhile: "Conservatives are 64 percent more likely to eat fast food a few times per week."

The Atlantic is playing it for laughs, but what sane business deliberately alienates any portion of the customer base?

One that has the "vision of the elect," that's who.

And these idiots are running the country.

Perhaps Arby's is looking for a governmental subsidy, or more likely a waiver from Obamacare?

Surprise! The advertising boycott against Rush Limbaugh...

...was really an "astroturfing" - fake grass roots - campaign by Media Mattes.

Joseph Goebbels couldn't have handled it any better.

So, who did "win" last week?

Glen Reynolds posts a reader's email:

Stay tuned. Plus, one more reader email:

One explanation for the Obama administration/media misstep in the contraception contretemps is that the decision makers may be thoroughly cocooned that they really could not see how this would play out.

I think it is entirely possible of Obama’s inner circle and (to a lesser degree) the MSM that a) they don’t know many practicing Catholics b) they really did not recall how much more often left wing commentators and entertainers had said things about right wing women that were far more vile than anything Rush Limbaugh said, and c) Sandra Fluke seemed like a person whose life story would resonate, because her story is so similar to about half of their circle of friends.

A little more contact with the real world would have led them to the cautionary advice that a) many Catholics _actually believe_ that forcing religious institutions to pay for contraception and abortion in health coverage is a violation of their religious freedom, b) the Left says horrid things about conservative women all of the time, and they really would lose a tit-for-tat on this subject and c) Georgetown law students who want free contraception are really not as awesome of a victim group as it might seem on first look.

I don’t think this will be the last time during this campaign that Republican “losses” and Democrat “wins” get revised in the court of public opinion.

No name if used, please.

The "echo chamber effect" has been a problem for Obama over the last three years.

He who laughs last, laughs..

...etc.

Limbaugh rebuffs attempts by advertisers to get him back.

And for real OCD types...

...here is a Planned Parenthood site saying that birth control pills cost $15 to $50 per month.

I did the hard work - less than a minute - of researching the issue, which, apparently, highly paid professional journalists are unable to to perform for themselves.

$15 to $50 per month works out to $180 to $600 per year.

Since beggars can't be choosers, we'll go with the low end of $180 per year.

This is substantially - to put it mildly - below Fluke's testimony under oath that contraception costs $1,000 per year.

So, Fluke is not only a publicity slut, she's a perjurer.

The benefits of the Limbaugh-Fluke Kerfuffle...

First, it let's us play spot the idiot, which in this case happens to be the college administrator who criticizes a colleague for daring - daring! - to have an independent thought.

Second, it forces us to contemplate the ability of the left to dive into a wooden humorlessness when they need to (as in long unfunny anti-catholic screeds are to liberals "funny," but biting satire of an adult's overweening sense of entitlement are to liberals "not funny" because it used a "bad word.")

This is from Ann Althouse:

We are here to educate, to nurture, to inspire, not to engage in character assassination." Where's the character assassination? Landsburg disagreed with the policy Sandra Fluke promoted. In Congress. Professors have the obligation to "nurture" and "inspire" her from afar by refraining from taking on her ideas? Is that some special kid-gloves treatment for women? Ironically, that would be sexist. Should we be patting the female political activist on the head and murmuring good for you for speaking up? That is dismissive. It's better feminism to react to what a woman in politics says and to respond to her with full force the way you would to a man. And that's what Landsburg did:

[W]hile Ms. Fluke herself deserves the same basic respect we owe to any human being, her position — which is what’s at issue here — deserves none whatseover. It deserves only to be ridiculed, mocked and jeered. To treat it with respect would be a travesty....

To his credit, Rush stepped in to provide the requisite mockery. To his far greater credit, he did so with a spot-on analogy: If I can reasonably be required to pay for someone else’s sex life (absent any argument about externalities or other market failures), then I can reasonably demand to share in the benefits. His dense and humorless critics notwithstanding, I am 99% sure that Rush doesn’t actually advocate mandatory on-line sex videos. What he advocates is logical consistency and an appreciation for ethical symmetry. So do I. Color me jealous for not having thought of this analogy myself.

Now, Landsburg's an economist. Note the references to externalities or other market failures. He goes on to say a little something about prostitution. He goes on find the the analogy to prostitution flawed. Fluke is, he says, more of an "extortionist" — an "extortionist with an overweening sense of entitlement." For some reason Seligman thought he needed to throw in his position on prostitution:

I totally disagree with Landsburg that there is nothing wrong with being paid for sex.

Here is the original Professor Steve Landsburg post.

More Liberal Double-standards.

Via Instapundit:

THE POLITICS OF HATE: Dems Incite Death Threats Against Limbaugh. And Limbaugh’s already had to call the bomb squad to his house. That’s their approach. Marginalize, then brutalize.

When will President Obama speak out against this hatred and extremism? Probably never. But since it’s been established that this sort of thing happens via close coordination between the White House and Media Matters, etc., there’s no denying responsibility now. I call upon the President to denounce his supporters’ hateful violent rhetoric, to promise not to engage in or encourage it again, and to apologize to Limbaugh for stirring up this cesspit of hatred among his followers. A President is supposed to lead, not incite violence

Maybe we should start posting Obamicons with “HATE” instead of “HOPE” until he does. . . .

Funny how death threats and bomb scares aren't a sign of incivility when it happens to a conservative.

Great Moments in American Business.

Investors flee Carbonite after Limbaugh announcement:

On Saturday, Carbonite CEO David Friend released a statement on his company’s website declaring that Carbonite had decided to “withdraw” advertising from Rush Limbaugh’s radio show in the wake of his controversial remarks involving Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke because it will “ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse”:

Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.

However, it hasn’t done much to contribute to his company’s stock price. Since the market opened on Monday through its close today, Carbonite stock (NASDAQ:CARB) has plummeted nearly 12 percent, outpacing the drop of the NASDAQ index in that same time period by nine-and-a-half points. It was also one of the biggest decliners on the NASDAQ on Tuesday.

America, You Should be Ashamed.

The horror!

The horror!

Publicity Slut is also a Perjurer.

Someone finally ran the numbers on Sandra Fluke's totally BS claim that she was being bankrupted by having to pay for her own contraceptives:

The crucial lynchpin of the argument for attacking Georgetown’s Catholic religious beliefs is the hypothesis that birth control is too expensive for a student to afford without health insurance paying for it. YET, THAT IS A FLAT-OUT, TOTAL LIE.

Sandra Fluke committed perjury (lying under oath) by claiming that “AS YOU KNOW” birth control costs a student “OVER $3,000″ over the three years of law school.

Note: Some have tried to cover for Fluke by changing this to “UP TO.” No. She said “OVER $3,000.”

To expose this perjury, we need look no farther than Planned Parenthood’s own website.

Of course Sandra Fluke did not identify which type of birth control she had in mind. But it doesn’t matter:

COSTS: (1) Birth Control pills, every single day (with placebos often in the plan for 2 or 3 days): $15 per month, says Planned Parenthood. $540 over 3 years. (2) the PATCH: $15 per month says Planned Parenthood. $540 over 3 years. (3) IUD: Good for 12 years, $500 to $1000 up-front, says PP. (4) condoms: 40 cents each in economy packages.

Top name brand, Trojan, condoms cost $13.99 in a 36 count economy pack. That’s 40 cents a condom. So the only way that a Georgetown student could be spending $3,000 over three years is to have sex 7,500 times over three years. That’s 6.84 times a day, every single day, without any days off, for three years.

Could one spend MORE than $15 per month, which Planned Parenthood says is a likely price? Who cares? The discussion is about a student on a limited budget. So we are talking about how little she might spend, not how much she could go on the up side.

It is Sandra Fluke’s claim that a student *MUST* spend “OVER $3,000″ during 3 years. She is claiming that it is NECESSARY (unavoidable) for a woman at Georgetown Law School to spend “OVER $3,000″ a year for birth control.

So, sure — you could pay more than $15 per month. But we are talking about students who are short on money. So obviously we are talking about students paying the minimum, because they are on a limited budget. The argument is that these students cannot afford birth control, so we have to look at the minimum price, not the premium price you could pay if you don’t care about the cost.

But if Georgetown’s students — who are supposed to be studying some of the time — had sex 3 times a week, taking 2 weeks out being with their families for holidays and taking 2 weeks out for exam weeks, that would be 432 times over three years.

COST FOR CONDOMS: $172.80 plus tax over three years. (432 times 40 cents each.)

A Modest Proposal with respect to Helping Sandra Fluke Shoulder the Burden of Paying for her Sex Life.

From Roxeanne de Luca at Haemet:

You demand I buy your birth control, but you don’t even require your dates to buy you dinner before using it.

Discuss.


Why is it that only women, according to the Left’s orthodoxy, have to pay for contraception? Doesn’t it take two to tango? Aren’t we all empowered these days? Stacy McCain, in calling Sandra Fluke a liar, forgets to rip apart this part of her testimony:

“Forty percent of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they struggled financially as a result of this policy,” Fluke testified regarding the Catholic university’s policy of not covering birth control. “Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school.”

On a side note, it was 40% of students who are a part of Law Students for Reproductive Justice, which is not exactly a representative sample. More importantly, why would anyone screw a guy who would let you shoulder a grand a year in birth control costs yourself?

I have been beating the “young women of the world, have you all lost your minds?” drum for quite some time here at Haemet. And I will continue to do so. According to Fluke and the other lefties, the plight of women is so dire that they are left pleading before Congress to pay for the condoms and Pills that their lame-ass sex partners won’t pay for. Could we humiliate young women any more?

What is so infuriating is it is not that complicated to avoid having to spend thousands of dollars of your own money on contraception while men float freely through their educations, spending all of their money on video games, plasma TVs, or Brooks Brothers suits. Two rules. Follow them. Love them. Embrace them. Here they are:

1. Don’t fuck cads who refuse to to toddle over to CVS and buy a box of Trojans before the evening’s Kama Sutra extravaganza.

2. If you feel the need to violate Rule 1, buy a vibrator or see a shrink.

Back in the Dark Ages, men used to buy women diamonds before getting them into bed. Now that you’ve done away with that requirement, how about at least asking men to buy your Ortho Tri Cyclen? If you’re an equal partner, negotiating a sexual encounter, why are you so unequal that you’re the ones crying to rich men in Congress for help, like Oliver Twist asking for another serving of food, while all the guys on Law Review are writing their Notes and applying to clerkships without a care in the world? And whose fault is that? Rick Santorum’s? Pope Benedict? or yours, for not having the basic self-respect to tell Mr. Law Review that he’s not getting any unless he understands that “equality” doesn’t mean that the woman buys the Pill and the condoms, too?

Publicity-skank Sandra Fluke invited us in to a discussion of her sex life by making her personal appeal to Congress that everyone - including her Catholic law school - be requierd to subsidize her sex life, so it seems that helpful suggestions like the above are properly in order.

Let's be honest about this...

...the liberals are pushing contraception as a stalking-horse for other medical costs, such as sterilization, abortion and gender-reassignment surgery.

The Other McCain points out that "publicity slut" Sandra Fluke has argued for mandatory insurance coverage for sex-change surgery.

Remember, as Byron York previously reported, Fluke was rejected as a last-minute substitute witness at a Feb. 16 committee hearing because staffers for Chairman Issa were unable to discover Fluke’s claim to expertise relevant to the subject of the hearing. This law school journal article is the sort of thing that might have been discovered about Fluke’s background, had the Democrats who put Fluke forward as a witness done so with the usual 72-hour advance notice. Here’s one brief quote from the article:

Transgender persons wishing to undergo the gender reassignment process frequently face heterosexist employer health insurance policies that label the surgery as cosmetic or medically unnecessary and therefore uncovered.

Now, imagine Fluke trying to defend this language about “heterosexist” policies in a public hearing, with Republican members of the committee questioning her about whether religious institutions (or private businesses, or taxpayers) should also be required to foot the bill for “gender reassignment.”
Congratulations, America: You’ve been scammed!

The Irony of Projection

Megan McCardle follows up on her "fundamentalist" reading of Limbaugh with this:

I know, I know--I'm a humorless west coast liberal who doesn't get an obvious joke. No offense, but Limbaugh's listeners are not known for their ability to appreciate maybe-sort-of-satire. I don't think it's ridiculous to say that for Rush Limbaugh, racism isn't a big problem in this country, but anti-racism is one of the greatest threats facing America today. So when he does a "satire" that comes perilously close to his normal rants against feminazis and raice-baiters, well, I don't really think you can expect the rest of America to get the joke.

[Emphasis added.]

What's that? "No offense, but Limbaugh's listeners are not known for their ability to appreciate maybe-sort-of-satire"??????

Well, of course, everyone knows that Limbaugh's listener's are a bunch of Hillbilly's "clinging to their guns and religion."

Please.

Incidentally, among who are Limbaugh's listeners "not known" for their ability to appreciate satire? Liberals? People who went to college? People who live in New York?

And what is it when we classify a group with a broad-brush, derogatory stereotype? Racism? Elitism?

Isn't this exactly the mindset that Limbaugh was lampooning?

It's amazing that someone as smart as McCardle can't see the satire. In a somewhat later excerpt, in response to a caller who said that the police chief had cleared the black students from a race crime, Limbaugh "argued" that the video camera didn't have sound and so - obviously - we could not hear the white student taunting the black attackers.

McCardle isn't a hillbilly. She's college educated. She doesn't cling to her guns and religion. So, why doesn't she *get* that Limbaugh is "accusing" the white victim of the "hate crime."

Now, unless McCardle et al really believes that Limbaugh was serious - and what does that do to their trope that he is inciting racism against blacks - then they ought to conclude that he had his tongue in his cheek and was doing "schtick."

But they can't reach that conclusion because it seems that Limbaugh and his listeners are a bunch of ignorant yokels who wouldn't be able to spell "Swift" if you spotted them everything but the "S."