… though “Karl” wants to keep it going.

In two posts (here and here; I never imagined little ol’ yours truly, especially having earned the designation “Idiot of the Day,” could get him so hot and bothered — down boy), Karl lays out some nice points and recounts history as he sees it — though it’s more than a little ironic that Dylan Ratigan, whom Karl has grown to know and somehow love, was clearly as duped as much as if not moreso than anyone on October 14, 2008 (he bought Charles Gasparino’s “gun to the head” rendition which Karl believes is the stuff of sheer fantasy hook, line, and sinker). To a larger extent than he would care to admit, I agree with him, including about the current sense of urgency to right our sinking ship. In a civil situation, a meaningful dialog might commence …

… but at this point, I could care less.

You see, Karl bitterly clings to calling me a liar and purveyor of “utter falsehood,” and even though I have proven that nothing I produced contained a lie, he won’t retract. He also called a website to which I provide a roughly weekly column a collection of liars.

When people do that, I demand an apology and a retraction — in this case to me and to Pajamas Media. When I don’t get one, my fundamental sense of decency and honor dictates that I ignore that person — unless and until the apology and retraction arrive, because nothing else matters unless and until the apology and retraction arrive. That’s how I roll. I see no alternative.

Karl, the words still are: “I was wrong. I am sorry. I will appropriately retract.” Until those words arrive … see ya.

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Previous items:

• October 14 (BizzyBlog mirror; BizzyBlog tease) — “October 14, 2008: The Day the Economy as We Knew It Died”
• October 14, at Market-Ticker — “Bald LIES From The Right (This Is IMPORTANT)”
• October 17 (BizzyBlog mirror) — “Dour Denninger Dumps on Yours Truly — and Pajamas Media”
• October 18, at Market-Ticker — “Pajamas Media: Entitled To Its Opinion, Not Its Own Facts”

Rules are here. Possible comment fodder is below. Other topics are also fair game.

(Brought to the top in the wake of Muammar Gaddafi’s death.)
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Muammar Gaddafi has been killed, according to Reuters and an AFP photo (scroll down at link; warning – graphic).

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Well, now we know where about a healthy portion of Mitt Romney’s 20% or so GOP support comes from Via the New York Daily News, concerning a Rasmussen poll (HT to an emailer) — “Republicans – by an 11-to-1 margin – believe capitalism is superior to socialism, the poll found. Democrats are much more closely divided, with 39% preferring capitalism and 30% backing socialism.” Math hint: 1 divided by 11 equals 9%.

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Occupy this — from Bryan Preston at the PJ Tatler (HT Instapundit; underlying Washington Post item): “Obama Has Raised More from Wall Street than All the GOP Contenders, Combined.”

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From Charles Spiering at the Washington Examiner (HT PJ Tatler, where the operative word is “disgusting”) — “Romney attacks Perry with Debate Blooper Reel.” So much for the “Eleventh Commandment,” eh? Just to be clear on the exact meaning of the commandment:

The commandment never meant that one Republican could not criticize the policies or philosophies of another Republican. It meant only that one could or should not engage in personal attacks on another Republican.

Reagan adopted it fully that same year. During the 1966 primary, Reagan’s moderate GOP opponents savaged him, calling him “temperamentally and emotionally upset” and suggesting that his switch from Democrat to Republican “might indicate instability.” Reagan did not attack them in the same manner.

The Perry blooper vid has been pulled. Romniacs says it’s because of copyright issues. I say, “Horse manure” — and so does Bryan Preston (” it falls easily under fair use”).

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Business Insider: “… almost 26 million Americans are either unemployed, marginally attached to the labor force, or involuntarily working part-time—a number experts say is unprecedented.”

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Mark Krikorian at National Review (“Hollow Deportation Boast”): While the Obama administration trumpets record deportations, “the increase in deportations that continued pretty steadily under both Clinton and has stopped dead under Obama”:

Oct. 13 — “‘Romney inevitable?’ AP Sure Seems to Hope So”

For the first time, if only by a tiny margin, Herman Cain leads the rest of the field of GOP presidential nomination contenders at the Real Clear Politics recent poll summary:

Also note that the most recent poll cited from AP-GfK, otherwise known as “Absolutely Pathetic Garbage

From the Department of Labor:

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending October 15, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 403,000, a decrease of 6,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 409,000. The 4-week moving average was 403,000, a decrease of 6,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 409,250.

UNADJUSTED DATA

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 356,825 in the week ending October 15, a decrease of 47,229 from the previous week. There were 394,016 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.

Business Insider’s email said that Bloomberg’s consulted analysts predicted 400,000, which they did, as did Reuters.

That makes it a full half-year where the four-week average has stayed over 400,000:

It’s a good thing that, as President Obama told ABC’s Jake Tapper, “all the choices we’ve made have been the right ones.” (/sarc)

From a column by Shawn Carney at Life News:

10/17/11 9:52 AM

Today marks the midpoint of this 40 Days for Life campaign. The blessings are more than we can count! One thing we HAVE been able to count is the number of turnarounds reported by local campaign teams.

So far, there have been 229 babies saved from abortion — that we know of! Let’s go straight to a few of these amazing stories.

As two volunteers began praying at the 40 Days for Life vigil were praying, a woman drove up and started yelling at them.

“You’re not helping anything,” she screamed. “These women need someone to care for them, not harass them.”

One of the volunteers tried to explain the vigil, but the woman wasn’t interested. She just shouted some more — and drove off. That was a bit unsettling, but the pair continued to pray — specifically for the young woman they were watching. She was sitting with her mother in a parked car. Neither woman got out of the car. About 20 minutes later, they started the engine and headed towards the exit.

One of the volunteers walked in their direction and asked them if they needed help. The young woman said she had arrived for an abortion. “But because of you on the sidewalk, I’m not going to go through with it.” …

Go here for the rest of Carney’s column.

Via Jason Mattera at Human Events (direct YouTube):

Money quote from Biden:

“(If Republicans don’t pass this bill) Murder will continue to rise, rape will continue to rise, all crimes will continue to rise.”

Readers participating in the real world will be quite surprised to learn that, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, “It’s very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine.”

At The Hill’s Floor Action blog, reporter Pete Kasperowicz, writing as if the world began in early 2010, supported Reid’s contention: “Private-sector jobs have increased over the last 19 months, while government jobs have lagged.” I hope both gentlemen don’t mind if, after excerpting a few paragraphs from Pete K’s report, we look at some real numbers after the jump.

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Concerning President Obama, his obviously most important quote of the past 48 hours is his statement to ABC’s Jake Tapper (transcript here) that concerning the economy, “I believe all the choices we’ve made have been the right ones …”

Clearly, such a remark, if widely known, would be problematic for the President among quite a number of unemployed and underemployed Americans. In the New Media age, of course, it can’t be kept totally under wraps, but at the two organizations which still consider themselves the nation’s news gatekeepers, Obama’s statement apparently hasn’t made the cut. Consider it the latest installment in what might as well be dubbed, “Operation Protect the President.”

At the Associated Press’s main site, a search on “Obama choices” (not in quotes) returns nothing relevant.

A Google News search on [Obama "choices we've made" "associated press"] (input exactly as indicated between brackets) comes up empty.

At the New York Times, a search on [Obama "choices we've made"] (input exactly as indicated between brackets) comes up completely empty. Widening the search to “Obama choices” (not in quotes) returns nothing relevant.

At least the gatekeepers can’t shut out things they don’t want to relay like they used to. A Google News search on the full quote entered with quote marks (“I believe all the choices we’ve made have been the right ones”; sorted by date, with duplicates) returns 12 items. Although one of them is from Tapper’s Political Punch Blog at ABC News where Devin Dwyer teased the interview Tuesday afternoon, the Tapper interview itself is not in the results (a glitch, perhaps?). A Google Web search on the full quote entered with quote marks (past week only, sorted by date, including similar items) returns 412 results.

Nonetheless, the failure by the Associated Press and the New York Times to inform its readers and, in the AP’s case, its subscribing listeners and viewers is quite derelict — and, sadly, quite typical. Also concerning the AP, which should consider renaming itself “The Administration’s Press,” the determination to ensure that the relatively disengaged don’t hear anything unsettling about the president seems pretty obvious.

It really isn’t even necessarly to note that a Republican or conservative president making such a statement would be getting blanket and perhaps mocking coverage from the self-appointed gatekeepers. But I will anyway.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

The headline and opening sentence in Derek Kravitz’s Associated Press report this morning on the Census Bureau’s homebulding industry data release gives readers the impression that industry activity increased impressively during September. It increased a tiny bit, but certainly not by the percentage indicated.

The headline ignorantly assumes that a double-digit increase in housing starts is the same as an increase in “home building.” It isn’t. That headline, the first four paragraphs from Kravitz’s report, and some other indicators of housing market progress — and the stunning lack thereof, three full years after the politicians promised that the Troubled Asset Relief Program would right the ship — follow the jump (bolds are mine):

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Rules are here. Possible comment fodder is below. Other topics are also fair game.

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Arthur Laffer in the Wall Street Journal (“Cain’s Stimulating ’9-9-9′ Tax Reform … the low marginal rates would jump-start the economy”) — “I believe his plan would indeed be static revenue neutral, and with the boost it would give to economic growth it would bring in even more revenue than expected.” In my view, far more. “Unexpectedly,” of course.

Defeated one-term former congressman Steve Driehaus, who lost to Steve Chabot largely because of his support for Obamacare and its self-evident proabort provisions (since borne out) now has the ACLU involved in his lawsuit against Susan B. Anthony List, which told the truth about what his Obamacare vote meant — except that the ACLU is siding against him.

Bryant Gumbel is calling National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern “a plantation overseer.” As of April, the NBA led all world sports in average annual salary: $4.79 million.

The joys of central planning, described in a Wednesday Wall Street Journal editorial (“Your Cash for Their Clunkers”) — “Some 48 different battery technology and electric vehicle projects received federal money as part of the Administration’s August 2009 announcement, including such corporate giants as Johnson Controls and General Motors. Current estimates are that by 2015 there will be more than double the supply of lithium-ion batteries compared to the number of electric vehicles. This government-juiced industry is headed for a shakeout, taking taxpayer dollars with it.” At stake is at least $2.4 billion.

There are serious allegations that unsafe decisions led to IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon’s death — “As I followed race after race this year it became more than apparent that the safety of the drivers was not the first concern of IndyCar officials. … In order to enter 34 cars in the Las Vegas finale, the rules of Indycar had to be waived. Specifically, the rules state that no field shall exceed 28 cars, except for the Indy 500 … Putting 34 cars on a steeply banked mile and a half oval was absolutely unheard of – and against the rules.” Read the whole thing.

Nothing to see here, move along: “Minus suspected fakes, then Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama likely fell short of the number of signatures needed to appear on the 2008 Indiana primary ballot, and it’s possible his opponent, Hillary Clinton, did as well, according to information obtained by The Tribune as part of an investigation into suspected ballot petition fraud.” If this were a GOP candidate’s problem, it would be front-page news.

Fundamentally right (HT Hot Air):

Paul: “Unless we resolve this and understand that life is precious and we must protect life, we can’t protect liberty.”

Great video and capsulized history lesson, circa 2007 (link to book):

Key historical points, quoting Cain:

• “Oh, I didn’t know the Democratic Party started the KKK. They did.”
• “Oh, I didn’t know that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed because of a larger percentage of Republicans voting for it than Democrats. That’s true.”
• “And I didn’t know that in 1957, … (the Civil Rights Act) was debated and killed on the floor of the United States Senate by Southern Democrats.”