10 Activities That Once Were Repugnant

1. Cadavers for anatomical study, organ donation, bone and tissue

2. Adoption

3. Surrogate mothers, egg and sperm donation, abortion, birth control

4. Prostitution, pornography

5. Polygamy, gay marriage, incest

6. Life insurance

7. Gambling

8. Interest on loans

9. Payments for athletes

10. Using horse and dog meat

Man Uses Fake Dating Profile to Catch Phone Thief

A New York man put “himself” out there in his efforts to nab the man who stole his phone, posing as a woman online after he discovered the thief had started looking for dates under his name.

Nadal Nirenberg said the problem started when he left his phone in a cab New Year’s Eve. Within 24 hours, he said, he found messages sent from his profile on the dating site OKCupid, which is linked to the phone.

So Nirenberg grabbed a picture of a woman and concocted his own false identity, contacting the man and convincing him to meet in the flesh.

“My best version of talking as a girl as a flirty girl, I should say, is adding winky face emoticons,” Nirenberg said.

Nirenberg got the thief to come to his apartment in Brooklyn, he said, and confronted him on a nearby stairwell, bringing along both some money and some protection when the time came to reclaim his property.

“I put the $20 in his hand to defuse the situation as fast as possible,” Nirenberg said, recapping the encounter. “But I had a hammer in my hand just in case.”

The would-be suitor did at least seem to make an effort, though; Nirenberg pointed out that he came dressed nicely and brought a bottle of wine.

“As he was walking away, I was surprised,” Nirenberg said after getting his phone back. “I said, ‘You smell great though.’

Via [The Raw Story] 

$1 in Spending Cuts for Every $41 in Tax Increases

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the last-minute fiscal cliff deal reached by congressional leaders and President Barack Obama cuts only $15 billion in spending while increasing tax revenues by $620 billion—a 41:1 ratio of tax increases to spending cuts.

When Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush increased taxes in return for spending cuts—cuts that never ultimately came—they did so at ratios of 1:3 and 1:2.

“In 1982, President Reagan was promised $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes,” Americans for Tax Reform says of those two incidents. “The tax hikes went through, but the spending cuts did not materialize. President Reagan later said that signing onto this deal was the biggest mistake of his presidency.

"In 1990, President George H.W. Bush agreed to $2 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes. The tax hikes went through, and we are still paying them today. Not a single penny of the promised spending cuts actually happened.”

[Via Breitbart]

330 Billion Dollars Bust

The "fiscal cliff" deal that was designed to save money actually includes $330.3 billion in new spending over the next decade, according to the official estimate the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday afternoon.

CBO said the bill contains about $25.1 billion in new cuts, but those are swamped by the new spending on extended unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and other new refundable tax credits that President Obama fought for.

Of those cuts, only $2 billion are scheduled to take effect in 2013.

And CBO also warned that some of the cuts Congress is counting are from programs on which CBO never expected the money to be spent anyway — such as cuts to the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan, which was part of Mr. Obama's health care law.

All told, the bill deepens the deficit by nearly $4 trillion over the next decade, when the new tax cuts and spending are combined.

The bill also delays by two months the automatic spending cuts slated to take effect Wednesday, with a promise to reduce spending in the future to cover for them.

[Via The Washington Times]