My friend the Garter Knight has emailed to say I’m too grumpy and to knock it off.

Come on, Knight, I’m not grumpy–we all know I’m bitter. And so are you–we lived without distinguishing accents in the same rural area/set of small towns in the Midwest, and you were having trouble finding a job about the same time I was losing one. Apparently my religion and my antipathy to people unlike me are not doing their comforting job. I guess I’ll have to buy a gun–problem solved!

“Divorce and unwed parenthood” are costing the American taxpayers $112 billion.

Now let’s see that figure again without this part factored in:

Several factors contributed to the costs, including anti-poverty, criminal justice and education programs, and lower taxes paid by adults “negatively affected by increased childhood poverty caused by family fragmentation,” said investigator Ben Scafidi, economics professor at Georgia College & State University.

People who pay lower taxes than others “cost” taxpayers? Only in a country where the government demands a fixed amount upon which to operate and if Sally Unwed Mother can’t pay her $20 but pays $16 instead, then Johnny Small Business Owner has to pay $24 to make up her share, instead of what we actually are supposed to have, which is that everybody making $10,000 per year pays 6 percent tax (numbers pulled out of my ear for analogy purposes) and everybody paying between $10K and $20K pays 8 percent. Obviously Sally Unwed Mother costs taxpayers if she is on welfare, but in that case she’s not likely to be in this group paying “lower taxes”–she’s not likely to be paying taxes at all.

Take that figure out of your scary-big total, researchers, unless you think you can change the meaning of the word “cost” just using the power of other words around it. Which of course you do.

H/t Hot Air headlines. Of course.

If you know what I mean.

Square this circle: All of their friends are lawyers, yet every woman [Michelle Obama] knows is struggling to keep her head above water.

As usual, it depends on what the meaning of “water” is. C’mon, Allah, she didn’t mean monetarily … women just have it so tough since they have to both earn a living and do everything that is to be done regarding the household and child care–everything. Men, even the Obamessiah, are completely useless, but there she is, having to earn six figures anyway, even though it puts that final straw on that just might break her domestically minded back.

Oh wait, you mean … she does mean it monetarily? Lawyers making six figures apiece or more still couldn’t manage to pay off their student loans until midway through their forties? Wow. That’s chin near the waterline, all right. No wonder she has to break herself to do it all–clearly if she weren’t earning those six figures, it would have been ten more years or more before she could pay off those student loans, and then just imagine the level of Government Fixit she’d have to call for!