Lots of good quotes in this Wall Street Journal Review & Outlook column, although none better than this sub-headline some pithy editor slapped in:

If you believe that a new entitlement saves money, you’ll believe anything.

Like Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss once said, “When we saw you would willingly spend your entire days in cubicles smaller than a prison cell, we realized anything was possible.”

I’m going to peg this at sixth grade. Would there be some problem with sixth-graders reading a column like this, perhaps doing a report on it? It would have helped me figure out what was going on, quite a bit; when I was in sixth grade, Jimmy Carter was our President. A lot of grown-ups on both sides were insisting government was lying to us in obvious ways, but nobody ever filled in details. Back then, things were different. If one adult was in favor of Carter’s policies and another adult was opposed, the adults would likely have known each other and wanted to stay friends. They’d only give us the details up to the point that objective was about to be placed in jeopardy and then they’d stop. We didn’t learn much from talking to the grown-ups, and we learned even less from the public school curriculum. President is Commander-in-Chief blah blah blah Senate six years blah blah House two years blah blah blah. That about covers it.

Kids should learn a whole lot more, especially when our elected representatives are lying to us about such elementary contortions of fact & logic…of math.

Of all the claims deployed in favor of ObamaCare, and there are many, the most preposterous is that a new open-ended entitlement will somehow reduce the budget deficit. Insure 32 million more people, and save money too! The even more remarkable spectacle is that Washington seems to be taking this claim seriously in advance of the House’s repeal vote next week. Some things in politics you just can’t make up.

Terminating trillions of dollars in future spending will “heap mountains of debt onto our children and grandchildren” and “do very serious violence to the national debt and deficit,” Nancy Pelosi said at her farewell press conference as Speaker. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius chimed in that “we can’t afford repeal,” as if ObamaCare’s full 10-year cost of $2.6 trillion once all the spending kicks in is a taxpayer bargain.

The basis for such claims, to the extent a serious one exists, is the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis this week of the repeal bill, which projects it will “cost” the government $230 billion through 2021. Because CBO figures ObamaCare will reduce the deficit by the same amount, repealing it will supposedly do the opposite. The White House promptly released a statement saying repeal would “explode the deficit.”

Meanwhile, other Democrats have taken up arms about House procedure. The GOP adopted a budget rule that says repeal doesn’t have to be “paid for,” and the press corps is treating this exemption as a scandal against Washington decency.

In a memo, the inimitable Pete Stark spied a GOP plot “to shove through a massive bill”—the repeal measure is all of two pages—while Henry Waxman and other outgoing committee chairmen shook with outrage about “an offense to good government.”
:
Amid the repeal debate, Democrats and the media are behaving as if they have no knowledge of Congress’s habits or the history of government health-care programs over the last half-century. Entitlements are always sold as modest and “paid for,” then years later everyone suddenly discovers that they are “unaffordable” without digging deeper into the pockets of the middle class. How do you think Medicare and Medicaid got to their current pass?

The government can’t subsidize coverage for tens of millions of new people and simultaneously reduce the deficit, as most Americans seem to intuitively understand. The real offense Republicans are committing in the eyes of Washington is exposing its illusions.

The point that seems to be lost in this, is that it doesn’t very much matter if the people are able to cast authoritative votes every two years if they’re so dreadfully uninformed. And I don’t know if they are, but certainly somebody is, if so many members of Congress are so confident about telling us we need to spend money on a new program in order to save money, and we can’t afford not to spend it. We need to be asking what it is we have been doing, over the past several years, to allow a perception that they can get away with such a thing whether it be real or imagined.

Dana Milbank, writing in the Washington Post, offers a voice to a widespread complaint. The reasonable observer cannot help but entertain the notion Mr. Milbank is also offering a semblance of substance to a complaint, that in reality has none.

What the Republican majority decided to read [in the House of Representatives] was a sanitized Constitution – an excerpted version of the founding document conjuring a fanciful land that never counted a black person as three-fifths of a white person, never denied women the right to vote, never allowed slavery and never banned liquor.

The idea of reading the Constitution aloud was generated by the Tea Party as a way to re-affirm lawmakers’ fealty to the framers, but in practice it did the opposite. In deciding to omit objectionable passages that were later altered by amendment, the new majority jettisoned “originalist” and “constructionist” beliefs and created – dare it be said? – a “living Constitution” pruned of the founders’ missteps. Nobody’s proud of the three-fifths compromise, but how can we learn from our founding if we aren’t honest about it?

Right, Dana. Any time I want to figure out how I can learn something, I make a bee line straight for people like yourself who so clearly haven’t learned even the basic essentials about that very thing.

Scripsit Ghettoputer makes a diligent effort (hat tip to Prof. Mondo) to figure out what’s going on here:

1. BEST CASE: Mr. Milbank views everything through a liberal’s twisted viewfinder, in which everything is reducible to group identity and victimhood. Here, the Republicans’ purpose in reading the Constitution was to remind themselves (and the Democrats) that there are limits to legislative authority. Mr. Milbank feebly attempts to cram down his own preferred purpose on the Republicans’ Constitution reading: a history lesson showing why White European American men are evil and bad, and must be blamed and/or punished for any unfortunate occurrence befalling any Democrat recognized victim class at any time, in any place. If this is the case, Mr. Milbank’s odd take can be ascribed to his liberal myopia.

2. WORST CASE: Mr. Milbank is being purposefully obtuse in order to tar Republicans as out-of-touch racists, beholden to Tea Baggers (ZOMG!!1!) in order to further liberal aims and agendas. ‘Puter’s got some experience in the law, and in all but a few instances, one may blithely ignore repealed laws (or portions thereof) because they are, you know, no longer operative. Claiming that Republicans must read inoperative portions of the supreme law of the land is as stupid as insisting that astronomers recognize that the Sun revolves around the Earth, because that’s what the general consensus was hundreds of years ago. Mr. Milbank is not a stupid man, so ‘Puter is left with the sole remaining possibility: bad faith. But why?

Mr. Milbank and liberals want to discredit the Constitution. To them, the Constitution and its limited government concept stands in the way of letting smart people (largely, them) dictate how stupid people (largely, us) live, because the smart people know best. Mr. Milbank and his fellow travelers know well that much of the liberal agenda is, at a minimum, in tension with Constitutional mandates, if not outright unconstitutional. See, e.g., the individual mandate. Republicans reminding America that there is a limit to government cannot be tolerated, as it challenges liberals’ ability to impose their agenda on a benighted citizenry.

My own opinion? I don’t think it’s even this complicated. The persons whose sentiments are echoed by Mr. Milbank, or at least who say their sentiments are aptly represented by this argument, obviously see the reading of the Constitution as nothing more than an opportunity to ‘fess up to, and wallow around in, our nation’s historical sins. Or to cravenly pretend that those historical sins never were there.

Now, if that is the most important thing about what such a ritual means to you, how do you go about ‘fessing up to that without also ‘fessing up that you have not been abiding by the document’s confinements?

As I said a couple days ago, now that the dirty deed has been done this has turned out to be a shrewd political gambit. Yes, there were some legally current sections of the Constitution that were “abridged” or “redacted” when some pages within the binder stuck together. Seems to have been executed with all of the reliability and integrity of President Obama’s swearing-in.

But it has been logically proven to everyone paying attention — and this is the biggie: We are having an argument, in our nation’s capitol, about whether the Constitution matters.

How did Chief Justice William John Marshall put it:

[I]f a law be in opposition to the Constitution, if both the law and the Constitution apply to a particular case, so that the Court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the Constitution, or conformably to the Constitution, disregarding the law, the Court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.

If, then, the Courts are to regard the Constitution, and the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the Legislature, the Constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.

Those, then, who controvert the principle that the Constitution is to be considered in court as a paramount law are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the Constitution, and see only the law.

This doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written Constitutions. [emphasis mine]

If we have a written Constitution, it must be binding and supreme to the lesser laws or else it is as entirely extraneous as the left-wingers like Milbank seem to think it is. But how many Supreme Court decisions that the hard left happens to appreciate, in fact idolize and worship, would have to go the other way if the Constitution is nothing more than a historical wart. Any state in the union could criminalize abortion willy-nilly — that, clearly, is not what they have in mind — so that cannot be it. The Constitution is therefore legally relevant, legally superior.

If it is legally relevant and legally superior, then when it applies to a case along with an ordinary written law that provides a different consequence, the Constitution must triumph, so that the lesser law becomes a nullity.

With such a pecking order in place, our nation becomes a nation of laws and not of men. The interpretation of law becomes a necessary chore, one which must be carried out with logical coherency, in the three branches of government as well as in the fourth one in which Mr. Milbank toils away.

And he, along with all his sympathizers, has just confessed to “controvert[ing] the principle that the Constitution is to be considered in court as a paramount law”; he and his sympathizers “are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the Constitution, and see only the law.”

Apparently, this schism whose description flowed so eloquently from Chief Justice Marshall’s pen some two centuries years ago rages away today with little deviation or evolution, even on a micro level, from its past form. If that be the case, then I cannot imagine a more productive exercise for our Congress than to read the legally applicable parts of the founding document during the opening of the session. In fact, there’s something of an urgency to it if it generates this much controversy. The Constitution must apply, or else we’re currently engaged in some kind of lost-in-the-jungle, make-it-up-as-we-go-along silliness.

Congress has the steering wheel and people like Dana Milbank want to make a contentious issue out of whether it should observe where the guardrails are.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News and Washington Rebel.

Edited to correct the Christian name of the great Chief Justice. It was a mistake to wax lyrically after watching The Lion In Winter without consulting my Google.

Don’t worry, it’s just in Europe. For now.

So, they’re going after pensions to make up for shortfalls. Public and private pensions co-exist in European countries. In some cases, public ones resemble our own Social Security, stressing budgets.

But instead of privatizing pensions, as Chile did in 1980 — which would have turned these obligations into assets — three former stars of European emerging markets have come up with heavy-handed incentives to turn private savings public. It’s a step backward.

Is the state an entity that exists to provide something to the individual, or is it vice-versa?

Update: Since we’re headed in the same direction, here’s how to pull back from the brink:

It all has to do with what Congress’ job is. Anybody who’s balanced a household budget knows darn good and well — it doesn’t do you a lick of good to worry about the budget-balancing while you’re making money or while you’re spending it. You have to make a commitment and stick to it on both sides. That’s news to the democrat party, unfortunately…you also have to show some math skills, and use ’em, and that comes as news to the democrats as well. They’re pretty much all about making your way through life by presenting wonderful speeches, having the right friends, and giving somebody else’s money away.

If we consistently reject that over the next ten years, we can have a balanced budget, a solvent dollar, sane interest rates and maybe our kids will be able to make money & hang onto it. Keep voting for whoever dazzles us with their hopey-changey charm & charisma-or-whatever, and we can’t have any of those things. Can’t keep our pensions, either, over the long term.

Really, we can’t. Think about it: Where’s the line drawn that protects your retirement plan?

The liberals have used the buckshot-approach to try to generate a scandal out of the reading of the Constitution in Congress, with dry-humping stories like this for example, and this. It seems they want to position themselves as being against this, and get themselves on record that way, but I got a feeling that if I say something like “liberals are against the reading of the Constitution in Congress” I’m going to get back a whole bunch of don’t-you-dare. It’s an old rule. I think Ann Coulter once observed that if it was possible to take an anti-American position in Scrabble or Parcheesi, liberals would take that position and then scold you with genuine hatred if you notice it & point it out.

You know, I didn’t think this going in, but…it seems to me the Republican establishment, breaking form from tradition, have thought this out better than the democrat establishment. The “Joe Six-Pack” voter, the guy whose vote means so much because he doesn’t know a single thing about Washington politics and doesn’t care to learn, has now seen it up close for two or three days solid: The democrat party wants to govern without any restraint. They think the Constitution is an obstacle, and not an authoritative one, just a pain-in-the-ass one. It’s undeniable now.

That was a good message to get out. Well done.

But let’s stop talking about the establishment. Let’s talk about the media…the liberals who claim not to be liberals. Chris Jansing — pretty girl, but what an airhead. Complicated? Really, Chris?

What kind of life do you need to live, in order to breeze through it in blissful ignorance of the complications the politicians hand down to the rest of us? It’s obvious Chris Jansing’s tax accountant gets the whole job done, presenting Ms. Jansing with not a single piece of paperwork other than the signature blocks…and that must be a short meeting. This must be an accountant who tried to explain some decision made to her, years and years ago, and got back the “I can’t hear you la la la” and since then has given up on it. I guess she’s never seen that U-turn sign that tripped me up a year and a half ago, or anything like it…maybe she rides in taxicabs, maybe she has a chauffeur.

I’m trying to envision this…how do you think it’s a problem when the lawmakers have to do something complicated? How do you not understand the law can be a complicated thing sometimes, and that’s just the way it is?

Or does she really think it should be complicated for the rest of us to follow the law, and simple to pass the laws? When, for the rest of us, following the law is something we just have to do to get our stuff done, whereas for those who make the law, making the law is what they do and they get paid handsomely for it.

I’m taking all these possibilities into account as best I can. But still, all the conclusions come to one single point: Jansing is intellectually anemic.

It’s a complicated process to pass laws now? Horrors. What a frightening thought. ::eyeroll::

Yeah, good luck with that.

Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), set his goal as nothing short of winning back control of the House in the 2012 elections.

“We’re all trying to win it back,” Israel said on MSNBC when asked if it was Democrats’ goal of winning back enough seats to make Pelosi, the former Speaker and new minority leader, the next Speaker.

Not entirely unreasonable. The “big middle” of America really doesn’t give a rip one way or the other. I remember Sean Hannity was trying to make people think about this back in ’06; I regard that as one of the silliest things he ever said. Even a loyal Hannity viewer isn’t going to care that much.

People don’t even care about what the House of Representatives does, let alone who leads it. Now, on that one, a change would be welcome…as America’s financial position becomes less and less solvent, the House’s potential to screw things up further becomes “progressively” embiggened.

I’d certainly like to see a durable, logical mini-essay from a supposed “moderate” or “independent” meandering through a theme of “yeah, Speaker Pelosi again, I could learn to live with that.” Someone who claims to want the country to do well. Make that all gel together. I dare ya, I double-dare ya.

A catalog of specimens out of a single stock photo trope…way more specimens than you might think.

All those happy women. My goodness, is that all women want? What’s so funny about being left alone with a salad?

Becca (commenter #5) sez…

I LIVE for stock photos! Seriously. Happy Black Woman Shopping is one of my favorites…I’ve never been that happy about ANYTHING

I think it says more about us than it does about the non-creative photographers & photo editors. Tropes are comforting. Females being pleased, are pleasing. Or something…

Maybe it’s something we carry out of childhood. You make that ramshackle thing in art class and give it to your Mom on Mother’s Day, and every single kid that ever had a mother has to stop the world from spinning and wait for that smile. Will Mom like it? Of course she will. But the point isn’t whether or not the smile comes, the point is that the kid is waiting for it. We all grow up that way, I guess…

As for why the happy-woman-shopper thing has to be a black thing, I dunno. I’m completely out of the loop on that one.

Obviously these things motivate large numbers of people to buy large quantities of crap. Beyond that, I can explain nothing, I can only observe…and link…and think…

Hat tip to Joan.

Daily Mail:

An American woman is fighting for her life today after suffering horrific burns in an arson attack which killed her fiance and three other members of his family.

Kate Donohue, 25, had been visiting Puerto Rico with Jesus Sanchez to celebrate their recent engagement and had been invited to a family party by one of his uncles.

They had just sat down for dinner when Sanchez Diaz went berserk with a blowtorch and set light to the walls he had doused in kerosene. He had also placed fuel canisters under the table.

He had invited 14 people to the welcoming party he was throwing in his two-storey house in the mountain town of Florida on January 1.

‘He planned the party so that everyone would show up,’ said police spokesman, Lt Reinaldo Jimenez.

When everyone was seated, Mr Diaz emerged from his room armed with a 9kg container of propane gas and then doused them with kerosene, he said.

Sanchez Diaz then set them on fire using a stick wrapped with a towel soaked in fuel.

A witness described seeing members of the family fleeing the house in flames and neighbours desperately trying to douse them down.

It’s necessary to take note of stories like this. We’re told the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment” has to be subject to evolving standards of decency, written as it is within a living, breathing document. And, of course, as the prohibition evolves, it always has to evolve downward…toward kinder, gentler punishment, toward that ultimate pussy definition of “cruel/unusual”: If it’s something I wouldn’t want to have done to me, and you wouldn’t have done to you, then it’s something we can’t do to anybody no matter what. Yeah, we’ll ultimately reach the point where punishment itself becomes unconstitutional.

What happens to this elastic definition of “cruel” punishment when the crimes that are to be punished, become so deplorable and heinous? There’s something wrong when an arsonist is taken into custody who would subject fourteen members of his own family to such an excruciating demise, apparently for no reason whatsoever…and then, if his jailhouse mattress is found to be a little bit too lumpy, or the teevee set is missing a channel, then his constitutional rights have been somehow violated.

Would America really cease to exist, as we know her, if this creep was to be subjected to so much as a nipple-twist?

Ever see kerosene burn?

That’s the great thing about the United States of America. The “bloodless coup” advantage: Change of leadership, out with the old and in with the new, and through it all, the process functions smoothly and things stay cordial.

What a country!

Hat tip to Boortz.

Campaigning for Creigh Deeds two summers ago, Chairman Zero made headlines when He said:

“I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking,” he told the crowd. “I want them just to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.”

Yeah, dictatorship, that’s the way to go. I used to have a co-worker who set his e-mail notify sound effect to President Bush saying “this would be a lot easier if it were a dicatorship, just so long as I’m the dictator, heh heh heh.” He thought that was a riot and a half. Wonder if he updated it with The Anointed One’s sound bite?

Everybody likes to be in charge.

But my goodness, what a difference an election makes.

President Obama, returning to Washington from his Christmas vacation in Hawaii, urged House and Senate GOP leaders to put partisan politics aside in the name of working to boost the economy.

The president said onboard Air Force One he hoped incoming House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) “will realize that there will be plenty of time to campaign for 2012 in 2012,” according to a pool report.

“And that our job this year is to make sure that we build on recovery,” he added. “We started making good progress on that in the lame-duck, and I expect to build on that progress when I get back.”

Problem: If our job this year is to make sure we build on the recovery, our job must necessarily be to scrap this left-wing apparatus that was just put together. And it isn’t me saying that, it’s the electorate saying that. It was decided about as clearly as it ever could be.

We’re having something of a crisis of leadership here; we need to better define what the L-word means. Does it mean, doing your bit to produce a conclusion to a matter that is beneficial to all concerned? Or does it mean just making sure you’re in charge? Or could “good leadership” be a reference to a sort of sleight-of-hand, whenever bad stuff is coming down, making sure it sticks to somebody else as if they had been making all the decisions, and then grabbing the wheel again? Sort of, ducking down to miss the flying turds, making sure it all lands on somebody else, but spending an absolute minimum of time out of the driver’s seat. Down and then back up again, in a flash, like a reverse-prairie-dog.

Further proof that Obama supporters don’t work. Everybody who’s been in the job market for awhile has had a boss like this somewhere along the line. It isn’t inspiring and it isn’t fun.

Whatever. It’s hugely snort-worthy that President “I Won” is saying we need to put politics aside now. You know, if it’s just one veto-override after another from here on out, it occurs to me that Congress would be doing exactly as He has asked. The numbers may not be there to make it turn out that way, but hey a guy can dream.

Made the following observation over at the Hello Kitty of Blogging:

The government is under conservative leadership for roughly six years out of every ten. Liberals, therefore, want more of life’s decisions to be made by an organization they consider malicious, wrong-headed, treacherous and evil sixty percent of the time.

I’m not just whacking a wasps’ nest (although that certainly is part of what I’m doing…never claimed to be above that stuff, it’s not like anybody else is). This is one of the prime, or should I say central, reasons why I don’t trust liberals. They seem to count on the idea of me, and other people whom they address, lacking any semblance of a long-term memory. A Republican is in charge, and — oh goodness! Abu Ghraib! Selling crack to inner-city kids through the CIA! Renditions! Waterboarding! Look at all this awful, terrible stuff we’re doing! And then a lefty becomes President and suddenly…you know what we need, we need to find a way to get the government into more stuff, we need to set things up so the government makes more decisions.

One of my former colleagues didn’t like the observation, so he did what lefties do: Drag the whole thing off-topic. Last night he ran out of steam, dissolving into a puddle of incomprehensible gibberish as everybody else politely went along with him to see where he was going…something to do with George W. Bush and Clarence Thomas being bad people, or something. So since he wasn’t going anywhere, I went back in and appended/expounded:

Back to the subject at hand: I have a reader who likes to say “all institutions, save for the ones that are by definition right wing, ultimately become left wing.” He’s right, of course, but my question is, are left-wingers counting on this? One example of what they want that I find puzzling, is for the FCC to start revoking broadcasting licenses if stations & networks don’t meet their definition of fair-and-balanced. If I were a lefty I would look at how the government is in the hands of right-wingers three fifths of the time, and I’d say “Yeah, maybe limited government is something we should want FCC should not be getting into this…it could bite us in the butt.”

They don’t even seem to have a whiff of a concern about it. Their credo seems to be, if it can be managed, the government is where it should be managed.

Is it just a primal instinct/impulse? Or are they counting on the law of decrepit institutions leaning left?

I’m going to go with “mixed,” tentatively. Lefties tend to be divided into rudders and propellers — those who decide where the ship is going to go, and then the rank-and-file who provide the propulsion. It’s hard to keep this in mind, but I notice whenever I ask questions of the nature “what is the plan, here?” — the answer seems to come back that the rudders have a plan, and the propellers are just falling into line.

It certainly isn’t natural to be talking up a big ol’ shitstorm about what an evil, awful, sub-human hive of scum and villainy all these government agencies are with that village idiot in charge at the top…and then, just six months later, insisting that the government should be in charge of our health care just because the new guy says it should be. What’s the vision here? Once democrats take over the government, they’ll be in charge forever? Or that time doesn’t exist?

Washington Examiner:

Consider one conundrum in American politics. Income inequality has been increasing, according to standard statistics. Yet most Americans do not seem very perturbed by it.

Conundrum Schmomundrum. That’s exactly the way it should work. Anyway, the article goes on…

Barack Obama may have been elected president after telling Joe the Plumber that he wanted to spread the wealth around. But large majorities in polls approved when Obama and congressional Democrats abandoned oft-repeated campaign promises to raise taxes on high earners in the lame duck session.

Why don’t voters care more?
:
[A]s George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen writes in the American Interest, “The inequality of personal well-being is sharply down over the past hundred years and perhaps over the past twenty years as well.” Bill Gates may have a bigger house than you do. But you have about the same access to good food, medical care and even to the Internet as he does.
:
Cowen is worried that high earners in financial industries benefit hugely when they bet correctly but are sheltered from losses by government bailouts when they bet wrong. It’s a problem that the financial regulation bill passed by the outgoing Congress addressed but, in his opinion and those of many others I respect, did not solve.

But there’s little evidence that most Americans begrudge the exceedingly high earnings of the likes of Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg or J.K. Rowling. We believe they have earned their success and don’t see how taking money away from them will make the rest of us better off. [emphasis mine]

Americans are grown up, and her politicians have been left behind.

In my lifetime, I have seen a great push in social circles and in Tinseltown (means movie-making) to celebrate the “common man”; not just the guy whose circumstances keep him shut out from a life of wealth, but the guy who chooses a more rustic existence. He tells his kids that money isn’t everything…and he’s right!

Me, I regard myself as a centrist in such matters. Each proposition should be weighed from all four perspectives: Benefits of chasing the dollar, drawbacks to chasing the dollar, benefits of refusing to go running after it, liabilities of of refusing. Case-by-case basis all the way, in other words. But I’m clearly in the minority — there is a rather pungent scent wafting through the air, a prevailing viewpoint that says money is bad, straight-up, and the only good people are the people without money.

Well…after you’ve taken care of the essentials. Including the winch on the truck and the big-screen.

Maybe we’ve reached the level of maturity where we understand: If, indeed, you are going to forsake money and live this life of privileged poverty…this poverty that means so little, including as it does a college education for all your kids, every recognizable electronic retail item imaginable (the year it comes out, not a little while down the road when it’s affordable) and a five-dollar drink in a cardboard cup every single morning…if, after those “staples” one is to swear off any extra loot so one can stay “good” — then, one must acknowledge the choice that one has made, such as it is. And part of that acknowledgment is to throttle back on this whole idea that, because someone else has more, that someone must be out to destroy you.

You can’t blame the other guy for you having less, when you chose to have less. Maybe we have reached the level of maturity where we realize it is OUR decision, not his. He might not be out to screw us.

Next step? You can tell by the undertone, I think, that I’m none too fond of this vow-of-poverty stuff. You know what they say about life; it is not a dress rehearsal. It seems to me this business about “only poor people can be decent” is a thought nurtured by those who think they enjoy the luxury of choosing a life-lodestar casually, carelessly. They seem, to me, to be thinking: If I’ve screwed that up, I’ll polish off the rough edges the next time ’round. And I think that’s a mistake because there’s no next-time-’round.

And money is something you use to buy what you need and what you want. To say “I don’t need any more than $$$ so I’m never going to have more than that” has always struck me as irresponsible, especially since you don’t know what’s going to happen next year or the year after. I can’t think of anything more foolish.

Oh, I shouldn’t say that — I can think of one thing more foolish. Defining your entire life’s pursuits according to the virtues of living in poverty, while living out that life entirely ignorant of what poverty really is. Thinking oneself noble because one has succeeded in avoiding decadence and extravagance…and for little other reason…while consuming those daily five dollar drinks that take longer to order than they do to suck down. I think if people are to take a vow of poverty and identify their mortal value according to this, they ought to at least know what poverty is.

But I’m having none of it. If I ever were to have thought highly of President Soetoro, He would’ve had me completely turned around the minute He said “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” I’m not going along for that ride. If I’ve earned it, I’m taking it, and I’ll choose my own charities after that thank you very much. And if that means I’ve earned more than somebody else it isn’t gonna bother me one little bit. I’ll sleep like a baby that night. What if it’s the other guy who’s earning more than I am? Ditto. Not bothered. Got bigger fish to fry.

I’m glad to see the country is coming around to my point of view. Yay, America is growing up. We’re not living on a Monopoly board anymore, fixating with an envious gaze on that chubby short guy with the walrus mustache with the fat cigar. We’ve matured out of the 1930’s.

Oh, my. Has any rule been more thoroughly shot full of exceptions than this one about “it’s way too early to talk about 2012”? Now we talk about Obama somehow becoming a two-termer:

Collective wisdom (and wishful group-think) among Republicans is that Obama will be a one-term president. “One & Done” is a rallying cry with the merchandise to match.

Not so fast my friends — as Obama’s victorious lame duck session proves, never underestimate this president or the power of the presidency.

Obama does not take defeat easily and tends to recycle negative energy into fuel for his re-launch. Obama’s re-launch plans for 2011 include spending more time outside of Washington “engaging with the public,” according to a top White House adviser. This is in reaction to criticism of him for being aloof and disconnected from the great unwashed masses.

So as the president re-engages the public, the media will be there to chronicle glowing accounts of every backyard summit. We can watch as Obama’s two-year road to re-election is paved with re-kindled love between the “lamestream” media and “The Anointed One” version 2.0. And we on the opposing team will shake our heads in disgust as our GOP candidates get lambasted in the media for every small infraction from their past and present.
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Question: How do Republicans make their way back from 173 to 270?

Answer: With much difficulty.

I have an answer for this.

Let the battle-of-personalities go. Even better, just admit defeat there. Obama, on His most audacious, stuck-up, snobbish day under the sun, is warmer and more personable than any challenger that can be stacked up against Him.

Repeat after me, challenging candidate: Yes, President Obama, you’re a much better person than I am. More fun, more compassionate, maybe even smarter. But my ideas are the ones the country needs right now.

Have democrats ever won a battle on the field of ideas? Yes, they have…when the ideas have something to do with giving money away. They get votes from Paul when they steal from Peter to pay him. Right now, the people are sick and tired of it — even the Pauls, I daresay. The objective in 2012 is to keep them fed up.

The challenge that rises up, is: Redistribution becomes appealing, and rather quickly, when people suffer too much. Paradoxically, the more dreadful Obama’s redistribution ideas are, the more people suffer, the quicker they get over their revulsion against policies for redistribution. They will start to crave that which previously poisoned them.

I think, though, that deep down people are honest. And when honest people see the game has been rigged and warped, and it didn’t come out right, they’ll start to make the connection. They’ll start to think, maybe we’ve been given a lesson here. Maybe we should have played it straight. That’s the sentiment that has to endure. If it does, Obama can pack His bags.

But in the end, I think it’ll all come down to one thing: How many people did the 112th Congress piss off?

…except for this one we have here. Ernst Stavro Blofeld explains the rest, and I note that I’m not the first to see the parallel to modern times:

Our friend in Portales, New Mexico, needed to have this explained to him. I agree with him that somewhere, within the boundaries of this fine nation is a dignified, handsome, sophisticated, masculine paladin who is ready to take front-and-center in the battle to dethrone the Holy Emperor Obama. And to make victory a heady possibility in a way Sarah Palin cannot.

Trouble is, whoever that guy is, he’s a yellow-belly. He’s a “smart” Siamese fighting fish, holding back, letting the others take chunks out of each other so he can snare an easy triumph. An easy personal triumph, might I add…good for his own campaign, but not for the country.

I cannot criticize the fellow beyond that. I can’t, because I don’t know who he is. That’s my point. Whoever he is, he’s what my grandparents used to call a “no-account.” You can only criticize him so much, because you don’t know who he is. There’s nothing honorable about this.

Gingrich made a couch commercial with his failed successor as House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, legitimizing the global warming scam. Romney had an ObamaCare-style health care plan in Massachusetts, which is an abject failure by now. Huckabee is saddled with a reputation for being soft on crime, which he richly deserves. All three of them have clung to the hope they can be rehabilitated by ducking-and-covering while the hottest part of the pre-nomination battle burns itself out. And, like the smart Siamese fighting fish, maybe they’re right.

They’re still cowardly pussies, if that’s their plan. If it’s not their plan, then they’re just plain lazy. Either way: Not the kind of leadership the country needs.

Now, as to their noisy cheerleaders like our friend in Portales, and those in agreement with him. Ah…they aren’t cheerleaders yet, are they. The object of their cheer has to stick his head out of the ground, identify himself, and accept the cheer. So let’s call them anti-Palin ankle-biters I guess. They insist it’s far too early to figure out who is to be the champion of the movement, and they have a point about this, until they do some more speaking and then they don’t. It is certainly not too early to shout “quitter!” and “unqualified!”…and other little cliches that have been re-used and re-used so often, and then re-used some more, that some more substance behind them would do them justice. But the substance never comes.

Buck sez…

The Palin fanbois will weep. Or gnash their teeth. Or both. That’s fun to watch, actually.

…and that is not what I saw in the underlying thread. What I saw was, I challenged the ankle-biters to produce another name, and what I got was a bunch of retread-rhetoric. I ended up calling them Libertarians. Not as in, lovers of freedom, but such perfectionists that it wasn’t possible to get a coherent plan out of ’em. Just criticism for the status quo…no constructive alternatives, none whatsoever.

Well, I can look past this somewhat. There is lots of time. Palin does have her share of baggage — but doesn’t everyone. In my book, anybody who just repeats it over and over again without participating in a deeper discussion of the meaning, is just running scared. And they’ve lost sight of the issue, I think. Once we start bellyaching about somebody’s voice being annoying, we’re embroiled in a contest of personalities. And that really isn’t where things need to be going. It didn’t work out so hot the last time.

But I don’t think the ankle-biters are engaged in an argument about personalities. I think, for the most part, they’re good-hearted Republicans (and conservatives who aren’t Republicans) who want Palin dis- qualified, not un- qualified…as in, they’ll be safe, it won’t matter how many votes Palin gets later because she’ll have been “disqualified.” In other words, they aren’t satisfied with being able to cast just one vote. They want a guarantee.

Why are they so scared? Because Palin is a front-runner…perhaps the front-runner…and she deserves to be. Take a look at this video Buck embedded. See how chief Palin ankle-biter Charles Krauthammer recoils at the mention of that name “Romney”:

There is no excitement here. None. And there should not be. This business taking place with the 2010 midterms was…well, I don’t want to say a “big fucking deal,” I’ll let the other folks talk up their efforts that way.

But it was a long, sustained effort. Anybody who remained anonymous throughout the entire thing, having not a single word to say about anything, can hold that position as far as I’m concerned. Off with ya, and don’t let the doorknob hit ya where the Good Lord split ya. Is that unfair? If so, where am I going wrong?

I just think we’re losing sight of something here. We’re failing to envision the future. Palin goes up against Obama, and I’m told that’s where her “unqualified”-ness comes front and center as The Anointed One squishes her like a bug. Hmmm…well, for that to happen, some of these people who wanted Obama driven out of there, decided to cross over and vote for Him anyway because He came up against such a hopeless snowbilly ninny. Now, then. Who are these people? The ones who have made up their minds we’re going to pay an untenable price for bad government as long as Obama stays where He is…and then…decide, well, it’s just going to have to be that way, because after all Sarah Palin is dopey.

I’m just not buying it. I don’t doubt there are people who will vote for Obama over Palin. But I think just about all of those people would vote for Obama over just about anyone. Because they like Him. They’re democrats.

Oh, some of them call themselves Republicans. But they aren’t. My point is, those votes don’t exist. A voter who pulls the lever for Obama over Palin, for the most part is going to pull the lever for Obama over Romney, Gingrich, Huckabee, Giuliani…

I suppose I’m wrong. Some folks will loathe a Palin candidacy, but in a pinch, punch Palin’s chad. And guess what? If that is what makes me wrong — then she’s qualified.

If it’s late enough that some can say otherwise, then it is late enough to figure out who’d do better. If it’s not late enough to figure out who’d do better, then it’s not late enough to disqualify her. And it isn’t; she hasn’t said what she’s going to do yet.

Ah, but there’s all this passion behind getting her out of the running before she’s even in it. So much excitement. So much adrenaline…you can hear it pump, pump, pumping away.

I understand some people don’t like her. I understand some people find her voice annoying. I have found her voice annoying, too, on more than one occasion. And so I can understand why some might labor under the belief that a different candidate might have a better shot. A different, dignified, sophisticated, middle-aged male guy. I understand the desire.

But I don’t understand the exuberance behind it. Not while he remains unnamed; not while he remains “some guy who might step forward someday soon.” I don’t see how that stirs passion. Something is wrong, if it does. I think these are people who are just fond of the eighteenth letter of the alphabet. They care more about a change of party, than they do about the vision & message behind such a change.

Friendly reminder: It’s not enough to get Obama fired. We need a fighting spirit behind it, one that makes so much sense that it doesn’t need a sonorous, dignified, sophisticated “great speaker” to get it sold. The message needs to be rock-solid. Domestically, it needs to be: If we want the economy to turn around, we have to make it alright for people to make (and keep) money. With regard to foreign policy, it needs to be: The United States will be the best friend you ever had, and if you make her your enemy, she will become the worst nightmare you ever imagined. Those are the goals. That’s where we need to be. Next to them, having a President with the letter “R” after his name doesn’t mean a whole lot.

I’m all done talking to people who say Palin is not that person…that she’s a “quitter” or that she’s “unqualified.” Until she says she’s running, this is a waste of time. So my question is — who’s going to make this happen? Who, besides her, has the balls to say things like “[Barack Obama] is a man who can who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word ‘victory’ except when he’s talking about his own campaign“?

Point him out. If the hour is late enough to criticize her, it’s plenty late enough to throw in another name. But if you want me to support him, he must pass that test. He has to have brass balls, at least enough to match that dumb ol’ girl you’re wishing back to the kitchen.

Politico:

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele faces an all-but-impossible path to reelection this month, as a majority of the RNC’s 168 members indicate that they will not support the controversial chairman for another term.

A weeklong canvass of the party’s governing board by POLITICO revealed 88 members who have decided not to vote for Steele, either opting to support one of his opponents or simply ruling out Steele as a choice in the race.

Fifty-five members, some of whom have endorsed one of Steele’s challengers, have signaled that they will not support the chairman under any circumstances. An additional 33 pledged their support elsewhere.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer fella.

Steele represents a brand of leadership, which is bipartisan in nature — I saw Janet Napolitano, somewhere, doing the same thing — which could be accurately albeit clumsilly described as “since the status quo is something I like and you don’t, let’s treat it as an inevitability and stop discussing anything.” Or, as they used to say in my last job, if you just unclench back there it’ll go in a lot easier.

I’ve often suspected Steele is in no position to be taking such a stand. Seeing some solid evidence of this is reassuring.

His message is woefully out of step with what’s going on. A Republican party stepping forward in 2012, to tell America “This is just the way things are going, and you need to get used to it” isn’t gonna win. It would scare the bejeezus, quite rightfully, out of the moderates who’ve had about all they can stand of Obama and His shenanigans, but still live in quaking terror of a new Christian theocracy in a fashionable 1980’s kinda way.

And ideology aside, it doesn’t fit the spirit of the country. We’re having something of a resurgence of the Spirit of 1776 right now…a rather pale, wispy imitation of what came before, no doubt, but it’s still there. We’re not in the mood to shut up and do what our “leaders” say just because they’re where they are and it’s too much trouble to dislodge them. Well, most of us aren’t. And it has not escaped my notice that most, or all, of Steele’s defensive rhetoric has taken on this form: I am where I am, getting rid of me is more trouble than it’s worth, that couch you’re sitting on is comfy, shut up, let me do my thing, there are some great re-runs coming on.

If Steele’s identity is to be festooned to such a message…and I think that is a decision that has been lifted from his hands, by now…and he somehow manages to stay put, he’ll be even more out-of-place as the 2012 campaign takes off, than he is right now.

The Republican party that prevails next year, is a Republican party that’s about putting the people back in charge of things. (Hey, that’s exactly what the hippies used to say…funny, innit?) Steele is an establishment elitist snot down to the very core. He doesn’t fit and he needs to go.

Updated to correct my horrible misspelling.

I don’t want to comment with too much certainty on what’s going on with the weather in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but I do agree with Gov. Ed Rendell that there is a wussification problem going on. I don’t think I’m that old, but when I was a kid things were different. Where I grew up, when the winter had a mind to wreck wreak (thanks to the two pedants in the comment section) some havoc it meant business. And was school ever closed? I don’t recall it happening. Not one single time. I was done with riding the bus just as soon as I was old enough to ride a bike, and this was not an unusual arrangement at all. So we walked or we biked, regardless of what the weather offered…some kids got driven by their parents. Some. Not many.

Now, I know the Atlantic is less friendly than the Pacific and this can make a big difference…but there is definitely a wussification taking place. Emergency this, disaster that. Because it’s cold and there’s snow?

Now there’s some kind of scandal involving Christie in New Jersey. Melissa is having none of it…

The snow plow guys know what they have to do, right? The vast armies of Union workers are entirely competent, correct? They know how to Get The Job done, right?

So why does the Governor have to be there? It’s not like it’s freaking Katrina. It is snow. It is snow that will be plowed and cleaned up and that will eventually melt.

People will shovel. Workers will scrape. Life will go on. It’s Winter. It’s not a surprise.

What a molly-coddled society we’ve become that we even care what the Governor is doing during a snow storm. Man.

I think this is fair criticism. The Governor “needs” to be there for only one reason that I can think of: To declare the place a disaster area so the feds can jump in, if needed. So I have to lean in Melissa’s direction on this one: It’s snow. It’s not a volcano or a tsunami.

William Teach, that is. Fellow Right Wing News contributor and owner/proprietor/CEO/Chief-cook-and-bottle-washer of Pirate’s Cove. He has a challenge for the global-warming/climate-change alarmists in 2011:

What I want for them to do, from the biggest of big climahypocrites, such as Al Gore, James Hansen, Barack Obama, and Leonardo DiCaprio, to the smallest climate dupes, is tell us exactly what the climate will do this year.
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Any alarmist up for the challenge? And no cheating be reading the Farmer’s Almanac, which tends to be right way more than the Met, NASA, UN IPCC, and other alarmist groups are. Forget about your PR blitzes, “spreading awareness” campaigns, your advocacy, your stunts, and tell us what will happen. If you’re correct, for a change, maybe people will start to believe you again.

I think I know the answer: In ten years the oceans will be desalinized, receded, flooded, boiling, frozen, etc….and then they won’t, and we’ll move the goalposts another ten years. Also, in fifty years the ice caps will be all melty, and in ten years we’ll move those goalposts too.

Every winter we’ll all be commanded from on high to think about the meaningful difference between “weather” and “climate”; and, the following summer, we’ll be commanded from on high to forget all about this crucial distinction yet one more time. Newspapers will be flying around like confetti, with “[insert name of famous city here] experiences its hottest [insert date here] ever!” Your local megalopolis liberal nutbag fish-wrap of record…mine…everybody’s. Every June, just before the fireworks stands go up, global climate & local weather become the same. Again.

That’s my prediction.

TheRaider.net:

Once the transformation from angel to demon has been effected, the full fury of the awesome forces within the Ark is unleashed against the Nazis violators. Flames leap forth from the open chest, and in a matter of moments, Dietrich’s face shrinks to a mummy-like visage. Toht’s features melt away from his skull, and Belloq’s head explodes into a pulpy mess. Spielberg had decided that the villains should be disintegrated. The storyboards dictated close-ups of Belloq, Toht and Dietrich with their faces shutter and crumble away but after many efforts and thoughts they realized that they couldn’t do such a thing, so instead of disintegrating them they decided to give to each of them a different kind of death. Life molds of the characters in the screaming positions they would ultimately reach had to be taken. They had them hold their positions while they took castings of their faces and then special make-up artist Chris Walas had to rebuild their faces from the molds. Walas produced a series of three artificial heads. The first, representing Colonel Dietrich, employed inflatable bladders which when pumped up with air, sustained the face’s proper shape. Joe Johnston’s hand was used during shooting in the close-up to impart some added life to the scene. When the air was sucked out, the bladders deflated and the face became instantly mummified. It took eight or nine people to control the effect, manipulating different levers inside the head, all of which had to be done on hand.

From HotAir:

Just watch Kirsten Powers and her disbelief in this interview when the bomb is dropped about 6:00 in. She’s so flustered when she finds out the truth that President Bush vetoed the 2008 bill with the end-of-life provision in it and it was the Democrat Congress that overrode the veto and forced it into law.

This is where we run into problems having these “friendly discussions” with our liberal friends. A lot of the time, when we get into the most trouble, we aren’t even trying to confront them or disagree with them in anyway…it comes under the heading of stopping them from making fools out of themselves as they repeat a bunch of drivel they were given by someone on the next terrace up in their little MLM pyramid, which they never bothered to research. Just trying to save a friend from looking like a horse’s ass.

But if it’s true, and doesn’t serve the interests of their agenda…it’s “not true.” They’ve got their own definition.

Update 1/2/11: Powers does the honorable thing and ‘fesses up.

I want to be very precise in my criticism of her and people like her. We all have only a limited amount of time we can spend on research, and we’re all flawed. It’s silly to pretend there’s something wrong with her just because she got a detail wrong…

It is the immediate dismissal of something that didn’t fit her preconceived notions. The reasonable response would have been something on the order of “that’s the first I’ve heard of that, I don’t know about that, I’ll have to look into it…” which I’ll concede would have looked a little silly on live teevee, maybe her nerves got the better of her.

My point is: This is as good a definition of any, of “extremist.” Someone tells you something that’s news to you, and you figure out whether it’s true or not based on whether it helps prove what you want proven. At that point, you’ve created your own bubble, your own little version of “truth.” And there’s a lot of it going around lately; molding and shaping the facts to fit the theory rather than the other way ’round.

Yes I know it’s ancient…but it still cracks me up.

And part two:

Don Surber:

Ezra Klein made the biggest mistake that can be made by a liberal — progressive — socialist — communist — no labelist — whatever the heck they call themselves on the 31st of the month.

He was being honest.

He does not believe in the Constitution.

He is cynical about it and he projects that same cynicism onto those who disagree with him.

Hat tip to Althouse, via Instapundit.

“People who know how to create [wealth] are free to do so.” That’s good enough for a bumper sticker.

More on the same subject: Bias for Inaction (hat tip again to blogger friend Gerard). Rhyms With Girls and Cars is invoking an argument to which I’ve long been hostile, that repealing the filibuster to make it easier to “get things done” is a fool’s errand…

At face value, one can only interpret such caring to indicate that the carers passionately want the Senate to be constantly doing stuff. If the Senate isn’t doing stuff, or is thwarted from doing as much stuff as a majority of it seemingly would like to, that’s something akin to a tragedy and certain people just can’t abide it. Why, the Senate could be doing more stuff – writing more laws and regulations, handing out more pork and earmarks – and it’s not! Ipso facto, reform is needed – say some people.

Sonic Charmer‘s position on this is not quite gelled, nor is mine. I don’t necessarily want the Senate to be doing more stuff, I want the majority party, whoever it might be, to establish a stronger ownership of the results for good or for ill. And I have to admit, in the last year or so, I have been very happy to see the filibuster in place. But it didn’t stop ObamaCare…it just seems to perpetuate the “is not is too” aspect of our republic that so many others find loathsome.

Ultimately, it allows those who promote bad policies — you can tell from watching the video I have found worth embedding, which side I think that is — to claim that their policies are not bad, and that the opposing position is not good. It gives them a bunch of stuff that looks like firm, robust evidence, which they can then use as weapons.

Which brings us back to Sowell, who at segment 2, time index 5:29 says “when the House of Representatives is in the hands of the opposite party, I don’t know how any President can take any credit for…whether there’s a surplus or not.”

This is the key to putting the electorate in a good place to figure out what policies are good and what ones are not…which, in turn, is vital for seeing some good decisions made in the years ahead. What needs to happen is that the supports get knocked out from under the democrats, under the Keynesians, the hippies, the tree-huggers, the neo-communists. So that the spirit of the country is aligned with the objective of seeing to it that the people who know how to create wealth, are free to do so. There’s nothing else on God’s green earth that’s gonna get us out of this mess.

And that, in turn, is a problem much simpler than the way we envision it. People are not going to stop voting for democrats when a Republican is made to look more wonderful, or more dignified, or like he has a happier marriage or that he has contributed more meaningful service in time of war. None of those things address what’s really broken. What’s broken is that we have been looking at things that don’t work, as if they work, and vice-versa.

Make it okay to make money, and people will. Then they’ll get more work than they can handle and they’ll start hiring other people.

That’s the way it’s supposed to work…right?

Schooled.

…that’s your photoshop theme for this thread over here.

I appreciated this one as well…

Ann Coulter is not done beating up on the liberals over their charitable contributions, or rather the lack thereof. She has another column up revisiting the same theme as before…

…and the final sign-off easily snags the one hundred fifteenth Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL) award:

The only evidence we have that Democrats love the poor is that they consistently back policies that will create more of them.

Kapwing, Zowee, Ker-Sploosh and other Batman-fight sound effects. Somehow, “gonna leave a mark” doesn’t quite cover it.

That’ll fit on a bumper sticker, right?

What made the show so great when the situations were so stupid?

Each character, in each scene, had a story to tell. And a unique role to play in the larger story.

I’m voting for Ted Knight as the major contributor to success here. Think of Jerry Seinfeld trying to do this…or Carrot-Top. It would still work, but not quite as well.

Fellow Right Wing News contributor William Teach brings us an interesting one:

Nothing like coordinated anarchists to say anarchy

ROME – A loosely linked movement of European anarchists who want to bring down state and financial institutions is becoming more violent and coordinated after decades out of the spotlight, and may be responding to social tensions spawned by the continent’s financial crisis, security experts say.

Italian police said Tuesday that letter bombs were sent to three embassies in Rome by Italian anarchists in solidarity with jailed Greek anarchists, who had asked their comrades to organize and coordinate a global “revolutionary war.” [emphasis in Teach’s]

“Let’s all work together for anarchy!”

Thing I Know #What a self-parodying mess it is when a command hierarchy is constructed within any rebellion, for there it becomes undeniable: The rebel is only a fair-weather friend, at best, to the act of rebelling.

Merle Haggard has some nice things to say about the current President:

“It was also nice to meet Obama and find him very different from the media makeout,” Haggard told the magazine. “It’s really almost criminal what they do with our president. There seems to be no shame or anything. They call him all kinds of names all day long, saying he’s doing certain things that he’s not. It’s just a big old political game that I don’t want to be part of. There are people spending their lives putting him down. I’m sure some of it’s true and some of it’s not. I was very surprised to find the man very humble and he had a nice handshake. His wife was very cordial to the guests and especially me. They made a special effort to make me feel welcome. It was not at all the way the media described him to be.”

But the most interesting comment appeared to be a back-handed compliment. When asked about Obama’s biggest misconception, Haggard, 73, said, “He’s not conceited. He’s very humble about being the president of the United States, especially in comparison to some presidents we’ve had who come across like they don’t need anybody’s help. I think he knows he’s in over his head. Anybody with any sense who takes that job and thinks they can handle it must be an idiot.”

Well yes, Barack Obama is nothing if not humble. That’s what He said, isn’t it?

“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” What a difference two years makes! Now, when the time comes to find some compliments to toss in Chairman Zero’s direction, it’s something like He has a nice handshake and He must know He’s in over His head.

I guess we’re still waiting for the moment when those oceans are going to start receding. Blub blub.

Art Horn, writing in Pajamas Media:

Studies by Raval & Ramanathan (1989) estimated that the greenhouse effect of a cloudless atmosphere is 146 W/m2 (watts per square meter) for the average Earth. They further pointed out that water vapor is accounting for most of this greenhouse effect, leaving about 8 W/m2 for the total amount of atmospheric CO2 — some 8%. In addition, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 4th Assessment showed that 3% of the atmospheric CO2 comes from man-made sources. Global gross primary production and respiration, land use changes, plus CO2 from the oceans totals 213 gigatonnes of carbon exchanged each year between the Earth/oceans and the atmosphere. The IPCC figure also shows man-made carbon emissions to be about 7 gigatonnes, bringing the total to 220 gigatonnes per year. So from this, we can see that making energy from fossil fuels is producing about 3% of the carbon dioxide added to the air each year. From that, the total human component of the greenhouse effect is therefore about 3% of the total carbon dioxide component of the greenhouse effect, which is 8%.

That gives us a value of .2% from man-made carbon dioxide. If you think that’s a small number you’re right.

I thought Taranto’s contribution to the global warming non-debate debate yesterday was pretty funny:

Everyone loves frolicking in the winter: sledding, building snowmen, laughing at global warmists. OK, not everyone. The last one aggravates the global warmists, and they have a point: Weather is not climate. That it is cold here today does not mean the earth isn’t getting warmer on the whole over decades.

It’s not just the weather, though. Their climatic claims keep changing too. A reader sends along this item from the Environmental News Service, dated Dec. 14, 2009: “Snow and ice across the planet are melting much faster than anticipated, and the cryosphere — the Earth’s ice and snow cover — is very vulnerable to climate change, finds a new report presented today at the United Nations Climate Summit by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store.”

But according to Judah Cohen, writing in the New York Times the other day, the opposite is occurring: “As global temperatures have warmed and as Arctic sea ice has melted over the past two and a half decades, more moisture has become available to fall as snow over the continents. So the snow cover across Siberia in the fall has steadily increased.”

So laugh away at the global warmists. And don’t even feel bad that they’re right about the weather-climate distinction. After all, they forget about it every summer.

All of this is neither here nor there. The readings of “global temperature” or “earth mean temperature,” even taken all together, are subject to reasonable suspicion with regard to their integrity and even if they weren’t, they tell only part of the story. They could very well be concluding this mean-temperature metric is on a steady upward trend, when it’s really falling…or vice-versa. The sum of all these measurements is as strongly related to what the earth is going to be doing over the next century, as local weather patterns are, to it.

If the global warming proponents were honest, they’d start a political movement with a name something like “sit on your ass and don’t do anything” — that’s what they really want. Global warming is just the excuse.

Big. Really big. And getting bigger, as people vote with their feet against high taxes and nanny-state laws:

Texas will pick up four more congressional seats, expanding the state’s U.S. House delegation to 36 seats and further boosting Texas political clout in the nation’s Capitol.

Texas had the biggest increase of any state as the Census Bureau announced new congressional apportionment based on population shifts over the past decade.

Eric Torbinsen jots down a few ideas — just a few of the ideas — why the rush is taking off in that direction (hat tip to blogger friend Gerard). He’s speaking from personal experience.

New York, I love you — but I can’t make the math work.

Like lots of media professionals (and fashion mavens, artists, musicians, et al.), I’ve penciled out the numbers for what it would mean to take a job in New York City. There’s barely enough room on the back of the envelope for subtracting the double-dose income tax hit from the city and state, and that’s before even adjusting for cost of living.

That’s one of the reasons I’m in Dallas. You know, Texas, the state that parlayed this year’s census data into four new House seats — pinching the two lost by the Empire State — because people actually want to live here.

Lots of Texas professionals love New York this way: fly in for $200 round trip, suck down the city’s beefy marrow of culture for a weekend and jet back to live cheap and pay no income tax. It’s all the pleasure and we keep our treasure.

Folks are voting with their pocketbooks; between 2000 and 2008, $846 million of New York’s personal income saddled up and jingle-jangled down to the Lone Star State.
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Texas creates jobs like a fiend, in part because businesses large and small have no worry of obstacles such as plaintiff-friendly courts, consumer-friendly regulators or oversight-friendly lawmakers. Pro-business isn’t just a mantra; they put it in the water.

It should be noted that Texas has a budget problem like everybody else. But it hasn’t completely exhausted its revenue streams, its credit, its options like a lot of the blue states — in particular, New York, and my own, California.

In places like ours, we have put up a vivid illustration of how a state government can not work. It’s gotten to the point where our newspapers are exquisitely boring because they can’t print any real news. It’s all “here’s a case study of someone pathetically dependent on such-and-such a program, and they don’t know what they’re gonna do because it’s getting cut, aw boo hoo hoo.” Turn the page, it’s the same thing. Wait a day, buy the same paper, it’s the same thing. Week after week, month after month, year after year. Daily digest of a failed system.

If you’re not buying the paper for the crossword puzzles or the comics, you’ve got no use buying it. It’s fish wrap. And I mean that as no slight against the talent of the writers. It’s the information going into it; the material. The story never changes and they’ve got nothing to work with, they only update the numbers.

So now there’s a census, and with it, hard statistics behind the massive population shift we knew was happening already.

Hey — if now is not the time to draw some conclusions about how government should & should not be run…then what’s the event we’re looking for? What’s it take?