Monday, May 10, 2010

REPORT: Mullah Omar captured?

We can only hope this is true.
BP OFFICIALS TOLD CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill could grow at a rate more than 10 times current estimates in a worst-case scenario — greatly enlarging the potential scope of the disaster.

So what does the White House do? According to the Washington Examiner [4th item], “White House officials said they supported raising the cap on oil company spill liability to $10 billion ....”

Which is about all the “community-organizer-in-chief” knows how to do.
PRESIDENT OBAMA AT COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS AT HAMPTON UNIVERSITY:
"You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank that high on the truth meter.... And with iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations ... information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation."
Translation: “I can’t control all this new media – yet – and it will distract you from my message.”

UPDATE: Kill the messenger.
NEW YORK TIMES tells Greece to abandon socialized medicine?

I would like to say the NYT’s left hand doesn’t know what it’r right hand is doing, but that would be silly – the Times doesn’t have a right hand.
SCHOOL DISTRICT ADMITS laptop webcams “mistakenly snapped” over 13,000 photos.

Sure, it was just a mistake. Move along, now. Nothing to see. Just move along.
TRUST GAP WILL HAUNT DEMOCRATS IN NOVEMBER. “Reform is hard and often unglamorous work. That's why politicians do so little of it.”

It not just Democrats who are threatened.
THE FLYING TWINKIE. James Oberg reports on the launch of the Air Force’s X-37B Orbital Text Vehicle (OTV) on April 22nd. In an interesting speculation. Oberg writes:
Observers suspect that the test flight may involve observations of another space vehicle. This suspicion was fanned by the announcement in late February that a Mach-5 hypersonic glider would be launched from California toward a Pacific tracking site during the X-37B's first week in orbit.
If that was in fact the case, it would be interesting to find out that the X-37B was able to determine the cause of the Falcon HTV-2 failure.
OBAMA PICKS KAGAN FOR SUPREME COURT. “While Dean of Harvard's law school, Kagan was known for her outreach to conservative legal scholars. While most doubt she would prove to be a Souter in reverse, I imagine Senate Republicans think Obama could do (and has done) a lot worse picking a Supreme Court nominee.”
TENNESSEE IS UNDERWATER and nobody gives a dang.
SORRY, JEFF, BUT YOU BLEW IT ON THIS ONE. I generally like Jeff Jacoby’s commentary, but on this one, he blew it:
It is remarkable how many Republicans and conservatives deplore the liberty-infringing perils of big government, yet applaud Arizona's draconian new immigration law, which empowers the police to interrogate anyone suspected of being in the country unlawfully. It is also perplexing. How can they brandish "Don't Tread On Me" signs at a Tea Party rally on Monday, then on Tuesday cheer a law making the failure to carry "an alien-registration document" a crime?
Uh, Jeff, first legal aliens are required to carry “an alien registration document” by federal law, not Arizona law. It’s been that way for years. Second, the police can’t “interrogate anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.” It must be in the context of a lawful stop for some other violation of the law – the same as for you or me.

With respect to the rest of Jacoby’s commentary, I tend to agree with him: once the borders are closed to illegal immigration, we should stop, take a deep breath, and eventually open our borders to all comers – legally.