SOME MISTAKES ARE SO BIG that “only smart people are tempted to make them. One [such] is the faith ... that bigger government is better government.”

“Of course, the kind of people who are apt to push for government-imposed solutions are those who are also apt to believe they will be the ones imposing decisions, not the ones who have to live with [them].”

Read it all.

BIG FOOT: from Bret Baier’s Political Grapevine:

Organizers say the climate change summit in Copenhagen will create 41,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, as thousands of delegates, officials and world leaders descend on the city.

The London Daily Telegraph reports the director of one of the city's biggest limousine companies says more than 1,200 vehicles will be used for the conference with some being driven hundreds of miles from neighboring countries.

The director puts the total number of electric cars or hybrids included in that total at just five because of high taxes on those vehicles in Denmark. The airport expects up to 140 private jets during the busiest days with some planes needing to drop off passengers and then park in nearby countries because of a lack of space in Copenhagen.

Heh.

THE DEVILS DICTIONARY: A skeptics guide to Copenhagen.


I particularly liked “E” for environmentalists, who believe that all life, except yours, is sacred.

GREAT MOMENTS IN SOCIALIZED MEDICINE: "The eligibility age for state-subsidized breast cancer screening has been raised from 40 to 50 by the California Health and Human Services Agency.... Advocates for low-income women ... say the cuts put a two-tier system in place that is based on money rather than medical standards.”

But don't worry--ObamaCare will reduce the number of tiers to one, so that rich women won't be able to get tested either.

Link from Best of the Web (scroll down).

PRESIDENT OBAMA ”is expected to announce Tuesday that he wants Congress to redirect a certain portion of leftover Wall Street bailout funds toward job creation measures ...”

Give the money back to the American taxpayers? Heaven forfend!

THE EPA DECLARED greenhouse gases a danger to public health in a move that could pave the way for future regulation.

2010 can’t come soon enough.

WE HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO BE TAXED: "[N]owhere does the Constitution grant us the right not to be taxed. Nor does it grant us the right to harm others with impunity. No one is permitted to steal our cars or vandalize our homes.... Taxes on harmful activities would be justified quite apart from any need to balance government budgets.”

Therefore, the Constitution must infer an obligation to be taxed? Uh, huh, for “harmful activities”.

English translation: taxes on the bad things you do are good; taxes on the good things I do are bad.

The New York Times editorial is nuts.

Via The Corner at NRO.

THE GRAVY TRAIN is coming to an end. And I’m not on board yet.

LAST FRIDAY the Democrats voted to slash $400 billion in fraud, waste, and inefficiency from Medicare by defeating the McCain amendment.

Unfortunately, it won’t be fraud, waste, and inefficiency that the Democrats will rid Medicare of ....

A FOX IN NPR’S HENHOUSE: Executives at National Public Radio recently asked the network’s top political correspondent, Mara Liasson, to reconsider her regular appearances on Fox News because of what they perceived as the network’s political bias.

Liasson declined.

IT’S NOT MY FAULT: ”The two Northwest pilots who overflew their destination by more than 100 miles have filed documents with the federal government that blame air traffic control and the aircraft's design.”

What part of “Pilot in Command” don’t they understand?

CLIMATEGATE: Popular Mechanics has a
good discussion of what the East Anglia e-mails do and don’t tell us about global warming, until page 4, when Dr. Kelemen suddenly joins the alarmists seeing dragons everywhere.

There may in fact be dragons, but the cost of the cure is so high that it’s wise to first scope out the range of the disease.

CARLEY FIORINA on health care:




Devastating. Fiorina is the former CEO at Hewlett-Packard and now a Republican candidate to unseat Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer in 2010. Fiorina on the race: “I have to say that after chemotherapy, Barbara Boxer just isn't that scary anymore.”

Link via Hot Air.

TO SAVE THE PLANET, stop going green. “Instead of continuing our faddish and counterproductive emphasis on small, voluntary actions, we should follow the example of Americans during past moral crises and work toward large-scale change.” [English translation: My arguments are so weak as to be totally pathetic, so I have to demand the government pass laws to force you to ‘do right.’]

A bit of prententious moral preening by Mike (from the solar panels on my roof to the Prius in my driveway to my low-carbon-footprint vegetarian diet) Tidwell. If Mr. Tidwell, who is the executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, is a college graduate, he ought to demand his money back.

More: Ann Althouse smacks Tidwell around.