IMAGINE THAT. Liberals aren’t quite so liberal when it’s their money being spent.

Via Instapundit.

GREEN GOES BROWN. "AltaRock Energy is abandoning its major geothermal demonstration project at The Geysers, north of San Francisco.... Earlier in the fall TRU Energy, a subsidiary of CLP in Hong Kong, announced it was writing off its whole investment in Solar Systems' 154-megawatt solar project in Mildura, Australia."

What? Green energy may cause earthquakes? Or be uneconomical? Heaven forfend ....

MARK STEYN on Obama's treatment of terrorism as a crime rather than an act of war: "This would be a big enough gamble in the best of circumstances. Up against the broader background ... it makes disaster inevitable."

WHY ARE WE SO BAD at detecting the guilty and so good at collective punishment of the innocent?

Detecting the guilty requires judgment; punishing the innocent does not.

SCRAPPLEFACE: “In the wake of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Airlines flight 253, President Obama, in a news conference from the Pacific White House in Hawaii, on Monday cautioned Americans to avoid ‘lashing out against folks in puffy underpants.’" ... ‘Our future as a nation depends on how we react to this incident,’ the president said. ‘If we start profiling people based on the mere appearance of their slacks, a lot of incontinent adults as well as infants and toddlers will be swept up in the discriminatory backlash....’”

Read it all.

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: Nanny of the Year

SOME LESSONS to take home. Since the government can’t - or won’t - learn, we must.

THE LAST REFUGE from scoundrels:

Texas ... grew by almost half a million and accounted for 18 percent of the nation's total population growth. [It] had above-average immigrant growth, but domestic in-migration was nearly twice as high.

There may be lessons for public policy here. Texas over the decades has had low taxes (and no state income tax), low public spending and regulations that encourage job growth. It didn't have much of a housing bubble or a housing price bust.

Under Govs. George W. Bush and Rick Perry, it has placed tight limits on tort lawsuits, and has seen an influx of both corporate headquarters and medical doctors.

As a soon-to-be Texan again, I’m not sure I’m pleased with this development.