COLLEGE CENSORS, get ready to open your wallets.

And do it more widely. It's past time for conservatives to lift a play from the progressive playbook and start using the judicial branch to go on offense.

THE OBAMAS POLICE FOOD AND FOOTBALL: Why their comments on Michael Vick and school lunches make us queasy.

GOD SAVE US from the busybodies.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: How did ...

20-minutes-of-fame Julian Assange construct the façade of an idealistic crusading electronic muckraker?

global warming so easily get away with becoming “climate change”?

authoritarian and Islamist Palestinian groups become reinvented into traditional Western victimized minorities — analogous to women, gays, and minorities

professors convince us that their universities are progressive, anti-capitalist, and against the grain institutions?

Barack Obama invent himself into a bi-partisan, working across the aisle, no more red state/blue state unifying figure?

"Lurking somewhere behind all these improbables is a rather small Western elite that is enormously influential in the media, government, the arts, universities, and Hollywood."

REDUCING MAN-MADE CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS is completely and utterly pointless if your goal is to change the future climate. On the other hand, if you’re looking to ... control the way the modern world makes energy, then it makes perfect sense....

IF YOU LIKE police officers having quotas for speeding tickets, you will love the Obama administrations' new health care regulations.

MORE LEGAL TROUBLES for NYC Mayor Bloomberg's gun grabbers. "The number of Bloomberg's group that are facing felony and lesser charges is simply astounding."

As Instapundit notes: "Well, not so astounding when you consider they're politicians."

AFTER MY LAYOFF and subsequent retirement, I thought I was a failure. I was wrong.

REFRAMING THE DEBATE: Some questions to ask progressive liberals.

PALIN NOT ON the same 'intellectual stage' as Obama.

The "Obama is smart" meme is getting tiring. As one commenter noted, an Ivy League degree is no substitute for thinking. More here.

THEY'RE BACK: the Death Panels return by regulatory fiat. Under the guise of helping you make the "proper" (read that as "preferred") decision.

AMERICA'S STUBBONLY LIBERAL LEADERS keep millions looking for work.

‘COMPLIANCE’: The word that sunk a million U.S. jobs.

And you thought tort lawyers were bad ....

ECONOMIST MATTHEW KAHN (Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future) offers more optimism than solutions to the problems of climate change.

But optimism leads to more solutions than does pessimism.

THE SKY IS FALLING. Do something!

More here.

A WHINY PAEAN TO PORK AND POWER: Sen. [Arlen] Specter on Tuesday wanted to show us what was wrong with Washington -- and, unwittingly, he did.

MICHAEL BARONE: States with no income tax grew faster in the last decade.

CANADA'S OIL SANDS DEVELOPMENT gets (mostly positive) top-level review. Which annoys IEEE's resident environmental activist.

Never let facts interfere with your vision.

O HOLY NIGHT: some thoughts on the meaning of Christmas.

STANDING WATCH ON CHRISTMAS: attributed to Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Giles, U.S. Navy, Al Taqqadum, Iraq.

Read it all.

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS from 42 years past.

THE SPIRIT OF SANTA is alive and well in America.

MERRY CHRISTMAS


The National Christmas Tree in front of the White House.


Our family tree.

A GOOD QUESTION: Would global warming be so bad? Myself, I've never heard a satisfactory answer.

SMART STANDARDS for the smart grid. Unfortunately, there’s no standard for “No (control).”

THE NEW YEAR CANNOT COME TOO SOON: Voters elected Republicans to end Obamaism, not expand it.

MORE YEARS wandering in the desert.

Small businesses, like my 53-person outfit, see no reason whatsoever to do anything but hold tight to our cash for the next two years.... This is not fear; rather it is a rational business approach to having low confidence in future conditions.

The next election is only 2 years away. Will business continue to sit on the sidelines? I fear they will unless the next Congress aggressively moves against the current administration.

OBAMACARE: who decides? I would hope the Constitution, but I’m not confident the judiciary will agree. The key element appears to be judicial interpretation of the Constitution’s Necessary and Proper clause, and I hope Judge Hudson’s interpretation (“[the Necessary and Proper Clause] is not unbridled.”) is sustained.

PAUL GREENBERG: the end of books. The quote, I think, is from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, but I've been unable to find my copy to confirm it.

DOD CONFIRMS flash drive breached its IT security in 2008. I was on assignment in Iraq at the time. It caused some consternation in the IT community, but our mission was unaffected.

AT LEAST THE ACRONYM IS ACCURATE. Intelligence community responds to WikiLeaks with a Wikileaks Task Force.

WE’RE IN THE BEST OF HANDS: National Intelligence Director James Clapper unaware when asked about the arrest of 12 alleged Al Qaeda-inspired plotters in London. Don’t worry, though; Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is on top of everything 24/7/364 in all 57 states.

It's a three-ring, all-clown circus.

RANDOM THOUGHT: If BMWs are such mechanical marvels, why does a new BMW dealership opening locally have a 60-bay service department?

CLIMATE CHANGE. There's a mini ice-age coming. No, no, no ... that snow outside is what global warming looks like.

Who to believe?

Well, the man predicting a mini ice-age is an astrophysicist studying the sun who seems to have a history of making accurate predictions; the one predicting global warming admits that "climate scientists" missed the warming effects on atmospheric circulation that is now bringing heavy snows to London.

My money's on the astrophysicist.

More here.

I WOULD NOT HAVE BELIEVED Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen could possibly sink lower in the miniscule regard I hold him, but with this column ("Not his corps competency"), he did. Cohen is a man who does not deserve the freedom the military confers upon him.

[Update] A rational response to the Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal - from a Marine's wife.

HOW DARE YOU TAKE AWAY MY SENATE SEAT: Snarlin' Arlen snarls his way through one final angry speech.

ELITE SCHOOLS eager to welcome back ROTC after repeal of military's gay ban. I hope the Pentagon tells them to stick their offer where the sun don't shine.

IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID. Another TV technology bites the dust.

There's a lesson here for our political class as well.

MY FIRST YEAR WITH SOLAR: One engineer's experience with switching to solar power at home.

A nice article - well written - but it shows that solar power is only economical if you can get someone else (called the taxpayer) to subsidize it.

ALMOST 40 YEARS IN THE MAKING: the fastest helicopter on earth.

CYBORG FLY pilots robot through obstacle course. The Matrix for fruit flies?

IT'S OUR MONEY. You didn't do anything to deserve it.

CONGRESS, GO HOME. Let the President go on his Hawaii vacation.

And I need the break.

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL: how our Senators voted.

EARTHQUAKE SPLITS OFF CALIFORNIA; PELOSI ELECTED QUEEN



Democrats dreamin'.

MAYBE IT SHOULD BE a crime to smoke a cigarette, but at the moment it’s not.

It will be, if the progressives have a say.

THE 112 DEMOCRATS who voted against the tax deal (Bush tax cuts).

Well, in my opinion, they voted correctly - but for the wrong reason.

EARTHQUAKE PREPAREDNESS in California.

WHO HAD THE WORST YEAR IN WASHINGTON? Of course, it couldn’t be a Democrat.

AMERICAN REDNECK SOCIETY formed to advocate for rural Americans.

Any group that can laugh at themselves gets my vote. Follow the humor links.

ONCE THE ELITE HIGH SCHOOL in Washington, D.C., Dunbar High is out of control, reports the Washington Post. Former D.C. schools chancellor is excoriated in the comments, but the problems in the D.C. schools long predate her tenure.

Also from the comments: "I laugh when I hear progressives say, “We need to empower kids.” No, we need to DIS-empower them –so that they listen and learn, and thereby, ultimately, become intellectually empowered."

MUGGED BY PUBLIC OPINION: “Republicans ... clearly have a mandate to hack away at spending and to defund and derail Obamacare.... And there does seem an opening ... for a 1986-style tax reform that eliminates tax preferences and cuts tax rates.

Read it all.

ATLAS HAS SHRUGGED AND CALIFORNIA HAS CHANGED –
government has ruined this place and I will never forget it. “How can we let the progressive nightmare continue to happen to the nation when a state of almost 40 million (nearly a nation unto itself) has already experienced the disaster first?”

FIVE MYTHS about school food. And the myth that must remain unspoken: Parents are incapable of feeding their children.

YA THINK? Near-record 49% say Democratic Party “too liberal.”

OBAMA VS. PALIN: Scratch beneath their personable surfaces ... and they represent polar opposite visions of what leadership in this country should look like.

More here.

WHY DOING A PhD is often a waste of time.

As a PhD (1978; Electrical Engineering), I would no longer recommend going for the doctorate. In fact, I am increasingly skeptical of the economic value of a Master’s degree.

Read the comments as well.

I’M A SENATOR. I’m too important to read the bill I’m voting on.

SMART GRID PRIMER. [W]hat exactly is a smart grid, and how might it affect you?

A smart grid would help make everything better, thus improving reliability, security, and efficiency, which are of critical importance given that electric power consumption worldwide is expected to triple by 2050.

The key to making things better is two-way data communications among all the elements, so that information about the grid's condition can be shared and acted upon. To do that, many devices, including those on the customers' premises, must be computer controlled and interactive.

Ultimately it’s about control.

IVIES MOVING TOWARD restoring ROTC. Given their sheer incompetence at governing, why would the military even wish to consider returning to their campuses?

Linked from Instapundit.

IT’S TIME to bury the estate tax.

[I]f it hasn’t been pointed out often enough already, the wealth has already been taxed repeatedly. There comes a point where enough is enough already.

Paraphrasing the President: “I think at some point you have taxed enough money.”

GEORGE WILL on the ’No Labels ‘movement’: ”The label ‘conservative’ conveys much useful information about people who adopt it. So does the label ‘liberal,’ which is why most liberals have abandoned it, preferring ‘progressive,’ until they discredit it, too.”

Instapundit comments: “Why are they against labels? Because if they were labeled accurately, no one would listen to them ....”

NEVER LET A DISASTER GO TO WASTE: Hugo Chavez seeks dictatorship.

STUDY: Some viewers were misinformed by TV news (especially Fox). Having plowed through the report, my sense is that all that has been shown is that “experts” are overrated.

BACK THEN we had a leadership class that wanted America to be successful.

THE MEME that would not die.

FROM MY EMAIL on the Obama administration’s Medal of Honor presentation ceremony: “I personally watched the Medal of Honor presentation at the White House. Something didn’t feel right, but I dismissed it to the typical dead ‘spirit’ regarding this Administration’s attitude toward the military and war in general. This video amazingly brought out what was as revealing as it was terribly wrong.”



The original YouTube video is here.

MICHELLE OBAMA’S obesity war. Destined to be an epic fail.

It won’t stop them from trying, though.

ATTORNEY GENERAL KEN CUCCINELLI on Virginia’s ObamaCare victory:

[W]e need to move in the direction of empowering individual citizens and consumers in this process, and reintroducing competition. The notion of what insurance is has been so destroyed over 45 years. These days, insurance in the health-care industry is like a service contract on your furnace. It’s regular services. Insurance was supposed to be protection against catastrophic occurrence. If we move back in that direction, and people absorb the initial, underlying costs of carrying forward ordinary health insurance, the cost even of insurance for those catastrophic occurrences would come way down.

Amen.

AND THE NANNY OF THE YEAR IS ... San Francisco.

CONGRESS OVERTURNS don’t ask, don’t tell. While I favor allowing homosexuals to serve openly, I have a bad feeling that this will prove to be the wrong way to go about do it.

WE ELECTED HIM. NOW WHAT? Bill Clinton’s step-in the other day was simply the reification of what condescending liberals are now thinking: “OK, our liberal trance with Obama is over; he got us in power, but is of course clueless; now how can we finesse it for the liberal varsity to take over?”

HELP WANTED: Power Engineers.

ONE NATION UNDER GOD. What’s motivating religious conservatives now, says Campolo, is a vision of America as God’s own special country, and free-market capitalism as crucial to the nation’s flourishing.

Er, it’s also motivating non-religious conservatives. And religious independents. And non-religious independents. And religious moderates. And ....

I hate to burst your bubble, but “American exceptionalism” isn’t a codeword for religious-right extremism.

DANA PERINO: Mr. Obama, Is This Relationship Worth Saving? “[W]ith things going the way they are, this loveless marriage could turn into a one-term stand.”

With luck, yes.

ANN COULTER: Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t call our troops homophobes. Ann is a bit over the top - as usual - but makes a good point: in the past five years, less than 1 percent of all unplanned military discharges (i.e. not due to retirement or completion of service) were for homosexuality.

Maybe it’s time to pay attention to the other 99% ....

THE NEXT INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION IN WHICH THE U.S. WILL EXCEL: competitive texting. Of 34 countries participating in the Program for International Student Assessment, U.S. students ranked 17th overall in science, 14th in reading, and 25th in math. American students prefer to “text,” “socialize,” and “watch Youtube videos.”

According to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, the solution to our poor international standing is the adoption of national curriculum standards and revamping teacher pay to reward performance rather than credentials and seniority.

Marybeth Hicks responds:

Yo, Arnie. Merit pay for teachers is not the problem.

More likely, the problem rests at the feet of the teacher education elite, who long ago usurped American public education for the cause of social justice and social engineering. Thanks to their “child centered” pedagogy, we’re more concerned about righting injustice than teaching kids the knowledge and skills they will need to be truly competitive, self-sufficient and successful.

We’re infusing self-esteem, while in far away Finland, Australia and South Korea, they’re simply teaching math, science and reading to a eager population of knowledge-thirsty learners. This would explain why their kids are acing the tests, while ours aren’t.

We’re infusing self-esteem, while in far away Finland, Australia and South Korea, they’re simply teaching math, science and reading.

HOW IS IT POSSIBLE that sentient human beings can zealously adopt a political position so contrary common sense and remain glued to its premises in the face of all contradictory evidence?

The answer to the enigma ... may lie in the realm of molecular biology. A recent groundbreaking discovery suggests that there may well be a “second genesis” for life on earth, predicated on a microbe that has replaced the element of phosphorus necessary for life with the lethal element of arsenic in its structure, thus “break[ing] the unity of biochemistry.” Moreover, according to NASA astrobiologist Mary Voytek, the microbes “have the arsenic in the basic building blocks of their makeup,” implying the existence of a “shadow biosphere” on the planet.

Here we may have come upon the real explanation for the leftist and liberal orientation in the human mind. Since it is so not amendable to the lessons of experience and persists in opposition to the indisputable verities of political life, it must owe its vigor and longevity to a different chemical architecture at the very source of its engendering. Socialism is likely the product of a shadow biosphere and may have taken root in the halomonadaceae family of bacteria, from which it evolved into such notable, arsenic-based life-forms as Karl Marx, Saul Alinsky, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, George Soros, and even Barack Obama. Lounge liberals and lesser creatures like Frank Rich of the New York Times, Chris Matthews of MSNBC, or Aluf Benn of Haaretz would merely have lower concentrations of arsenic in their DNA.

I told you so.

WANT A VOICE IN WASHINGTON? Invest in a politician.

CALL IT THE ‘PORKBUSTER’ COMMITTEE. Republican Senator John R. Thune wants to create a permanent Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction, which would recommend spending cuts that would receive expedited consideration by Congress: “Congress currently has 26 committees and subcommittees dedicated to spending money; I believe we ought to have at least one committee tasked with cutting spending.”

Linked from Fox News.

GOOD NEWS, AMERICA, Obama's been reined in.

BIG GOVERNMENT LOVES BIG BUSINESS - and vice versa: “Former OMB Director Peter Orszag taking a job at Citibank.”

WHATEVER. Most annoying word of the year.

NO LABELS: the Coffee Party by another name.

Democrat astroturf again. More here.

THE OBAMACARE ‘CHRISTMAS TREE’ gets trimmed.

"[T]he bill," Judge Hudson wrote, "embraces far more than health care reform. It is laden with provisions and riders patently extraneous to health care -- over 400 in all." He declined a deeper examination of Congress' intent with respect to severability because such an analysis "is difficult to apply in this case given the haste with which the final version of the 2,700-page bill was rushed to the floor for a Christmas Eve vote." The ruling highlights the amusing yet important lesson of Obamacare: Nothing good ever comes of thousand-page bills, legislative secrecy and extraneous special-interest riders.

Sheesh.

IT’S STUNNING, EVEN BY K STREET STANDARDS: The life insurance lobby spends millions to create the conditions (a high inheritance tax) from which it then promises to protect customers with its tax-free insurance products.

Save the rich (for a ‘small’ fee).

GOOD FOR HIM: Gov. Bob McDonnell proposes ending Virginia’s public broadcasting funding.

CONGRESS PASSES BILL to delay the Obama tax hike (more commonly known as the Bush tax cuts). Personally I wish this bill would also have been defeated, since I think the new Congress could drive a harder bargain next year. Now if Congress will just go home ....

THE DEATH OF THE OMNIBUS. You can thank your local Tea Party.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Two Californias. Now read this.

I think 10 years is a best-case scenario.

OUR ALICE IN WONDERLAND PRESIDENT: Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. If only we could.

WHAT’S THE BIGGEST THREAT to free speech?

WHERE FREEDOM GOES TO DIE: the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

It should be renamed the Center for Stupidity not in the Public Interest.

I WAS GOING TO COMMENT ON E. J. DIONNE’S LUNACY, but Peter Wehner beat me to it.

What Dionne and those of his ilk fail to realize is that the progressive movement has gone so far to the left that the mainstream ‘independents’ and conservative ‘right-wing extremists’ are essentially the same political distance away.

MUCH OF OBAMA’S AGENDA in hands of courts. Why do I have a bad feeling about this news?

FROM MICHELLE BACHMAN:

What do Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have in common? As I type this email, they're all trying to push a new back-room tax deal through Congress that will move our country in the wrong direction.

This bill passed the Senate last night and is now moving towards the House and could be voted on as early as today.

You may have seen reports that Tea Party activists are joining together in opposition to this bill. I oppose this deal for a number of reasons, because most importantly, this tax deal does not live up to the constitutional values we share.

First: This bill will not make the current lower tax rates permanent for all Americans.

Second: This bill will add to our already massive deficit.

Third: This bill will re-institute the death tax - charging some Americans with a new tax as high as 35%. The death tax currently stands at zero. Americans already pay taxes on their money once to the government during their lifetime; the government should not take 35% of the estate from their heirs at death.

Another bill making its way through Congress is the 1.1 trillion dollar omnibus spending bill containing 6,600 earmarks. These bills show contempt for you and our efforts to return fiscal sanity to our government.

Remember, the Federal Reserve also announced they are embarking on a policy of Quantitative Easing Part II, which means between Quantitative Easing II, the omnibus spending bill and the tax compromise your Democrat-controlled Congress will spend 4.8 trillion dollars over the next 24 months.

How will we ever dig our way out of this debt?

As Tea Party conservatives, you and I must adhere to our shared conservative values or we risk losing the support and organization we have worked so hard to build. Most of my fellow Tea Party activists oppose this bill because it does not meet the fiscally conservative principles we stand for.

Today, I'm asking you to join me in opposing this legislation.

Many Washington politicians remain deaf to November's election results and have grown more out-of-touch with American public opinion. They are ignoring the will of the people. Americans from coast to coast delivered a resounding victory for a constitutional conservative majority in the House of Representatives on Election Day and polling suggests Americans do not want to see their taxes or the national deficit increased.

But that's exactly what this bill will do if Obama, Pelosi and Reid get their way. They are trying to rush this bill through Congress straight to the President's desk and if we don't act immediately, the consequences for our shared principles could be dire. I'm working with other members and Tea Party activists to stop this tax and deficit increase from becoming law. But, there is extreme pressure from both sides to pass this law. I need to know you stand with me in opposition to this back-room deal.

Oh, they got the message all right. They’re desperate to enact as much of their agenda as possible before they get thrown out and replaced by a new Congress.

VOTE NOW: Should the Senate pass the earmark-laden spending bill?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA signed an executive order establishing the White House Council for Community Solutions: "The Council will provide advice to the President on the best ways to mobilize citizens, nonprofits, businesses and government to work more effectively together to solve specific community needs."

How about just getting out of the way and leaving us alone?

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, we’d be preparing for nuclear war - and they were right.

JEFF JACOBY: Why do the liberals rage? "[E]nvy and resentment, which liberals think of as sensitivity and compassion, are at the very core of the liberal conception of good government."

MORE MADNESS: Montana honor student faces expulsion for leaving hunting rifle in car while at school.

When I was in high school, during deer season nearly every student's pickup truck had one or more rifles on the gun rack hanging inside the back window in the cab. Occasionally, there'd be a deer tied to the fender of the car or in the bed of the pickup.

I don't recall any shoot-outs on campus.

[Update] Sanity prevailed.

COLOR ME NERVOUS: we have Barack Obama to lead us.

DON’T GET COCKY: “[T]he United States will come up with different judges.”

Anyone who believes the feds won’t go judge-shopping is seriously deluded.

YOU MUST GET GUN RANGE TRAINING. But you can’t get gun range training.

Linked from Instapundit.

WHO’S THE REAL PRESIDENT - Bill Clinton? Or Michelle Obama?

IF THE MANDATE AUTHORITY (in Virginia v. Sebelius, the Virginia challenge to Obamacare) somehow survives the Supremes, shouldn't we anticipate that the federal government can then require Americans to purchase Chevy Volts ... whether they are licensed to drive or not?

VICTORY! from Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli:

Virginia won the first round of the constitutional fight over the federal health care law. I also told you I'd get back to you with more details later in the day, and I'm keeping my promise.

Arguments and Outcomes

There were two basic arguments in this case.

First, Virginia argued that the individual mandate was beyond the power of Congress and the President to impose under the Constitution. Specifically, Congress claimed that their regulatory power under the Commerce Clause allowed them to order you to buy their government-approved health insurance, even if you decide not to buy health insurance.

The judge ruled that the federal government does not have the power to compel you to buy health insurance as part of its attempt to regulate the entire field of health care and health insurance. Thus, Virginia won this argument.

Second, the federal government advanced a 'fallback' argument in case it lost on its commerce clause argument. The feds' fallback argument was that the financial penalty you have to pay if you don't buy the government mandated health insurance is a tax.

This may sound like an odd argument from a political standpoint - usually they say everything is NOT a tax (in fact, they argued the penalty was not a tax while they were trying to get the bill passed); however, they changed position after the bill became law to try and save the bill. What they were trying to do was to get the courts to agree that because the penalty would presumably raise some revenue, it was therefore a 'tax' under the taxing and spending for the General Welfare Clause of the Constitution.

No judge in the country has bought this argument, and Judge Hudson was no exception. He ruled that the taxing power of Congress does not save the bill, because the penalty for not buying the mandated health insurance is not a tax.

The federal government only had to win on either of these two arguments, while Virginia needed to win both to prevail, and we won both!

What's Next?

Certainly the federal government will appeal their loss in the district court to the 4th circuit court of appeals within the next 30 days. And whichever side loses in the 4th circuit will certainly appeal to the Supreme Court. And no one has any serious doubts that ultimately the constitutionality of the individual mandate will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

That could take approximately (very rough approximation) two years. We are discussing with the Department of Justice accelerating the case, and those discussions have been very cordial thus far. More on that later.

Conclusion

Today is a great day for the Constitution. Today the Constitution has been protected from the federal government, and remember, an important reason for the constitution in the first place was to limit the power of the federal government.

Today is also a day of a small degree of vindication. When we first filed suit, the screeching of the liberals was deafening. Everything from accusing us of playing politics instead of practicing law, to filing what they called a 'frivolous' lawsuit.

I want you to know, that our team makes decisions based on the Constitution and the laws. Period. We deal with the consequences of our decisions separately, but first and foremost we have been and will continue to be true to the Constitution and laws of the United States and Virginia, regardless of whether it's easy or hard in any particular case.

There’s a long way to go, but this is an excellent start.

YA THINK? One nation, under too many laws.

This, from a newspaper that never saw a law it didn't like.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE, MANDATES, SMALL BUSINESS, AND OBAMA: ”He’s never had to make a payroll, and private enterprise is the enemy.”

KABOOM: another Palin-hater self-combusts. Read the comments.

ATTRIBUTED TO RAHM EMANUEL: Never let a crisis go to waste. Democrat Rep. Keith Ellison adds: if that doesn’t work, create a crisis.

PALIN-HATING COLUMBIA PROFESSOR and Huffington Post blogger busted for incest (with his daughter). My favorite comments:

Kathie Shaidle: “Liberals: your moral and intellectual superiors!"

Commenter livermoron at Don Surber’s place: ”Incest sure explains a lot about the left and academia.”

Instapundit: “The best and the brightest at Columbia University.”

Oh, the embarrassment.

ANOTHER THOUGHT: “Ending weeks of speculation and rumors, President-Elect Barack Obama today named Bill Clinton to join his incoming administration as President of the United States, where he will head the federal government’s executive branch.”

Obama never wanted to be President of the United States; he wanted to be Emperor of Earth.

THEY TOLD ME if I voted for Hillary, Bill Clinton would basically be co-president - and they were right!

More here and here.

PEAK COAL? The point that is being missed, I think, is that the peaks were regulatory peaks, not resource peaks.

THEY’RE BACK: Tax deal larded up with TARP special interest provisions. The Democrats won’t give them up and the Republicans haven't gotten the message. It's going to take more than one election.

WHAT HAPPENED TO ‘SCIENCE’? EPA suddenly retreating on emissions rules enforcement.

GOING GALT: New poll indicates 40% of physicians will retire or find other work under ObamaCare.

Not surprised, I hope.

WOULD YOU VOTE for Sen. Reid’s tax cut bill? No. I think we can get a better deal from the new Congress in 2011.

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN:

If Obama had pushed a one-year suspension of the payroll tax instead of the first stimulus, wouldn’t the country — and Obama – be much better off right now? He would have gotten money directly into the hands of the American people instead of teachers’ unions, state governments, and rent-seeking green companies. It would have been every bit as Keynesian, but infinitely more popular, including among Republicans.

Instapundit comments: “Insufficient opportunities for graft.”

GIVE US YOUR TIRED, YOUR POOR … and your PhD scientists.

I wrote something similar here.

LAST NIGHT on Barbara’s Walters’ annually insipid “10 Most Fascinating People” special, America was shown such a textbook example of media bias, hypocrisy and incompetence that it bordered on parody.

People watch Barbara Walters?

More.

SOMEONE OWES REPUBLICAN REP. JOE WILSON AN APOLOGY. Which Democrat House member said ‘F*** the President’?

OOPS! FAA loses track of 119,000 aircraft.

More government incompetence.

CAN THE OLD LIBERAL STALWART play a role in today’s world? Short answer - No. Here’s why:

Since the late nineteenth century most intellectuals have identified progress with the advance of the bureaucratic, redistributionist and administrative state. The government, guided by credentialed intellectuals with scientific training and values, would lead society through the economic and political perils of the day. An ever more powerful state would play an ever larger role in achieving ever greater degrees of affluence and stability for the population at large, redistributing wealth to provide basic sustenance and justice to the poor. The social mission of intellectuals was to build political support for the development of the new order, to provide enlightened guidance based on rational and scientific thought to policymakers, to administer the state through a merit based civil service, and to train new generations of managers and administrators.

For America to prosper:

Power is going to have to shift from bureaucrats to entrepreneurs, from the state to society and from qualified experts and licensed professionals to the population at large.

And from the comments: “Old-school progressivism appeals to the narcissist in people in high places. They want to believe that they can and are uniquely qualified to dole out justice and mercy and goodness to the poor oppressed masses. If the new paradigm involves devolution of power to the masses, there’s no more need for narcissistic demigods.”

More: Walter Russell Mead’s “The Crisis of the American Intellectual” is here.

WIKILEAKS CONFIRMS the worst fears of climate change skeptics: government-sponsored bribery.

THE LOS ANGELES CITY COUNCIL has banned new stand-alone fast food restaurants from opening within half a mile of each other in South L.A., citing rising health concerns and the need for more food choices in the area.

Hmm. Maybe because the residents of South L.A. are just poor? What’s next? Waygu beef subsidies?

[Update] "Because the last thing they need is new entry-level jobs."

GOOD GRIEF: “If you can’t afford to hire a bartender, you shouldn’t be having a party.” Rampant stupidity in NYC.

A SNOWFLAKE FELL IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY and traffic in Washington D.C. came to a grinding halt as the perpetually clueless found out that even the lightest snowfall turns to ice glaze in subfreezing temperatures.

IN TEXAS, FREE SPEECH FOR ME but not for thee. Bonus points for Hispandering.

IS CONGRESS ABOVE THE LAW? Well, it certainly appears as if they tried. Follow these two links and make up your own mind.

Linked from Instapundit.

OBAMA TALKS TRASH. “Liberals are getting a taste of what conservative critics saw close up during the 2008 campaign and the health care fight: Obama's intolerance toward dissent, perhaps rooted in a personal arrogance and too much self-regard. His personality leads him to call names and question critics' motives, and it also makes him bristle at outside pressure. ‘He knows he kicks ass, and he doesn't need any other validation,’ one liberal former Obama administration official told me this week.“

THEY DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT TAKING AMERICA BACK - we’re giving it to them.

HEH: STUXNET WORM still out of control at Iran's nuclear sites. Earlier post here.

EPA REGULATIONS force nuclear power plant out of business.

If protecting the environment is so damned important, it should also force closure of the 600,000 homes depending on it for power.

OBAMACARE KILLS DISCOUNT DRUG DEALS to childrens hospitals. "[T]his is precisely the kind of rationing that Congress intended to impose on the American health-care system. And it’s the children who get to pay for it first."

"It's for the children" rings a bit hollow, doesn't it?

CLINTON - TRIANGULATION; Obama - triangrylation!

OBAMA RISKS BECOMING CARTER? According to Instapundit, it should be an aspiration ....

EXTREME CHINOOK HELICOPTER EXTRACTION



That's one helluva pilot.

Linked from Neal Boortz.

EXACTLY! "The alarmists have an excuse for everything but yet not one ounce of evidence to back anything."

From the comments following this post.

CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT ATTENDEES sign petition to ban “dihydrogen monoxide”.

SINCE WHAT WE'RE DOING DOESN'T WORK, we should redouble our efforts!

Remind me of the definition of insanity again.

UNANIMOUS: Al Sharpton is a pinhead. From the comments: "I would only add, 'a freeloading pinhead' ".

WIKILEAKS: espionage or journalism? For the terminal clueless, it ain't journalism.

ANNE APPLEBAUM on the 'ordinary' elite:

The backlash against graduates of "elite" universities seems particularly odd given that the most elite American universities have in the past two decades made the greatest effort to broaden their student bodies. Because they can offer full scholarships, the wealthier Ivy League schools in particular are far more diverse, racially and economically, than they were a few decades ago.

Unfortunately, they are not more diverse intellectually - and that's the problem.

I suspect the "anti-elite-educationism" that Bell predicted is growing now not despite the rise of meritocracy but because of it.

No, it's a result of the lockstep smugness of these "new elites."

GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE revises its report critical of practices at for-profit schools. Apparently helping people qualify for jobs isn't so bad after all.

I'd like to see the post-graduation employment statistics for 'Department of Victimization' graduates at traditional "non-profit" institutions.

NORTH AMERICA: The New Energy Kingdom? Only if the Obama administration can be prevented from stopping it.

ANOTHER LOOK BACK. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank on the Tea Party and President Obama’s Commission of Fiscal Responsibility and Reform [deficit commission]: “Paradoxically, the Tea Party may be the obstacle blocking the way toward a shrunken government and reduced debt.”

Hmm. Of the seven members of the deficit commission who voted against the Commission's proposal, 4 were Democrats. The three Republicans (Ryan, Hensarling, and Camp) who voted against did so because the recommendations didn't go far enough to reduce spending, especially with respect to healthcare. All three, however, found elements of the recommendations appealing, and all three believed that the Commission recommendations should go to Congress for study.

On the other side, Democrat Representative Jan Schakowsky, also voting no, offered a (Democrat) alternative proposal that included more taxes, more spending.

I don't think the Tea Party is the obstacle.

IF THE U.S. PASSES A LAW that then requires the government to issue over two hundred waivers in the first few months to avoid disastrous consequences for enforcement, doesn’t that indicate a problem in the law itself? ObamaCare waivers now up to 222.

And the waiver recipients are ... surprise ... Obama(care) supporters!

FICA INCREASINGLY IS BEING TREATED AS JUST ANOTHER TAX, and social security benefits as just another government entitlement, to be toyed with as political necessity requires.

All the more reason to privatize Social Security.

SO OBAMA thinks he’s done a good job of keeping his promises.

THINGS I DIDN'T KNOW I NEEDED TO KNOW: how to kill a zombie.

Linked from Instapundit.

ARE ALIENS AMONG US? "After a two-year study at California's Mono Lake, near Yosemite National Park, [U.S. Geological Survey biochemist Dr. Felsia] Wolfe-Simon found that a bug will grow in the presence of the toxic chemical arsenic when only slight traces of phosphorous are present."

Well, arsenic is poisonous to nearly all forms of life on earth, so I guess that an arsenic-based lifeform is alien. But I think we already have aliens among us - we just call them "progressives."

THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF GOOD INTENTIONS



Linked from Instapundit.

NANCY PELOSI INFAMOUSLY SAID that we would have to pass ObamaCare to find out what’s in it. The results are in.

LANGUAGE MATTERS: Thomas Sowell on the rhetoric of the tax debate.

ABOUT TIME: Wis. Governor-Elect raises prospect of union decertification to balance budget. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie should be thinking along the same lines.

THANK THE RICH: the pushback continues.

THE DEMOCRATIC BASE "seems more interested in expanding government than in stimulating the economy. They are bellowing with rage not so much at Obama but at the reality that he is grudgingly acknowledging. They had their time and now it's gone."

I TRIED TO WATCH Keith Olbermann's Countdown tonight. Now I understand why it has so few viewers.

HARRY REID: If I can’t block the tax bill, then I should at least get an earmark for my effort.

FROM THE EMAIL: "If we want to keep our nation's secrets 'SECRET' store them where President Obama stores his college transcripts and birth certificate." They’re classified; Cosmic Top Secret/Lamestream Media Only.

BERZERKLEY AGAIN: An Army private jailed for allegedly leaking sensitive military data is a hero and should be freed .... "If he did what he’s accused of doing, he’s a patriot and should get a medal,” said Bob Meola, the Berkeley peace and justice commissioner (!).

AL SHARPTON WANTS THE FCC to take Limbaugh off the air. Sharpton has his own radio show; take him off the air instead.

IS AMERICA ISLAMOPHOBIC? Jeff Jacoby thinks not.

AN INSTAPUNDIT FAVORITE: "They told me if I voted for John McCain ..."

SPACE-X SUCCEEDS: starts new chapter for spaceflight. The launch video is here.

More at the Space Exploration Technologies website.

DANA MILBANK: the two Paul Ryans.

In a joint appearance last week at the American Enterprise Institute with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks called him "the most intellectually formidable member of the House."

"That," Ryan said, interrupting, "ain't saying a whole lot."

Ryan was being modest.

Well, yes. At this time Congress is still overwhelmingly Democrat.

With a little less snark (to which I contributed; sorry) and this could have been a decent, albeit liberal, column.

WELL-CREDENTIALED, not well-educated.

“GORE EFFECT” strikes Cancun Climate Conference for 3 days in a row.

A BIG PLUS OF THE AIR TAXI MODEL IS AVOIDING THE TSA. "Oh, yeah. The TSA problems are almost like a government subsidy for alternative transport..."

“I’M INCANDESCENT with glee.”

NO NEW TAXES - until 2013. That should make the 2012 presidential election interesting.

IF ONLY HE COULD: Think boldly, Mr. Obama.

I SHOULD HAVE FILLED UP LAST WEEK. Gasoline is now $3/gallon in Manassas.

WIKILEAKS: Either U.S. intelligence is massively incompetent, or PFC Manning had help — an insider with high-level access.

Unfortunately the latter conclusion is realistic; in Washington DC, adherence to security policies and procedures is nonexistent.

WHAT OBAMA NEEDS TO MAKE A COMEBACK: luck - and maybe a terror attack that kills thousands of people.

Unfortunately, I’ve had much the same thought - but from a different perspective: the sheer incompetence of the Obama administration is an open invitation for terrorists to attack en masse. It may take such an attack to wake him up - or rid ourselves of him.

FREEZE TAXES, FREEZE SPENDING, AND GO HOME. No. Freeze taxes, roll back spending, then go home.

“IF THE LIBERALS HAVE BEEN BETTER AT CONTROLLING THESE COSTS, why are every single one of the big problem states liberal bastions?”

FOSSIL FUELS causes obesity (or global warming or something).

Perhaps it would be wise to inform the "global warmists" that fossil fuels also increase longevity.


Then again, perhaps not.

BRIT HUME: A teachable moment from the ‘Dismal Science.’

REMEMBER THAT TWO-YEAR FEDERAL PAY FREEZE Obama proposed last week? Well, 1.1 million federal workers are still getting $2.5 billion in pay increases.

FROM THE COMMENTS: "There is a word for reduced consumption. The word is 'poverty.' Why are so many people trying to make us poor?"

AS A LIFE MEMBER OF THE IEEE, I receive a monthly E-letter from the IEEE’s Systems, Control, and Signal Processing society. IEEE is a global electrical/computer engineering professional society, so the E-letter is a good source of tidbits on the state of engineering around the world. Here are a few.

Faculty Openings advertised in the E-letter:

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
The University of Agder
Czech Technical University in Prague
KTH, Sweden
Chalmers University of Technology
NTNU, Trondheim, Norway
Polytechnic Institute of New York University
National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland
UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
University of Alberta, Canada
Northwestern University
University of Southampton
University of Groningen
Delft University of Technology
University of Toronto
Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
University of Michigan
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China
University of Louisville
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
École Polytechnique de Montréal
University of Western Sydney, Australia
University of Pretoria, South Africa
Cranfield Defence and Security
University of Cambridge, UK
John Deere, Waterloo, IA

Eight of 28 are in the United States.

International conferences scheduled for 2011:

The 5th IEEE International Conference on Cybernetics and Intelligent Systems, Qingdao, China

The 19th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED'11), Corfu, Greece

3rd International Conference on Control and Optimization with Industrial
Applications– COIA 2011, Ankara, Turkey

The 7th ASME/IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics & Embedded Systems & Applications (MESA 2011), Washington, DC, USA

One of 4 is in the United States.

For at least the last 30 years I’ve been a member of IEEE, there has always been a significant global presence in IEEE newsletters - but nothing like this. A harbinger of the future of science and engineering in the U.S., perhaps?

OH, THIS IS GREAT: the majority party is trying to filibuster the minority party on the extension of the Bush tax cuts.

PALIN ENRAGEMENT SYNDROME: It’s the culture, stupid.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON on liberal economic hypocrisy. Paraphrasing, liberals seek to be exempt from the regulations and taxes they impose on the middle classes on behalf of the poor they studiously avoid.

BUT, BUT ... it’s other people’s money we’re squandering.

Sarah Palin’s beginning to look pretty good. [Linked from Hot Air.]

NEW FED STUDY suggests net job creation from Porkulus was … zero.

WHAT I'VE NOTICED SINCE I BEGAN BLOGGING: Liberal pundits tell me what to think; conservative pundits tell me what they think.

"HEY, let's appoint a COLA czar." From the comments.

HOPE AND CHANGE: Obama’s petulance sank stocks.

Stocks were euphorically higher most of today, thanks to the unexpectedly broad tax deal the administration hammered out with the Republicans. But during his press conference, Obama’s clear anger and call to unwind the deal in 2 years opened a trap door under prices, sending them to a negative finish. We had hope, and then it changed.

I missed the Obama’s press conference, but I do note the market change. The press conference scheduled for 2:20 pm ET; the market fell sharply by 3 pm.

PEARL HARBOR: almost forgotten.

Update: Bing remembers; Google does not.

Another update: Not yet forgotten, but some warning signs.

Yet another update.

CHART OF THE YEAR


Some thoughts here.

“RONALD REAGAN FAMOUSLY QUIPPED that the Democratic Party left him before he left the party. Like many progressive supporters of Barack Obama, I'm beginning to have the same feeling about this president....” (for abandoning progressive principles).

The progressives have long since hijacked the Democrat party. It’s time for Democrats to take it back.

RICHARD COHEN: Freedom of the press includes the freedom to withhold information -- especially if it’s damaging our political preferences.

THEY’VE DONE A REALLY GOOD JOB SO FAR: Nearly half of Democrats think government should control the economy.

OBAMA REGULATIONS threaten colleges. Only those not hewing to a progressive curriculum.

“THE GOP SHOULD LEARN learn that focusing very intently on economic growth, fiscal restraint and limited government is a big political winner, and will garner a vast coalition of voters - Dem, Repub, indie.”

Whether they will or not is still an open question.

LIBERALISM: the virtue of being persistent.

WHAT FORM OF GROUP MADNESS is it that forsakes judgment and discernment for process run amok? The simple answer – bureaucracy.

WHEN SCIENCE FAILS, pray to a Mayan goddess.

HEH. "Not a Poison Ivy Leaguer."

GOP TO ABOLISH House panel on global warming; Democrats unhappy. To keep the Democrats from whining, the GOP should create a new Select Committee on Political Correctness and let the Democrats chair it.

THE NEW PROPERTY RIGHTS: what’s yours is now mine.

PRIVATIZE SOCIAL SECURITY - a personal perspective. I have posted a number of times - here, here, and here - to plead the case for privatization. Recently, Alan Sloan wrote in the Washington Post [”Let’s talk turkey about privatizing Social Security”] to deride the idea. Jagadeesh Gokhale, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute returned fire ["Distorting Social Security privatization proposals"].

Gokhale is correct; Sloan is wrong. Here’s a personal example.

I just retired at age 66 and began collecting Social Security last month. I worked 38 [FICA] years, paying into the Social Security system a total of $122,472.12. My employer(s) contributed an equal amount, for a total of $244,944.24. During those 38 years of FICA employment, I paid the FICA maximum for 21; therefore my monthly benefit of $2330 is near the Social Security maximum payout of $2346/month.

Now let’s suppose that all those FICA withholdings were invested in the stock market in a 401K-like account. I did just that, on paper, investing each years withholding in the stocks making up the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), and each year “growing” the account balance by the growth - or decline - of the average for that year. As of October 29, 2010, my retirement date, my paper Social Security account had accumulated a total of $805,307.80.

Now for the comparison. My social security income is roughly equivalent to a 50% joint life growth annuity, since payments are indexed to inflation and end when both my wife and I finally die. So I found an annuity calculator online, and asked it what an $800,000.00, 50% joint life annuity would pay out. The answer: $4,417/month (level) or $3,301/month (with an annual 3% growth factor built in).

Since Social Security has an annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) component, the 3% annuity is the better comparison. Guess what? $3,301/month is 42% more than $2,330/month.

At 66, I can expect to live another 16.28 years (the standard mortality tables are here). So, I can reasonably expect a lifetime return of $455,188.80 - roughly double what my employer and I jointly contributed. That means that you, the taxpayer, are on the hook for about $210,244.56 over the next 16.28 years (remember, I’m retired; I no longer pay FICA taxes since I no longer have FICA income). But if Social Security had been privatized in 1972, you wouldn’t be on the hook for a dime - or a nickel, or a penny - and I would be better off.

Now let’s look at a few other things.

In his Washington Post article, Alan Sloan argued:

Privatization is risky, subject to “market vagaries,” and the potential retiree could be forced to retire just when the stock market bottoms out. He’s right - and I had to. The stock market collapsed in 2008, suffering a 35% drop from which it still hasn’t recovered. And the data above reflects that loss! Even with that 35% drop in 2008, I would still be better off with the privatized system than I am with today’s Social Security.

Social Security is safe. Uh, not really. It’s subject to the whims of the 535 pandering dilettantes, laughingly called Congress, who are rapidly running out of other peoples’ money to spend: the Social Security Board of Trustees report that by 2037, the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted and able to pay out only 78% of current benefits - which ain’t all that great to begin with.

“Most people have no idea how to invest well.” To which I respond “Nuts.” My investment philosophy (invest moderately; diversify; leave it the hell alone) certainly isn’t terribly sophisticated, yet it has worked pretty well. I've been tracking my 401K investments over the last 10 years or so, comparing my investments against the growth of both the DJIA and the NASDAQ market indices. My "diversify/leave alone" strategy consistently outperforms both indices. The “no idea how to invest” trope may have some validity in the short term, but it’s not an argument for a long (40-year) investment horizon.

Former President Bush, in calling for privatization, argued that Social Security provided only about a 2% return on FICA dollars “invested.” Actually, it’s a bit of a stretch to use the term “invested” since most FICA funds are transferred directly from you to current retirees (e.g., me) and only the excess “invested” (at around 2%) in Treasury bills - which are then paid with future taxes.

Privatized Social Security is truly invested - and the long-term real growth has been relatively stable at about 3% above inflation. In my particular case, since 1972, when I first started paying FICA taxes, through last month, when I retired, the DJIA grew at an 8.11% annual rate; inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), grew at an annual rate of 4.45%. Real growth (growth less inflation) averaged 3.66% over the 38-year period.

So ... privatization works. Of that, there is no doubt. It's too late for current retirees (me) to benefit, obviously, and close to too late for our children. But there is time to prevent our grandchildren from becoming poverty-stricken wards of the State.

[Update] Instapundit linked - thanks, Glenn. For those of you who followed Glenn's link, please look around; my home page is here. And please use the comments to let me know what you think of social security privatization.

TAX RATES VS. TAX REVENUES: Thomas Sowell asks if Republicans can talk about economics. Sarah Palin answers by quoting Thomas Sowell.

POLLUTION CAUSES HOMOSEXUALITY - in birds. Oh, my. Can you imagine the hullabaloo if it is shown that the so-called “gay gene” is a mutation caused by pollution?

NO BORDERS: "Those of us in the "enforcement first" camp are often asked when, if ever, we'd admit the borders are secure enough to safely allow for an amnesty. A good question—and a difficult question, because at least one of the preconditions will be hard to pinpoint scientifically. It will be the point at which even activists like Mr. Ramos at least acknowledge that there is a border."

You'll have to scroll down a bit for the border arguments, but read the whole post anyway.

Linked from Instapundit.

BUMPER STICKER seen on Sarah Palin's Alaska on TLC: "VEGETARIAN - an old Indian term for POOR HUNTER."

CALIFORNIA BANKRUPTCY? No Worries! California Is “Going Green". California can be as "green" - and as bankrupt - as it wishes. Just not on my tax dollar.

JEFF JACOBY: Is capital punishment racist?

ENGAGED JUSTICE; not activist justice.

Linked from Instapundit.

THOUGHTS ON RESOURCE ALLOCATION: what's yours is whatever the government chooses to let you keep.

Linked from Instapundit.

THE DIMNESS of our “educated” class. That’s what happens when you switch from incandescent to flourescent.

IT'S SO COLD IN MANASSAS


the cats won't even get out of bed. La Nina has come with a vengance.

NO LABELS: Aiming for the political middle. But funded by ... who?

I think I’ll stick with the Tea Party, thank you.

SUPPORT FOR THE REPEAL AMENDMENT. Instapundit comments: “Judicial reinterpretation is okay, because in recent decades it has accorded with the policy preferences of the Gentry Class.”

"THOSE WHO ARE CONSTANTLY TELLING US that our economic problems are caused by not enough "regulation" never distinguish between regulation which simply enforces known rules, as contrasted with regulation that gives arbitrary powers to the government to force others to knuckle under to demands that have nothing to do with the ostensible purposes of the regulation."

Dated, but still worth reading.

SECRET AGENT: Mystery surrounds cyber missile that crippled Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions.

More, please.

THE GRIZZLIES ARE SHOWING TEETH: What Mr. Olbermann lacks in originality he makes up for with insincere incredulity.

THE CLOCK KEEPS TICKING.


And it’s not a countdown clock.

SUNDAY REFLECTIONS: Obama presidency turns government up to 11. I’d suggest more like 22.

THE FAST TRAIN to nowhere.

A CHANGE OF PLANS may be in order.

EUGENE ROBINSON: “Extend the tax cuts for the richest Americans - in fact, make them permanent. Doing so would increase the deficit by $700 billion over the next decade, but this doesn't matter.”

Yeah, why give them the $700 billion? They’ll just waste it jet-setting it around the globe. Never mind that someone has to build those corporate jets - and fuel them, and fly them, and maintain them, and ....

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD: Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson joins Pulitzer board.

SARAH PALIN’S MEANEST CRITICS: The conservative elite. Colbert I. King would have been on to something if he’d just replaced the single word “conservative” with the phrase “self-appointed establishment.” The rest of his opinion piece is true of both political establishments, and is the reason many of them soon will be gone.

SAVE OBAMA’S PRESIDENCY by challenging him on the left.

The basic platform for such a candidate is clear:

Unequivocally call for an immediate end to the presence of U.S. troops, advisers and private U.S.-based security firms in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, and replace the "war on terror" with a Global Marshall Plan that roots homeland security in a strategy of generosity and concern for the well-being of everyone on the planet.

Domestically, call for a massive jobs program; a freeze on mortgage foreclosures; a national bank that would offer interest-free loans to those seeking to create or expand small businesses; immediate implementation of the parts of the Obama health-care plan that would benefit ordinary citizens and build support for a health plan for all citizens; dramatically lower prices for drugs that treat critical diseases such as AIDS and cancer; a strong tax on carbon emissions; and immediate prosecution of those government employees involved in torture or cover-ups to justify the invasion of Iraq.

This candidate should push for the media to provide free and equal time to all major candidates for national office as well as for constitutional amendments requiring only public financing in elections and, separately, for corporations to prove every five years to a jury of ordinary citizens that they have a satisfactory history of environmental responsibility ....

And who should the challenger be?

Public officials who would make excellent candidates ... include Sens. Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders, Barbara Mikulski or Al Franken; Reps. Joe Sestak, Maxine Waters, Raul Grijalva, Alan Grayson (!), Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich, Lois Capps, Jim Moran and Lynn Woolsey.... Why not Rachel Maddow, Bill Moyers, ...?

Are progressives totally divorced from reality?