BYRON YORK on reasons for the GOP to not fear a government shut down. My take is that the government is so damn dysfunctional now that no one would even notice.

NEW YORK'S UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHERS spends millions on dinners, parties, parking, coffee as thousands of teachers face layoffs.

Layoffs are for little people.

MICHAEL BARONE: Voting for the national interest, not self-interest.

I think the whole thesis is wrong. It's not about national interest, or self interest. It's about control. Americans are fed up with the government's increasing involvement in every facet of our lives.

[More] Related post here.

GEORGE SOROS "is launching a new investment fund that plans to profit off of the 'green energy' boom, which is entirely dependent on government subsidies supported by the groups [that] Soros funds."

It's always easier to make your fortune using someone else's money.

IT WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME: Liberals plan astroturf version of Tea Party town-halls. If they try, I suspect it'll backfire.

Click through to the original article here.

FROM MY EMAIL: We all have to make sacrifices.

President Obama ordered the cabinet to cut $100 million from the $3.5 trillion federal budget.

I'm so impressed by this sacrifice that I have decided to do the same thing with my personal budget. I spend about $2000 a month on groceries, household expenses, medicine, utilities, etc, but it's time to get out the budget cutting axe, go through my expenses, and cut back.

I'm going to cut my spending at exactly the same ratio, 1/35,000 of my total budget. After doing the math, it looks like instead of spending $2000 a month; I'm going to have to cut that number by six cents.

Yes, I'm going to have to get by with $1999.94, but that's what sacrifice is all about. I'll just have to do without some things, that are, frankly, luxuries.

Did the President actually think no one would do the math? (Well, yes. After all, that's one of the benefits of a government education.)

THE U.S. AIR FORCE wants to "hold contractors more responsible for missing development targets" for military space projects by using more fixed-price contracts.

It’s was tried before, when I was working in the industry. It failed then, and it’ll fail again. Cost plus fee contracts are standard in the defense industry for a reason - the development risk is so great that no sane contractor would dare bid on a fixed price basis

And remember, too, that Congress allocates money one year at a time. Would you bid on a 10-year, multi-billion dollar fixed price contract knowing it was funded only one year at a time? Not if you’re sane.

‘BABY JOSEPH.’ Fox News’ Dr. Manny Alvarez comments.

The government should must butt out.

[Update] The hospital has agreed to kill the boy at home.

CHARLIE SHEEN is in an acute psychiatric emergency. So? If he's so intent on killing himself, let him.

COMING SOON TO A DOCTOR NEAR YOU: British doctors told to advise women abortion is safer than giving birth.

National healthcare - bending the cost curve down. Is this the change we’ve been hoping for?

NOVEMBER HAS COME - and gone, so now it’s time for a new bumper sticker.

HOW TO MAKE the Oscars less boring. That’s easy. Turn off the TV set.

THE BOILING OVER OF THE LIBERAL MIND is on full display these days, and it is not a pretty sight.

ENTITLEMENT NATION: ”It [entitlement] is... so ingrained in how we live and think -- somebody else is to blame and must pay -- that we no longer think twice before demanding total satisfaction and expressing outrage when we don't get it.”

Read the full article.

SO MUCH FOR CIVILITY. Call ‘em what they are -- thugs.

DEPRIVATION NATION: Deindustrialization is not a bug, it’s a feature.

FLEEBAGGERS: cut-and-run Democrats. There’s no decision too hard to run from.

FOLLOW THE MONEY: public employee unions are a mechanism by which every taxpayer is forced to fund the Democratic Party.

The complete article is here.

HOW ABOUT THAT: a porky porker. There’s no obesity problem in government.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Wisconsin and the rise of the adolescent mind.

Adolescents hold adult notions of consumption: they understand the comfort of a pricey car; they appreciate the status conveyed by a particular sort of handbag or sunglasses; they sense how outward consumption and refined tastes can translate into popularity and envy; and they appreciate how a slogan or world view can win acceptance among peers without worry over its validity. But they have no adult sense of acquisition, themselves not paying taxes, balancing the family budget, or worrying about household insurance, maintenance, or debt. Theirs is a world view of today or tomorrow, not of next year — or even of next week.

So adolescents throw fits when denied a hip sweater or a trip to Disneyland, concluding that it is somehow “unfair” or “mean,” without concern about the funds available to grant their agendas.

Read it all.

BILL WHITTLE: a reminder of Obama’s friends and enemies. Watch it through to the end.

HOME IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS you should never do yourself. Bah. Of the 10 projects listed, I’ve done every one at least once, most several times, and I finished my last plumbing project just 5 days ago.

Either there are a lot of unemployed home improvement contractors out there (likely), or the health, safety, and enviro-nannies are getting really worried that the basic competence of the American people is showing (much more likely).

DEMOCRATIC SENATE CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE attacks Scott Brown on abuse revelation.

Well, of course. How dare a victim go on to become successful? Doesn’t Brown know that victims are - and must remain - property of the Democratic Party?

OBAMACARE’S race against the cures. It's getting more and more obvious that the progressive Left's solution to rising healthcare cost is to kill off people.

SOMEONE ELSE AGREES:

Congress could restrict federal funding, including student loans, from schools that continue to ban ROTC programs from campus. Freedom isn’t free, and it may be time for the anti-military bigots to learn that their position carries a price.

My post is here.

TEXAS - the (un)PC State


God? On a state-sanctioned license plate? Oh, my, what's this world coming to?

MY THOUGHT EXACTLY.

IS GOVERNMENT HEADED FOR A SHUTDOWN? Fox News readers seem to think so: (53% say yes).

AND SO IT CAME TO PASS. Will Collier’s anecdote is accurate. EADS probably should have pulled a Nixon after the first competition; swallowed hard, smiled, accepted defeat, and gone on to market their version of tanker outside the U.S. market. Today, the well is poisoned; the hard feelings developed over the length of the competition will likely keep EADS out of the U.S. market for years.

On the other hand, I suspect Boeing is having their “WTF (not ‘win the future’) moment.” Now they’re going to have to perform - on a significantly skinnied down contract -- in an environment hostile to even a penny overrun.

More here.

HEH. WHAT IS GOING ON "is the bursting of the lower education bubble."

ALL YOUR THOUGHTS are belong to U.S. Or as more commonly expressed, "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

WITH THIS PRESIDENT, it wouldn't surprise me.

I WON'T PAY: "[I]f citizens quit paying taxes because the government is dominated by cronyism and corruption, the whole lefty feedlot would be gone."

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND lays off all teachers.

Welcome to the real world.

CAUGHT ON TAPE: union thug assaults female videographer. I’m looking forward to reading that he’s been charged with criminal assault, and I’m hoping that she sues the union for millions for failure to control its “protestors.”

COVERING UP: Charlie Martin is right on the merits, but is being unfair to cats.

SHOULD AWOL LAWMAKERS be punished? Overwhelmingly, Fox News readers say yes.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD poised to take a very hard fall -- and it should. And it will, if the pro-life forces just stay quiet on the sidelines.

HARRY REID CALLS FOR BAN on the "oldest profession." He wants to ban politics?

[Update & bump] Nevadans can't stop laughing.

CORE VALUES:

To Republicans, the budget fight has involved the widespread shirking of responsibilities: teachers walking out on students, legislators running away from their offices, even doctors abandoning medical standards to make excuses for perfectly healthy teacher/protesters. To Democrats, the fight has touched a core issue; anything is justified to preserve union benefits.

Read it all.

NO HOPE, but plenty of change. Federal, state and local debt hits post-WWII levels.

HOW THE LEFT sees the union crisis in Wisconsin: “as a battle for power, not income.”

EVERYTHING ABOUT LIBERALISM is tired these days, including its slogans.

GOVERNMENT PENSIONS, an obesity epidemic.

These figures account for why the Obama White House has exhibited its usual robust indecisiveness toward the Wisconsin demonstrators. It needs labor's political muscle, but it must also recognize that it cannot appear on the wrong side of greed. It was one thing when unions went after giant corporations run by guys who played golf at restricted clubs. But when it comes to government workers, we are the boss and we pay the bill. To quote what Sam Spade told the woman he loved in the "The Maltese Falcon," "I won't play the sap for you." When it comes to public-sector unions, my sentiments exactly.

By the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen, no less.

Have Obama - and public-sector unions - lost the Post?

DEATH CHANNELS: a frightening example of how ObamaCare can go wrong.

DOES BIG LABOR’S LOBBYING POWER offset the lobbying power of big business? Not if both feed the Democratic Party.

DEMOCRATS: If I can’t have it my way, I’ll take my ball and go home. Unfortunately for them, Republicans have more balls (pun intended).

NOW IT’S PET OBESITY: Is your dog or cat too fat?

Banfield Pet Hospital, the nation's largest general veterinary practice, ... will track a pet's Body Condition Score ... and be required to give pets a score upon each visit. The scale reportedly goes from one to five; a score of one means your pet is underweight, five means your pet is obese.

Along with the introduction of the Body Condition Score, many in the pet health industry are rolling out Jenny Craig-style packaged dieting programs and, even better, pet treadmills.

In addition, a popular pet care franchise will introduce a new pet fitness program, called the Furry Fitness Challenge to help pets and owners lose weight together.

Whether you're willing to put a doggie treadmill in front of the TV, one thing is for sure -- the pet obesity problem is finally getting the attention it deserves.

No, the pet nannies are getting ridiculous.

COMMENT OF THE DAY: “The government class recoils in horror -- market discipline to them is like sunlight to a vampire.”

OUT OF WISCONSIN, three lessons.

First, the Democratic Party is the party of government, not only because of its extravagant sense of government's competence and proper scope, but also because the party's base is government employees. Second, government employees have an increasingly adversarial relationship with the governed. Third, Obama's "move to the center" is fictitious.

Read it all.

CAIR ATTEMPTS to confront Congressman Allen West, fails miserably.

“TO MAKE SENSE of what's going on in Wisconsin, it helps to understand that the left in America lives in an ideological fantasy world.”

QUESTION: Do you think that private-school teachers are underpaid or that public-school teachers are overpaid? Answer: both.

GO FOR IT: Texas lawmaker's proposal would allow cops to drop off illegals at the doorsteps of members of Congress.

MY GUESS IS, “SHAMELESSLY.”

FIRST A HUMMINGBIRD; now a shark.

JONAH GOLDBERG: How best to end things.

WISCONSIN SENATE can and will pass other bills in Dems' absence. And they should.

UNION PROTESTORS shout down Fox News report on doctors handing out fake excuse notes to Wisconsin teachers. Of course they would; they’re desperate.

AIR FORCE'S aerial tanker competition spurs 'fiercest' lobbying. That's an understatement; you can't turn a radio in the D.C. metro area without hearing a lobby ad. If lies were flies, the air would be unbreathable.

LOSING THE BRAINS RACE: http://reason.com/archives/2011/02/22/losing-the-brains-raceAmerica is spending more money on education while producing worse outcomes.


The only trend line with a pulse is the amount of spending.

THE FACE of the new Democratic Party.

FRESHMAN SENATOR impatient with her colleagues.

As I watched the Sunday talk shows yesterday, everyone seemed to be talking about the possibility of a government shutdown. I have only been here 40 days and may be new to the process, but I must wonder why the Senate is taking this week off if they are so concerned about a shutdown on March 4th.I understand that today is Presidents’ Day, but why not start work this Tuesday instead of waiting another week to get the Continuing Resolution enacted. We are about to hit the “fiscal wall”, yet the Senate is in recess.

On the brighter side, the more the Senate procrastinates, the less damage it can do.

THINK PROGRESS, think stupid: “Talent, apparently, is in short supply on the left.”

HEH: University of Wisconsin to investigate doctors who gave out fake sick notes to protesters.

More here.

I hope some doctors lose their licenses to practice medicine. They won't, but I can hope.

JOHN KERRY: These global warming skeptics are Neanderthals. It’s an honor to be “insulted” by that idiot.

HEH. NUTRITION FOR THEE, ribs for me.

JENNIFER RUBIN educates two Washington Post columnists (Ezra Klein and E.J. Dionne) in one day. Thanks for trying, Jennifer, but it’s a losing cause.

THE NEW ASTROTURF: fake people.

BECAUSE NOTHING is more important than diversity.

Instapundit favors the proposal, "because it will remind people that the U.S. News rankings have only a limited connection to educational quality." I suspect that any serious study would find that diversity is at best only loosely connected with any measurable quality metric.

BUT, BUT ... that's what community organizers do.

DEATH PANELS ARE OK because 'social justice' demands them.

The new medical ethics.

Bonus points: killing off the sick is one way to keep healthcare costs down.

FIGHT OBESITY - quit feeding the government.

WISCONSIN REVEALS class war between Haves and Have Yours.

Taxpayers are becoming acutely aware of the have-yours as a class -- something like Angelo Codevilla's ruling class -- whose gains in salaries and benefits aren't associated with harder work and important innovations but political access. Public-sector unions rallying in Madison aren't even taking a hit for their political activism, given that their protest is made possible by paid sick days, negotiated for them by their collective bargaining units who, it must be said, donate to the very people with whom they negotiate.

I think a more accurate description is a war between the “have nots” and the “have yours.” More here: It's the unions vs. the people.

"EQUALLY SHABBY." It doesn’t apply to liberals, of course. They’re entitled to “something extra” as compensation for the enormous burden of controlling everyone else’s lives.

The original post is here.

WHAT’S “LIBERATING” about socialism?

PUTTING THEIR OWN INTERESTS FIRST. I wrote Monday on DC Council chairman Kwame Brown’s extravagant SUV; today it’s DC mayor Vincent Gray having his problems with an extravagant staff.

LIBERAL WISCONSIN CARTOONIST sides with ... the Governor?

I have progressive values. I believe in gay marriage, I believe in mass transit, I believe in global climate change, I believe in abortion rights, I believe in urban planning and I believe in a single payer health care system. But on the issue of public employee compensation and the role that their unions play in our government, I find myself siding with conservatives.

Follow the link to see the editorial cartoons.

IS LIBYA NEXT? Two libyan colonels flee country in fighter jets after reports they were told to fire on protestors.

ROGER KIMBALL: A Watershed Momemt in Wisconsin.

What happens in Madison concerns not only the fate of some whining school teachers, fraud-abetting doctors, and the left-wing activists who are their enablers. It concerns the shape of this country, its hospitableness to liberty, economic growth, and individual autonomy. It was a battle Madison fought and won in the 1770s. But the price of freedom, as Madison’s rival and colleague Thomas Jefferson observed, is “eternal vigilance.” Our stupendous affluence and power has lulled us into complacency and public profligacy. It is time to wake up. “Two roads diverge in a yellow wood”: you cannot, as Frost put it in his famous poem, take both and be one traveller. Which will it be?

Read the rest.

BURT PRELUTSKY: the good, the bad, and the ugly. My favorite comment: “[T]the Berkeley, CA, City Council would like to roll out the red carpet for two Guantanamo detainees.... My guess is that after a couple of weeks, the jihadists would go running back to Gitmo, begging for political sanctuary, screaming, ‘Those people are crazy!’ ”

GEORGE SOROS: “President Obama has lost control.” The statement presumes he once had control ....

THE MARKET WORKS: the United States has already dramatically cut its emissions and probably has already complied with the Kyoto/Copenhagen goals for reduced emissions. And this has been done without taxes, without regulations and without government intervention.

DEMOCRATS: the real party of “No.”

ANOTHER FOX NEWS POLL: What should Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker do? Draw a line in the sand: If you want to keep your job, get back to work -- otherwise, you're fired (93%).

PLUMMETING DOWN THE ECONOMIC LADDER: a depressing story from an over-50 job seeker.

I can sympathize. As someone in a similar, but much better provisioned boat myself; I can tell you he’s right. For an over-50 with a wide variety of experience, getting a new job today is a matter of who you know and how well you schmooze.

But I continue looking for the same reason I occasionally buy a lottery ticket: even though the odds are on the low side of miniscule, eventually someone wins.

Related article here.

FROM MY EMAIL:

Scientists at NASA built a gun specifically to launch standard 4-pound dead chickens at the windshields of airliners, military jets and the space shuttle, all traveling at maximum velocity. The idea is to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields.

British engineers heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high-speed trains. Arrangements were made, and a gun was sent to the British engineers. When the gun was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurled out of the barrel, crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens, blasted through the control console, snapped the engineer's back-rest in two, and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin, like an arrow shot from a bow.

The horrified Brits sent NASA the disastrous results of the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield and begged the US scientists for suggestions.

NASA responded with a one-line memo -- "Defrost the chicken.”

Long ago, in my high school days, I learned: “First, read the instructions.”

NEW JERSEY GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE speaks to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.

If you don’t have time for the entire speech (1:05), at least watch these excerpts.

FROM THE ‘SO WHAT’S NEW’ DEPARTMENT. Identity politics are nothing more than socially acceptable bigotry.

OUR ‘ELITE’ HAVE SPOKEN: Wounded Iraq veteran gets heckled during Columbia University speech. It is well past time to deny all federal funding - including student loans - to any institution that behaves in such a reprehensible manner.

If I were a Columbia graduate - thank God I’m not! - I would be deeply ashamed of my alma mater.

A PRO-CHOICE CHOICE: shift course or lose. It's too late. The pro-choice movement died when prenatal sonocgrams became routine. We’re watching a movement in its death throes.

JAMES LILEKS on Michele Bachman. Some highlights:

She’s one of those inauthentic women who has not realized that the possession of ovaries requires one to fight for social justice and greater regulation of everything except the Department of Regulations.

[She] was characteristically sarcastic about the first lady’s push for more breastfeeding, as well as new tax breaks for breast pumps, noting she fed five without Fed help.

[S]he doesn’t care what [Chris Matthews] thinks! Has she no decency?

Read it all.

THE THIRD OF FOUR ON MULTICULTURALISM: "It’s a failure. The truth is that in all our democracies, we've been too concerned about the identity of the new arrivals and not enough about the identity of the country receiving them."

No sh*t, Sherlock. Now if only Obama will finally wise up.

ON FEBRUARY 4, the New York Times fired the first salvo in the Left’s quest to delegitimize Justices of the Supreme Court in the runup to what is to be expected to be one of the premier cases of the early century; that of the health care bill.

In November, they lost America; today, they’re losing Congress; so now they’re beginning IPB (intelligence preparation of the battlefield) for the next fight we intend to see them lose.

KATHLEEN PARKER on modern feminism:

Women's liberation worked in ways we might never have imagined. The feminist woman of the left, who burned her bra and insisted that all hear her roar, is today a taupe-ish figure who wonders where things went wrong. The daughter she begat may well be a Republican - a gun-toting, breast-feeding supermom of several who condemns government for being a "nanny" and tells men to man up.

Adding insult to injury, she's also probably considered a "hottie" by the men who stand by admiringly, watching their women show those libs a thing or two about being a "hard-core woman."

And what does a modern feminist wear? "Cargo pants and a very nice plaid T-shirt."

FAST TRAINS: the Obama administration is seeking $53 billion to promote development of fast train lines like those in Europe and Japan. "At least two projects—a proposed Tampa-to-Orlando route in Florida and a planned San Francisco-to-Los Angeles route—would allow trains to reach upward of 200 miles per hour, rivaling trains in Europe and Asia."

There are only two tiny problems: (1) California’s broke, and (2) Florida refused.

SO SHOULD WE expect Harvard and UC Berkeley to double down and drop their engineering curricula?

THE CHICAGO BOYZ - AND THEIR COMMENTERS - have some ideas about how to deal with the AWOL Wisconsin senators. If I were Gov. Walker, I’d take their ideas seriously.

UNION LABOR IS SO EXPENSIVE that not even unions can afford union labor. The solution? Create more homeless. Unions (and Acorn ... and other community activists) can afford to hire the homeless.

SIGH. 'Fully loaded' SUV puts D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown on the spot.

Several weeks after Kwame R. Brown was elected D.C. Council chairman in November, city officials were asked to order for him a "fully loaded" Lincoln Navigator L with a DVD entertainment system, power moonroof and polished aluminum wheels. It had to be black - all black, inside and out - and it had to arrive in time for his inauguration Jan. 2, never mind the District's projected $400 million budget shortfall.

When you’ve got a $400 million shortfall, what’s another $1900/month? And never mind that in D.C., the farthest you can drive in a straight line and stay within the district is 14 miles.

Make 'em all ride bicycles.

WHY ARE THE ZEALOTS obsessed with smoking? And not just smoking, e-smoking.

The short answer is that liberals are Puritans - obsessed with the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

OOPS! THIS MAY NOT have been such a good idea after all. Madison Doctors Give Dr. Note To Andrew Breitbart and Protesters Who Missed Work.

Via Instapundit.

WISCONSIN REPUBLICAN SENATOR: We don’t plan on pursuing criminal charges for missing Democrats.

No, they should plan on recalling and defeating them in the next election. That’s the appropriate punishment.

HOME MAINTENANCE TIPS: (1) don’t put stringy things (like celery tips) in the garbage disposal, and (2) don’t use a toilet plunger to clear the resulting clog.

I knew (1), but there were only a couple, and they were already in the sink, having fallen off the cutting board enroute to the garbage can. Well, the disposer clogged at the diverter, but just barely - water was still flowing through the disposer, but more slowly than normal.

If it had been fully clogged, I’d have crawled under the sink, uncoupled and cleared the diverter, checked the trap, reassembled the whole mess, cleaned up the water that inevitably drips out, and gone about life.

But ... it was still draining, so it clearly wasn’t fully clogged. So I thought that maybe if I put just a bit of overpressure on the diverter clog with the plunger, it might clear out. So I tried it - “one plunge only” to paraphrase the Soviet captain in The Hunt for Red October.

That led to tip #2. Even as gentle as I tried to be, something inside the garbage disposer gave way and I had several gallons of water on the kitchen floor, and more water on the basement floor underneath.

The kitchen - and basement - are now relatively clean (and drying). Tomorrow I go under the sink to remove, and probably replace, the garbage disposer.

Lesson learned - the hard way.

HEH: The Obama administration has a reputation for "transparency," but that's because it’s all talk; when it comes to meeting, lobbyists “are being required to sign a non-disclosure agreement.”

FROM THE LEFT: Obama budget cuts target working poor, middle class and students.

Why don’t we be honest and call “social programs” what they really are -- “slavery programs?”

NERVOUS LIBERALS TO CONGRESS: Get your grubby hands off Social Security.

Robert Greenstein of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said Thursday the debt commission plan [for Social Security] is flawed in ... how it deals with Social Security, and members looking to make it the basis of a plan [to reform Social Security] should be wary.... Greenstein said he originally did not object to reforming Social Security ... but ... rushing to do it now could lead to a botched reform.

“If you try to do everything all at once, you run a greater risk of producing a plan that has serious flaws,” he said.

Well, yeah -- witness ObamaCare, which (if I remember correctly) was a ‘left-leaning’ rush job.

WALMARTS CAUSE CRIME: At least that’s the theory one D.C. politician is using to prevent a WalMart from opening in her district.

Brenda Speaks, a Ward 4 ANC commissioner, actually urged blocking construction of the planned store in her ward at Georgia and Missouri avenues NW partly because of that risk [of petty theft]. Addressing a small, anti-Walmart rally at City Hall on Monday, Speaks said young people would get criminal records when they couldn’t resist the temptation to steal.

Did the commisar, er, ... commissioner stop to think that those same youths she fears could turn to crime could also get jobs? Undoubtedly, since jobs might take them off the welfare plantation.

I PAID FOR YOUR PENSION and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.

CHRIS CHRISTIE to Chris Matthews: I can lose weight ... and you’ll still be stupid.

CHINESE SHENZHOU 8 MISSION could last up to 3 weeks, apparently in preparation for a future manned mission.

The Shenzhou 8 spacecraft will fly with no crew on board, and will be sent to rendezvous and dock with China's Tiangong 1 space laboratory, expected to be launched at some time before Shenzhou 8 flies. The descent module of Shenzhou 8 will return to Earth at the end of the flight, carrying the experiment package.

Interesting. The space laboratory hasn’t been orbited yet, and the “manned” spacecraft will be unmanned. Why am I reminded of carts and horses?

SMARTER CARS? There’s an app for that. As if distracted driving weren’t enough of a problem already.

ANOTHER FOX NEWS OPINION POLL: Would you support a bill ending collective bargaining with public employees? Yes, 90%; No, 7%; Not Sure, 2%.

THE HUMMINGBIRD FLIES:



A new pocket-size drone dubbed the Nano Hummingbird for the way it flaps its tiny robotic wings has been developed by AeroVironment for DARPA. Watch the video at the link.

The next step? The Hellhound Project ....

BAN BOTTLED WATER. But it's not the bottles that are my concern; it’s what’s in them.

THIS AIN’T YOUR DADDY’S UNION. The link to American Majority Action is here.

APOCALYPSE NOW: Wisconsin vs. Big Labor.

DAY BY DAY trys to interview one of Wisconsin’s fleeing Democratic senators.

RANDOM THOUGHT: Who’s picking up the tab for those Wisconsin state senators who fled the state to avoid voting on the union bill. Not the legislators themselves, surely.

WHAT’S NEXT? Liability insurance for children?

Since Democrats don’t drink tap water, someone should check the source of their bottled water for “flavoring.”

OBAMACARE STARTS EARLY IN MADISON: sick notes for progressives. Well, crazy is an illness.

Linked from Instapundit.

PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS are a bad idea.

SENATE APPROVES FAA REAUTHORIZATION: It’s probably a good vote, given that it includes funding for NextGen, the new satellite-based air traffic control system.

But I’m always suspicious when Democrats say it will “support 90,000 current or new jobs and Harry Reid calls it “a common-sense bipartisan bill” that will “create or save 280,000 jobs.”

And then there are the really stupid mandates: to “reduce helicopter noise in rural areas” and “protect and assist pilots who volunteer their services and equipment for the public benefit." What? No more rescue missions from Mt. Shasta after 10:00 pm? Volunteer pilots need protection? From what ... aggressive runways?

TALES FROM THE CRYPT: Aviation Week’s Bill Sweetman reports on the possible development of a new large low-observable bomber.

Background (referred to by Sweetman) here.

TEA PARTY clashes with GOP establishment over defense.

The tension between the Republican establishment and the Tea Party insurgents erupted on the House floor for the first time Wednesday when 110 GOP representatives -- mostly freshmen and some longtime conservative gadflies -- broke from their leadership and most of their caucus in order to kill a defense contract. The vote highlighted an establishment-versus-Tea Party split that was glaring during the campaign season, and brought to the fore the uncomfortable question of defense spending. The amendment, killing the contract for a backup engine for the F-35 fighter, passed 233-198 Wednesday, but 130 of the 240 voting Republicans opposed the cut, including House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor. This puts the GOP majority and its leadership at odds with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who doesn't want the backup engine, and former President George W. Bush, who also tried to kill it.

Will the Republican leadership get the message? Or be thrown out in the next election?

MARYLAND’S DEBT PER RESIDENT is twice Virginia’s.

Maryland's soaring pension deficits are racking up $3,069 in debt for every taxpayer in the state, while their Virginia neighbors are paying only $1,362, according to a report from Moody's credit-rating agency.

[Also] Maryland taxpayers also owe nearly twice as much as Virginians in state-issued bonds, or long-term debt.

We thought seriously about moving to Maryland instead of Virginia when we came here in 2000. I’m glad I took my wife’s advice. That said, though, Virginia isn’t doing much better with its own pension liabilities.

UNION INVESTMENT in Senate Democrats pays off. “Senate Democrats turned back an attempt by Senate Republicans to bar federal employees at the Transportation Security Administration from becoming unionized.”

HOLLYWOOD GLITTERATI on saving us all from the dangers of energy independence. I’d rather save us all from the dangers of Hollywood hot air emissions.

HEH: Wisconsin Liberals Starve Children. It must be part of Michelle's anti-obesity campaign.

FOLLOW THE WISCONSIN PROTESTS: go here and just keep scrolling. Althouse is a University of Wisconsin law professor, lives in Madison, and updates frequently (several times a day).

SARAH PALIN ON WISCONSIN: Union Brothers and Sisters: Seize Opportunity to Show True Solidarity.

Follow the link to her earlier post as well.

Linked from Hot Air.

OBAMACARE IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL, but so are waivers from ObamaCare requirements.

TRACKING. Sarah Palin would be proud.

IN AN EARLIER POST I wrote about Uncle Sam Aunt Nanny entering the electric car charging business. Now Fox News has another “You Decide” poll: 93% opposed.

NASA IS TRYING TO TRACK DOWN several hundred aging travelers who flew to the moon and back 40 years ago and now live quietly across the United States.

The agency announced last week that it is still searching for several hundred "moon trees" grown from seeds carried aboard the Apollo 14 command module that orbited the moon in 1971. Part science experiment, part public relations campaign, the idea was to see whether space flight affected their ability to sprout.

If you know of a moon tree, you can e-mail Dave Williams (dave.williams@nasa.gov), a curator at NASA's National Space Science Data Center in Greenbelt, MD.

WISCONSIN GOVERNOR TO OBAMA: Mind Your Own Business.

"I think we're focused on balancing our budget. It would be wise for the president and others in Washington to focus on balancing their budget, which they're a long ways from doing."

Well said.

TO ESCAPE BLAME, be a victim, not a hero. Does that remind you of a President (and administration) you know?

HOUSE VOTES to defund Planned Parenthood.

OH MY: House passes amendment that would defund Obama’s czars. “I think this sends a strong signal to the president that we are tired of him running this shadow government, where they have got these czars that are literally circumventing the accountability and scrutiny that goes with Senate confirmation.,”

I'LL TAKE THE EXCRUCIATINGLY OBVIOUS FOR $1.6 TRILLION, ALEX.


Linked from Hot Air.

NEVER MIND THE FACTS. We said it, so it must be true.

“TO QUOTE BILL HOBBS, ‘Democrats believe in democracy – except when they lose’.”

The only change I’d make to that statement is to replace ‘Democrats’ with the more general ‘liberals’ or ‘progressives’.

SO IT’S THE MEDIA versus Haley Barbour? Hmm. Which media? The mainstream media? Or the real media?

THE BUBBLE IS BURSTING: UNLV to Fire Tenured Faculty, Close Schools in Face of 'Fiscal Collapse'.

More here.

ALASKA GOVERNOR refuses to implement Obamacare.

TENNESSEE follows Wisconsin’s lead.

DEMOCRATS ON THE RUN. First they left Wisconsin in order to prevent a state senate vote by denying a quorum. They were found in Rockford, IL; now they’re leaving for ”undisclosed locations.” Guess where they were staying in Rockford.

Hypocrisy, thy name is ... well, you get the idea.

THE WISCONSIN PROTESTS: “I’m interested in seeing who shows up Saturday to protest -- to see if the protestors are willing to protest on personal, unpaid time.” -- Marty H.

AND IN MY FORMER HOME TOWN, TOO: "In walks the village idiot, and his face is all aglow." Good imagery.

More here.

CAMERAS: weapons of mass dissemination.

PUBLIC SECTOR UNION PROTEST IN WISCONSIN. Madison schools close for the day to allow teachers to protest Gov. Scott Walker’s union-busting budget plan. Then there’s this.


An Instapundit reader comments: “What do you think would happen if a student in a public school called the principal a dictator and put crosshairs on his face?”

More on the trashing of the Wisconsin State Capitol here.

Disgusting. Just plain disgusting. The Governor should pull a Reagan and fire 'em all. There are plenty of better-qualified unemployed in Wisconsin to more than fill the vacancies.

LEFTIST THOUGHTS on the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Then, of course, there was the enormous human cost to the collapse (increased mortality, a decline in longevity, and massive economic and thus human dislocation and suffering). Finally, certain other world-historic crimes, such as the U.S. war of aggression against Iraq, are unlikely to have occurred if the Soviet Union had remained intact.

Feh! So according to them, it’s better to live a long life in slavery than a shorter life in freedom.

Linked from Instapundit.

JEFF JACOBY: Retire the racial bean-counters.

Racial criteria are irrational, irrelevant, [and] odious to our way of life.
-- Thurgood Marshall, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1967-1991)

And save a bundle of bucks, too.

THE RUSSIAN SPACE AGENCY suggested Monday that a foreign power may have been behind the space accident that disabled one of the country's most modern military satellites earlier this month.

Stuxnet, anyone?

MORE RACISM from the Left.

Anyone who doesn't understand that the progressive left is, at its core, racist is a dunce.

[Update] Violently racist.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW about our ruling class.

HERE’S ANOTHER CONUNDRUM FOR YOU: While listening to the radio this morning, I heard a business analyst type explaining that the unemployment rate would be unlikely to go down anytime soon because manufacturers have found that they can produce as much - or more - with fewer workers than they could pre-recession; therefore there is no incentive to hire more workers.

On the other hand, Social Security is in such bad shape that there is serious talk of both increasing FICA taxes and retirement ages.

Isn’t there just a bit of a disconnect here? What’s the net gain to raising employment taxes and retirement ages on people who are increasingly likely to be permanently unemployed?

SARAH PALIN: The truth behind the White House/s budget spin.

AXE BEATS SCALPEL -- by a factor of nearly 10 to 1.

GLOBAL HAWK orders cut to pay for sensor fix. Yep. It’s the sensors that cost the real money. The aircraft is just a truck.

PUNISH MISUSERS OF BODY SCANNER IMAGES.

[An] amendment by Sens. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to an aviation bill pending in the Senate was approved 98-0 [that] would prohibit anyone with access to the scanned body images, whether security personnel or members of the public, from photographing or disseminating those images. Besides a prison term, violators could be fined up to $100,000 per violation.

So what’s the point? Beyond moral preening, that is. Does anyone with a lick of common sense (there’s that common sense word again. --Ed.) seriously believe that even the most egregious violation will ever be punished by imprisonment or a $100K fine?

THE OBAMA BUDGET: Life is short, eat dessert first. “His policies are all about self-indulgence in the present, to be paid for with either long-run economic decline, or painful sacrifices by future generations.”

Cut the damn budget. It’s too late for a scalpel; it’s time for an axe.

UNCLE SAM charges up electric cars. I dislike saying it, but “I told you so.”

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE DOG when he finally catches the car he chasing? William Jacobson on Shirley Sherrod’s filing suit on Andrew Breitbart.

The cost of defending the lawsuit, at least in the several hundreds of thousands of dollars and probably covered by insurance. The chance to take the depositions of Obama administration and NAACP officials, to investigate Sherrod’s connections to left-wing advocacy groups, and to expose the Pigford case intrigues — priceless.

He gets run over.

NASA BUDGET takes a hit. As expected. There are, however, two potentially good elements. One, increased funding for commercial rocket and space companies to develop transport to the International Space Station; and two, reduced funding for satellite data collection about the Earth and its “changing climate.”

INTERFAX: [Russian] Mission to Mars is possible in 20 years.

THE MAN [OBAMA] has the depth of a sheet of paper.

VIRGINIA ATTORNEY GENERAL Ken Cuccinelli will be testifying before the House Judiciary Committee at 9:30 am EST on the constitutionality of the ObamaCare individual mandate.

It can be seen live here starting at 9:25 am.

An archived version should be available by the end of the week.

STARDUST-NExT MISSION:

On January 15, 2006, the Stardust spacecraft completed one history-making mission and began another. Returning from a rendezvous with Comet Wild 2, the spacecraft approached Earth and jettisoned the capsule containing particles collected directly from the comet, as well as interstellar dust medium. The capsule landed safely and on-target southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, completing the world's first sample return from a comet.

Now this spacecraft is on a new record-setting mission: a visit to Comet Tempel 1. Comet Tempel 1 was the comet previously targeted by the Deep Impact mission, making Stardust-NExT the first-ever follow-up mission to a comet.

The close encounter will occur at 8:48 PM PST today. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory link is here.

[Update & bump] The Tempel 1 images are here.

RANDOM THOUGHT: I wonder how long it will be under ObamaCare until "qualified" health care plans will be able to deny treatment to lung cancer patients because smokers don't deserve treatment.

FUN WITH MATH: the 2012 proposed budget. The New York Times has an interactive graph up of the $3.17 trillion proposed governmental budget up on their website. Some of the more interesting numbers:

$808.04 billion in mandatory spending for the Social Security Administration (which the CBO has stated, barring any reforms, is permanently set to give out more money than it is taking in).

$474.15 billion for interest on Public Debt -- not the principal, just the interest.

$11.57 billion for the Federal Communications Commission, which is best known for making sure that people don't curse on television.

$6.95 billion for the Railroad Retirement Board, a Social Security-style program for railroad workers.

$1.31 billion for Agricultural Marketing Services. Not only does the government subsidize agriculture, they pay for advertisements telling telling you how good those subsidized veggies are for you.

Feel free to find your own interesting ways the government is spending money.

BONUS: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of the United States is 309,050,816, which means that if the $3.7 trillion dollar passes as stands, on average, each individual is responsible for $11,972 for this years budget.

Well, it was nice of Mr. Obama to give me a “heads-up” on my next year’s tax bill.

FOR ONCE I AGREE WITH DANA MILBANK: "With the release of Obama's budget proposal, Washington's budgeting style can instead be described as tiptoeing past the can and hoping nobody notices."

HAS ANYONE SEEN the Liberty Mutual insurance commercial where the guy pulls on the spare tire of a wrecked car to pull out an entire new car? Volkswagen is taking it seriously. Well, almost.

AIRCRAFT DETECTION BEFORE RADAR. As someone much of whose professional career has been spent obsessing over radar detection, tracking, and location, these historical photos of acoustical tracking of aircraft are fascinating.


Notice the azimuth ring to allow for direction finding. The two "antennas" are offset-fed parabolic dishes, much like you see today in satellite cable system antennas. It appears to me that the two are slightly offset in elevation, which would suggest an amplitude monopulse capability to estimate elevation angle as well as azimuth.


The pedestal the men are standing on suggests an azimuth ring for rotation to direction-find in azimuth. The two vertical plane horns on the right suggest a capability to estimate elevation angle. One man probably controls elevation; the other azimuth.


The final picture is clearly an AZ/EL capable system. Most likely the man on the right controls the azimuth-finding horns; the man on the left controls the elevation-finding horns, and the man in the center is a spotter using a telescope for visual detection. Once an aircraft is spotted, he would control fine guidance.

It's interesting to note how the details have changed, but not the process. We use phase interferometry today for the accuracy it provides, but the physical structure hasn't changed a whit.

WE’RE TOO IMPORTANT to give you your money back. DOE to “reinvest” money saved through pay freezes.

HEY YOUNGSTERS, such a deal I've got for you.

Let's see -- you’re 22, right? OK, so here’s the deal ... you give me (at least) 12.4% of your income for the next 45 years (or thereabouts) and when you're 67 (or 68 or maybe 70 or 75) I'll pay you a princely sum (not to exceed 27% - but probably a lot less) of your total final salary each year for the rest of your life.

But wait! That's not all. As a special deal, I'll throw in annual cost-of-living increases (unless I decide not to).

This is an offer you can't turn down (no, really, you can't - it's against the law).

And there are only a few minor (truly minor - miniscule, really) strings attached.

For one, I reserve the right to change the percentage you "contribute" (heh) at any time and on my whim. And by the way, I've done it before - it's never gone down.

For another, right now I'm only demanding 12.4% of the first $106,800 of your income. I may decide up that 'contribution' to all your income at any time. After all, if you earn more than $106,000, you're rich, right? You'll never even notice the added 'contribution.'

Third, right now I'm letting (heh) you retire as early as age 67, but I'll probably up that age soon to 70 or maybe 75. After all, you're going to live much longer and we wouldn't want you to be bored, would we?

And, well, let's see: fourth, that 27% number is pretty generous (hell, it's over one quarter of your pre-retirement income), so I'll only give you that much if you make over the minimum specified in this chart over your entire 45 year (or longer, see above) working life.


If you don't earn more than that minimum, I'll give you a higher percentage of your total average income, but fewer total dollars.

Doesn't that sound really, really good? I'm glad you think so, because ... well, because you have no choice.

Oh. And one last little teensy-tiny string. I reserve the right to completely cancel the program at any time -- sorry, no refunds.

ECONOMISTS SPEAK: Obama, rein in federal spending.

THE WASHINGTON ‘WINK-WINK’ IN ACTION: “talk a great case on the looming fiscal disaster that will befall us if federal spending is not brought under control before the next dawn, but then propose only the smallest possible cuts and do absolutely nothing about the entitlements - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid -- that are literally bankrupting the nation and robbing our children and grandchildren of their futures.”

WHAT BIAS LOOKS LIKE: “One of the things the legacy of racism has taught us is just how good dominant groups are at constructing narratives that justify their dominance. Somehow, the problem is never them. It’s always the out group....”

Read the whole thing and track back to McArdle’s original post. It’s worth the time.

Linked from Instapundit.

MISERABLE FAILURE. “At no point in the president’s 10-year projection would the U.S. government spend less than it’s taking in.”

More here: “Screw You, Suckers.”

WHAT A SURPRISE: EPA in bed with ‘Big Green’.

The ... emergency order is ... just the latest indicator of a growing scandal that illustrates how deeply intertwined are EPA officials and the Big Green environmental activist non-profits that heavily lobby government and the media on behalf of policies and programs that become fund raising tools for their organizations and jobs for their members.”

Our government pays the environmentalists to lobby for additional funding from the very government entities that pay them in the first place. Why? Because they will then demand more regulation - and regulators - to 'protect' the environment.

What a deal.

THE ELECTRIC CAR -- It’s time for America to run with an idea popular in 1905.

Pfft. All the author managed to show is that EVs were as uneconomical in 1905 as they are today. The only difference is that in 1905 the government didn’t subsidize them.

MARS 500 ‘LANDS’ ON MARS: Volunteers participating in the Mars500 program "will on Saturday reach a key stage in an unprecedented one-and-a-half year experiment to study the effects of a mission to Mars when they 'land' on the Red Planet's surface."

PENUMBRAS AND PRIVACY: a short - and enlightening - essay by one of Don Surber's commenters.

The post that led to the comment is here.

INTERESTING: Do corporations have First Amendment rights?

CONSERVATISM IS BACK -- and this time it's serious.

CRONY CAPITALISM: the revolving door spins. And it will continue until government is dramatically downsized.

THOSE IVY LEAGUERS, bitterly clinging to their credentials and their privileged opinion perches....

NASA'S UNCLEAR MISSION wasting big bucks. Surprise, surprise. Here's the money quote: "[T]he agency's inspector general warned that NASA is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars because it lacks a clear direction. The conflict exist because NASA policy legislation ... doesn't match a different law that appropriates money for the agency."

Right hand, meet left hand.

THE FIRST ‘SENIOR MOMENT’:


And that’s why dinosaurs are extinct.

SIGH. Peak Corn? Federal ethanol mandate drives corn supply-to-use ratio to 50-year low.

A short course on the Law of Unintended Consequences should be mandatory before any state or federal elected official takes office.

AN EXCELLENT SUMMARY of the first two years of the United States of Obama.

DUCK AND COVER: I suspect it’s good advice for other natural disasters (hurricanes, blizzards, earthquakes, etc.) as well. Our government's (think FEMA) “run about, scream-and-shout” strategy of evacuating every time Nature blinks does little more than clog the roads to prevent an emergency response.

I trust individual initiative a bit more that the government’s duly-certified ‘we are here to save you’ experts.

For those who are interested, Instapundit frequently posts on disaster preparedness. See here and here. Or if you want more, go to Instapundit and enter 'disaster preparedness' in the search box (right column; scroll down)

FOLLOWING THE TITANIC: The U.S.S. Obama hit a rather large iceberg on election day and it seems the crew is belatedly discovering it’s better to be on the lifeboat than on the ship.

TWO YEARS AGO, Barack Obama was inaugurated as president of the United States. Are you better off today than you were two years ago? Numbers don't lie, and here are the data on the impact he has had on the lives of Americans:


Sources: (1) U.S. Energy Information Administration; (2) Wall Street Journal; (3) Bureau of Labor Statistics; (4) Census Bureau; (5) USDA; (6) U.S. Dept. of Labor; (7) FHFA; (8) Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller; (9) RealtyTrac; (10) Heritage Foundation and WSJ; (11) The Conference Board; (12) FDIC; (13) Federal Reserve; (14) U.S. Treasury.

“PRETTY SOON it may be cool to be a Republican and square to be a Democrat.”

“HIGHER EDUCATION has no special immunity from the angri-culture. On the contrary, it is a privileged haunt for those who delight in scorn, derision, and wrathful dislike of mainstream American culture. We cite academic freedom as guaranteeing our right to be vitriolic.”

Linked from Instapundit.

CENTRAL PLANNING versus the market economy. I wrote about Range Fuels here.

FIGHTING BACK: Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has announced the state will sue the federal government for its failure to secure the border and enforce immigration laws.

REMINDER:Obamacare is a jobs-killer.

THE THOUGHT HAS OCCURRED ....

TEA PARTY WINS: $100 billion in cuts in House GOP spending bill. It’s a good beginning, but only a beginning.

[Update] More here.

JERRY BROWN: a modern-day Sisyphus.

WHY INTELLECTUALS are not conservatives. Money quote: “Unsuccessful businessmen and workers do not have the same animus against the capitalist system as do the wordsmith intellectuals. Only the sense of unrecognized superiority, of entitlement betrayed, produces that animus.”

SCREW ‘EM: Andrew Klavan on the culture.

FROM MY EMAIL: it’s not a good idea to irritate RAF pilots.


The RAF AV-8 Harrier Force's final flypast over the Houses of Parliament following the decision to decommission them. (It’s a photoshop, but still ....)

THE FUNNIEST THING happened on the way to my afternoon nap: I was called back to work - at least for a couple of months. My family responds:

Sister: After your being in "storage" for so long ... hope your co-workers are good with the smell of "moth balls"!

Son: Cool – congrats! That should be just enough time for you to get sick of working again.

Daughter: Remember to be social and ask lots of questions – people hate firing people they like – so maybe you can extend this.

So now you know why posting dropped off a bit.

OTHER THAN THAT, the story was accurate. Us Weekly apologizes to Sarah Palin over using fake quotes.

OBAMA JABBERWOCKY ON TAXES: one man’s loophole; another man’s stimulus. Crony capitalism at its best.

DESTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC MYTHS: supposed 'truths' are toppling America’s financial success.

WHAT LIBERALS MEAN by ‘civility.’

More here and here.

MYTH AND MEMORY: the battle over Reagan's legacy. The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson contributes to the revisionism.

JEFF JACOBY: No room at the table. Jacoby is writing specifically on Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood, but two comments bear thinking about more generally.

Free and democratic societies take chances.... They give citizens the power to elect their rulers ... and the possibility that voters will choose officials who are corrupt or incompetent.

The 2008 Presidential election, anyone?

Democracy is flexible, but even in the best of circumstances it is incompatible with religious totalitarianism.

The same can be said for secular totalitarianism.

GRAVITY ASSIST: Asteroid makes sharpest turn yet seen in solar system. All of our deep-space probes (Pioneer, Mariner, Voyager) have used gravity-assist and it’s long been a staple of good science fiction, but this report is the first one I’ve seen of nature using it. Neat.

SAVE THE BULB; repeal the ban. And watch the video clip.

IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO WORRY ABOUT, here’s an “issue even better than global warming climate change, because it would require shutting down nearly all of industrial civilization entirely, and returning us to the 17th century.”

MORAL HAZARD: when government creates the problems they purport to solve.

IF ONLY THE CAR WAS A PRIUS

COMMERCIAL SPACE: Bill Whittle’s “Free Frontier.”



A larger version is available on YouTube.

JUST ANOTHER WEDNESDAY: Iowahawk on Congressional ethics.

Linked from Instapundit.

SINCE WE CAN’T DRILL FOR DOMESTIC OIL, here is where your gas money is going.


It's a Mercedes Benz owned by an Abu Dhabi oil billionaire (naturally). Featuring the newly developed V10 quad turbo with 1,600 horsepower and 2800nm of torque, it goes 0-100km/hr in less than 2 seconds, a 1/4 mile in 6.89 seconds, and runs on biofuel.

That is not stainless steel, people, it’s white gold.

I'm sure you'll sleep better tonight, knowing that the exorbitant dollars you're paying for gas these days are at least going to a 'good' cause....

“TRYING TO BE MORE CONSCIOUS OF ONE’S OWN BIAS, and even to attempt to work against it, should not be such a hard task for people as brilliant, open-minded, and committed to equality and social justice as I keep hearing that liberal academics are.“

Veronique de Rugy has more.

And the answer is ... three.

GLOBAL WARMING CLIMATE CHANGE SKEPTICS send letter urging Congress not to give into climate alarmists. The letter - with signatories - is here.

MORE BAD THAN GOOD: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.

FEDERAL TAXES are lowest since 1950. Well, yes, I will pay less in state and federal taxes in 2010 (and did in 2009 for that matter) than I did under the Bush Admininstration.

Under the Bush Administration, I was employed.

SARAH PALIN: Obama can pretend to move to the center, but has no desire to.

The video is here (scroll to bottom).

RUSH LIMBAUGH on Keith Olbermann and Current TV: “They’re paying Olbermann in carbon credits,” Limbaugh said. “They don’t have any money to pay [him].”

And with all the hot air Olbermann emits, he’ll need the credits.

DC HANDGUN BAN: It’s been 2-1/2 years since the Supreme Court ended D.C.’s handgun ban. Where are the mass killings?

OBAMA’S ANTI-LOOPHOLE CALL gets a clean-energy exception. But it’s just a little loophole. Tiny, really.

PUNCHING BACK: The Tea Party takes on Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar. It’s gratifying to see the Tea Party take on “establishmentarians” of whatever stripe.

IT’S NOT JUST NEW JERSEY: Legislators offer nothing but hot air on pension, civil service reform.

SUPER BOWL versus science fair. “Most science-fair winners will never be as instantly celebrated as the winners of the Super Bowl, and that's probably as it should be.” Read it all.

POLITIFACT: Obama is making false claims about healthcare and taxes.

What's sad is that he probably believes himself.

‘USEFUL IDIOTS’ SOLD DOWN THE RIVER. Tough luck, progressives.

HEH: Speaking truth to (whiney liberal) power.

SENATE KEEPS aeronautics research within NASA. Good. It is, after all, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The FAA is - and should be - limited to operating the national airspace safely. Period.

BIG GOVERNMENT hurts the economy.



Linked from Hot Air.

ONE DOWN, ONE TO GO: Virginia Senator Jim Webb won’t seek reelection.

GOOD: Republicans move to block health care funding.

HOGWASH! NASA’s mission has always been undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. Astronautics (space) was added to the portfolio in 1958, when the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), but the mission remained the same -- exploration. Manned space is a component - but only a component - of NASA’s mission.