THERAPY CAN DRIVE YOU MAD, finds study on counselling given to 9/11 survivors. But the therapists felt good.

POOR BABIES: Climate change alarmist alarmed they're wrong.

IT'S ALL THE ELDERLY'S FAULT: Why are we in this debt fix? What is the cure? And some people actually agree. This from the comments below the Samulson commentary linked to above:

MarkMacDonald wrote:Thank you Mr. Samuelson for stating flatly what I have believed for many years: seniors are eating the seed corn of the future and there is no end in sight. I am 54 years old and have made a commitment not to live longer than 70. I will work as long as I can and have no desire to retire at all. We all know that the elderly are by far the wealthiest group of Americans and yet their demands on current and future generations are insatiable: they want to retire earlier and the expect more assistance. Medicare currently subsidizes the purchase of Viagra and the natural decline of the sex drive is not described as a medical condition. The nonsense goes on and on.

"Dying early" is surely a fix for the Social Security and Medicare problems, one in which I suspect ObamaCare's 'death panel' will cheerfully accept. The American public, not so much.

Yet Samulson is largely correct; high taxes and the debt crisis are in fact largely attributable to the elderly via Social Security and Medicare. And both those programs are consequences of a badly flawed liberal philosophy. The thinking, such as it is, goes like this: Some elderly are desperately poor, cannot work, and have no resources (e.g., family) to support them in their later years. Therfore the government must provide Social Security support to all the elderly. Similarly, some elderly have significant health problems, do not have, and cannot get - at any price - even marginally useful health insurance. Therefore the government must provide Medicare to all the elderly.

Neither of those philosophical assertions are correct. As a class, the elderly are on the average wealthier than the younger workers paying for them. Some seniors are in need of support, obviously, but not all. And yet the liberal thought process (if such a thing actually exists) expects - no, demands - that seniors retire at 66 (or 67) and sign up for Social Security and Medicare. The programs are structured such that 'opting out' of the liberal Nirvana is very difficult, if not impossible. Why?

STUDY SHOWS Internet Explorer users are dumber. Why am I suspicious of this claim? "A company called AptiQuant, a self-proclaimed 'world leader in the field of online psychometric testing' published the results of an online study ...."

Need I say more?

ON CSPAN coverage of FreedomFest 2011 last night, I watched Don Luskin, author of I am John Galt, discussing Ayn Rand and the Libertarian philosophy. During his presentation, he made one comment I find very telling: "If liberals can't lie, they have nothing to say."

After watching the debt ceiling debates over the last several days, I would amend his statement only slightly: "If liberals can't lie or make excuses, they have nothing to say."

HERESY: The System Is Working. I just wish it would be a little more efficient, but then it is inefficient by design.

"BEHIND THE CURRENT MESS and shrill rhetoric in D.C. are these two larger competing visions — the belief that the Obama agenda is the road to serfdom for everyone, and the belief that it will result in a long-overdue equality of result."

I don't want to be hobbled by "equality of result" - I believe hard work should mean something.

HYPOCRISY ABOUNDS in the Liberal mind. For 2-1/2 years the Obama administration and liberal media have blamed George W. Bush for all the nation's problems. Now that that fantasy is no longer working, it's time for a change - blame George H. W.Bush. Now the fault lies with Bush I's agreement -- in response to Democratic pressure -- to raise taxes.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO: "Save the Whole House or It Will All Burn Down."


Long, but worth every second. Watch it all.

SPACE-X eyes November 30 for a cargo launch to the International Space Station. And on only its second flight.

"WE'RE TRYING to save life on this planet as we know it today." And there's no place left for intelligent life to go.

I MISSED THIS: House votes on Reid's debt bill, before he offers it, and defeats it -- with Democratic help.

WASHINGTON IS ANNOYED at Wall Street's failure to panic. As I pointed out early in the Obama administration, I believe businesses, large and small, recognized the Obama administration for the incompetent boobs they proved to be and made their plans accordingly: continue business as usual where they could, and sit on their hands where they couldn't. Four years may be an eternity in politics, but in the business world, it's just 4 years.

[Added] My guess is that the stock market will decline another percent or two and then remain relatively stable until the 2012 elections.

Linked from Instapundit.

FLIPPING THROUGH THE CHANNELS ON TV a few minutes ago, I happened to catch Democratic Sen. Boxer's speech in the Senate, then on another channel, Republican Rep. David Dreier. At that point it came to me: Republicans argue facts; Democrats argue fantasies. Which, I guess, is why rainbows and unicorns are so popular.

IN THE WASHINGTON POST, another insane leftist rant attiributing the attacks on non-muslim children in Oslo last week by an obviously deranged Norwegian to anti-Islamic (e.g., Christian) white supremacists (e.g., right-wing extremists).

Read the whole thing, and then ask yourself: Is there any mention of the Muslim attacks (plural) on Ft. Hood? Is there any mention of the Muslim attacks (again plural) on the World Trade Center? Is there any mention of the Muslim attacks (again, plural) on our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya? Or the Muslim attack on the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen? Or the beheadings, which are too numerous to count?

The Left has a very short memory.

THE SENATE is trying to bring the (still unread) Reid deficit bill up for a vote. Senate Minority Leader McConnell is continuing to resist until an acceptable "trigger" is agreed on. I would suggest that the Republicans would agree the debt ceiling increase if the "trigger" was an agreement by the President to not run for reelection in 2012.

WHY I'M SCARED OF OBAMACARE: "One of the problems with socialized medicine is that it pretty much destroys–or entirely destroys, depending on a given country’s laws–the private provision of medical services. Thus, when the socialized system begins to crash and burn, as it inevitably will, citizens have nowhere else to turn."

And those of us who are on - or eligible for - Medicare will be first in the line to nowhere.

ACCORDING TO the Washington Post's Colbert I. King, the Obama administration's dismal performance can be attributed to one Rush Limbaugh.

Forget the "Bush did it" mischaracterizations throughout the King commentary for a moment and let me ask two simple questions: First, what was Obama's approval index on January 20, 2009? And second, what is his approval index today? The answers are +28 in 2009 and -21 today -- a difference of 49 points.

Now clearly Rush Limbaugh has many fans, but not that many.

ROBOTS GO ON STRIKE: Instapundit asks "Have they unionized the robots too, now?"

SURE, higher taxes are the answer.

THE COUGAR BEHIND YOUR TRASH CAN. I agree with Instapundit: "Anybody who wants to kick me off the apex of the food chain had better be prepared to wind up as a rug." Only in my case, it would be Presidential dinner.

THE PRESIDENT IS IN SERIOUS TROUBLE:


The data is from the Rasmussen presidential approval index for the 2011 calendar year. Back in April, the "undecideds" - those who moderately approve or disapprove - strongly increased, with about equal percentages taken from those with strong feelings. In July the "undecideds" moved en masse to strong disapproval.

Obama's approval index today is at -21, a number which has been exceeded only 5 times (-22 on 5/26/2010, 8/11/2010 and 3/15/2010, -23 on 9/5/2010, and -24 on 9/9/2010).

I'VE POSTED on quadracopters several times before. Now the Georgia Robotics and Intelligent Systems Lab has developed robots "that work together to build a mobile landing pad for a quadcopter while it's in flight." Here's the video.

BACK IN MAY, Power Line, in conjunction with the Freedom Club, offered a grand prize of $100,000.00 to whoever could most effectively and creatively dramatize the seriousness of the federal debt crisis. Here are two of the final entries: "Passing the Buck" and "Digging a Hole."

Check in with Power Line for more.

THE CARRIER-BASED VERSION of the F-35 Lightning II stealth combat aircraft has successfully completed its first catapult launch test. Video at the link.

THE WASHINGTON POST'S EUGENE ROBINSON says that liberals need “a Big Idea” if they don’t want to lose the next fight the way they lost the debt limit fight. Uh, how successful was their last "Big Idea" -- ObamaCare?

FINALLY, THE BEGINNING of a contingency plan: "The U.S. Treasury will give priority to making interest payments to holders of government bonds when due if lawmakers fail to reach an agreement to raise the debt ceiling, according to an administration official."

DEBT REDUCTION IDEA: quit funding the United Nations.

THE THREE RING CIRCUS: In Ring 1, the House passed the Speaker's deficit bill; in Ring 2, the Senate tabled it; and in Ring 3, the President is twittering madly from the sidelines.

Yes, I know the proper term is "tweeting," but "twittering" is so much more descriptive.

SPENDITOL: a cure for the debt crisis.



Senator Tester is not amused.

REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE THAD MCCOTTER: ideology [is] the "Science of Idiocy."

LOST IN SPACE: global warming. Can we convince Al Gore to go get it back?

MONTGOMERY COUNTY (MD) drops the ball on BRAC. For that matter, so has the state of Virginia. I know I'll be telecommuting when (if) I return to work.

DOES PRESIDENT OBAMA even read what is put in the teleprompter before he delivers it?

On Monday night, Obama claimed that "because neither party is blameless for the decisions that led to this problem, both parties have a responsibility to solve it." But just three paragraphs earlier, Obama put the blame for our $14.3 trillion debt squarely on President George W. Bush, claiming that "trillions of dollars in new tax cuts," "two wars" and "an expensive prescription drug program" caused government surpluses to turn into annual deficits. This despite the fact that in only three years Obama's spending has added $3.7 trillion to the national debt.

Almost certainly not; talking points need not be consistent.

BIG GREEN blocks an oil pipeline, sacrificing thousands of jobs.

SHOCKER: South Caroline Governor Nikki Haley isn't white! Best comment: "Bobby Jindal should also be exposed --- his real name isn't Bobby. What is he trying to hide? These two governors have some nerve achieving so much without the help of affirmative action. It makes all those other 'people of color' look bad."

Linked from Instapundit.

NYT COLUMNIST PAUL KRUGMAN (!) calls the Reid plan “a huge victory for the right and defeat for progressives.” So pass the Boehner plan and make it an even bigger victory.

DEMOCRATIC LAWMAKER: ‘Nobody I know’ has seen Reid plan. Channeling Nancy Pelosi, "They have to pass it before they can read it."

PRESIDENT ON SIDELINES in critical battle over debt ceiling. On Fox News' Special Report a few nights ago, Brit Hume called him a 'potted plant' in the White House. I think that's accurate.

MAYBE APPLE should run the government.

ALLEN WEST: an American hero.

ONLY IF FORCED: Is the President in recovery?

THE GREAT DEBATE: Candidate Obama vs. President Obama. Need more be said?

NEW YORK TIMES reader kills dozens in Norway.

MICHAEL BARONE: "The intended purpose of legislation like the stimulus package and Obamacare was to improve the situations of those least able to take care of themselves -- the young, the less educated, the low-skilled. But it is just such groups that, the Pew Research Center numbers show, have been moving away from the president's party. An instructive achievement, no?"

GOP: The Grinch who stole Christmas. If nothing else, one must admit the Democrats are creative in their excuses for failure.

HEH. "Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., is an officer and a gentleman, a career soldier elected to Congress in the 2010 midterms. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., is a shrew and a feminist (perhaps we repeat ourselves), and also a demagogue, fond of blaming her foes for wanting to starve little children."

OBAMA — Huey Long with a better tailor.

TO SOLVE THE DEBT CRISIS, my wife suggested selling the White House furniture. Unfortunately I think China has already bought the White House and everything in it.

THE WHITE HOUSE: expensive, inefficient, and highly toxic. Chris Muir (Day by Day) summed it up very well.

IS MICHELLE OBAMA trying to kill me? Uh, yes.

ANDREW KLAVAN EXPLAINS where money comes from.


Hat tip Instapundit.

THOMAS SOWELL: Obama's 'Balanced' Approach.

WHY DEMOCRATS are not so enamored of the Fair Tax. "[I]t doesn’t offer much in the way of opportunities for graft."

OOPSIE! NASA Satellite Data Blows Big Hole in Global Warming Models. How long will it take Democrats to press to defund NASA as part of their deficit-reduction plan?

HOUSE HEADS FOR BOEHNER VOTE: strictly along party lines.

I'm leaning toward believing that the debt relief bill will eventually pass for the simple reason that with an execution looming, even a 6-month reprieve looks good.

DOJ IS PROBING if state voter ID laws are racially discriminatory. Of course they are; the pictures are in color.

WE SCREWED UP; but it's your problem.

INSTAPUNDIT PREDICTS that his cat - if he had a cat - could beat President Obama in the next election. Well, since Democrats seem to have an obsession with "fat cats," I thought Diamond might be willing to run. She's a fat cat, female, mixed race, comes from a broken home, is willing to live on a salary of milk and (tuna) cookies, and has read Atlas Shrugged. In short, she is a perfect Republican candidate.


When I asked her, her reply was "Nyah." But she might be susceptible to a "Draft Diamond" movement.

INSTALANCHE: Thanks, everyone. Please stay and look around. In the meantime, Diamond promises she will look for her birth certificate.

THE OBAMA DOCTRINE: Apologize.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: the man without a plan. Oh, hell, he has a plan: the "Robbing Hood" plan. Spend whatever he wants, on whatever he chooses, and steal whatever he needs. Robbing Hood doesn't need a budget.

SHARED BY WHOM? "It is clear we must enter an era of austerity; to reduce the deficit through shared sacrifice."

WALTER E. WILLIAMS: Job Destruction Makes Us Richer.

I agree with Williams, but ... what is happening to all those entry-level jobs that are the 'first rung' on the success ladder? When I was a kid, there were jobs, like pumping gas and cleaning windshields at the local gas station, that could lead further - say auto mechanic or station owner - without further formal education. Now, though, it seems to me that that path is slowly disappearing. Formal education is a de facto must. And let's face it: our educational system stinks and every dollar the government pours in makes it worse.

OBAMANOMICS and the race to poverty.

ENCELADUS is raining on Saturn.


Enceladus spews some 4,000 gallons/minute by way of huge water jets emanating from its southern polar region. A few percent of that makes its way to a "water ring" around the planet.

ONE IN EIGHT SMALL BUSINESSES get insurance cancellations after ObamaCare passage. And the result?

It also demonstrates one reason why businesses aren’t enthusiastic about expansion. Under these circumstances, businesses can’t price the costs of their existing staffs, let alone additions to them through capital investment and expansion. When risk can’t be quantified with some degree of certainty, then risk simply isn’t taken — and we get the stagnation we’ve seen for the last two years.

Explain to me again why ObamaCare is good for the nation.

THE ROAD TO SERFDOM: More Debt, Less Leadership. The advantage to 'leading from behind' as Obama does is that he'll be the last one over the cliff.

WILL DEMOCRATS have to pass Reid's plan in order to see what's in it?

You betcha; they're good little sheep.

A REASON TO PROMOTE GLOBAL WARMING? D.C.'s murder rate plummets as temperatures soar.

DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN: Grading the deficit reduction plans.

McDONALD'S TO REVAMP HAPPY MEALS because you’re too dumb to watch what your kid eats.

WHY WOMEN should carry concealed handguns. Not just women.

UNLIKELY: Will ObamaCare's Consumer Protections Actually Protect Consumers? Even with "Mediscare" I'm pretty sure I'll be hurt.

UNBELIEVABLE: Obama White House Stubbornly Refusing to Release Any Written Debt Plan.

Unbelievably incompetent.

ONCE AGAIN the funnies grasp the problem.

THE APPLICATION of risk management during project definition. Unfortunately, for too many no risk is too much risk. Here's an example.

JOY TO THE WORLD: the King is crumbling.

GOLD DIGGING 101: soon to be offered at Berzerkley Berkeley and other colleges will follow.

THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS when you're forced to fight with both hands tied behind your back: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs described the NATO campaign in Libya as a “stalemate” at a Pentagon press briefing yesterday.

OBAMANOMICS hits Hispanics the hardest. Perhaps they'll learn in time for the next presidential election.

ASIDE: Since I'm always looking for good Mexican food, I think I'll try to find this restaurant. Downtown Woodbridge is only about 10 miles away.

TERRANCE MALKINSON: The American Cowboy. From the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), no less.

EXPECT A RESURGENCE of the "Welcome to Texas - now go home" bumper stickers: Need a Job? Move to Texas.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON on Our Ten-Trillion-Dollar Man:

[T]here is fear that at some point in the future, Obama will not be known as the first African-American president. Nor will he be cited even as the hope-and-change phenomenon of 2008. Instead, posterity shall know him as the single greatest borrower in American presidential history, a novice who nearly wrecked the U.S. economy by borrowing over $4 billion a day without any feasible proposal how to pay back such a vast sum — taking a post-recession recovery and turning it into a stagflationary mess. In the third year of his tenure, Obama is still left only with “Bush did it” as an explanation of what went wrong.

Read it all.

MEGAN MCARDLE explains yesterday's dueling press conferences:

There's an old Soviet joke that a friend once told me. An old man has been standing in line for bread for eight hours. His feet hurt, his back hurts, and he is faint from hunger. Finally, finally the door opens and the baker comes out. He starts to salivate. He fingers the rubles in his pocket.

"Comrades, go home," says the baker. "There is no flour to make bread today."

Something in the old man snaps. He has been waiting in these lines for decades, and he has had enough. "This is ridiculous!" he shouts. "I fought in the Great Patriotic War! I worked for forty years in the factory! Now you make me wait in line for eight hours when there's no flour? You didn't know this eight hours ago? I spit on you, and I spit on the regime!" And he spits in front of the baker.

A man steps out of line behind him. "Careful, comrade. You know how it would have been in the old days if you had said these things." With his thumb and forefinger, he mimes a gun being fired at the temple.

Defeated, the man steps out of line and trudges home with everyone else. He goes into his apartment and sits down at the table. His wife walks in just as he pours the last of his vodka into a glass, and drinks it down in one gulp.

"Sergei, what's wrong?!" she cries, seeing the look on his face. "Don't tell me they're out of bread!"

"It's worse than that. Much worse." he says heavily.

"What could be worse?"

"They're out of bullets."

She's not optimistic.

WATCH IT: Baby Talk on the Deficit.

OBAMA TO BANKS: We're not defaulting. No, we'll just throw Granny under the bus.

AFTERBURNER: Bill Whittle goes to Miramar.

A 'TWOFER' IN TODAY'S WASHINGTON POST. The Post's two resident knotheads offer these opinions:

Eugene Robinson: Was the Norway killer inspired by Internet hate?

My only surprise with Eugene is that it took him so long to find an excuse to publish this idiocy.

Richard Cohen: Of course Bachmann does not deserve to be in the presidential race. Legislatively, she has done little, she knows next to nothing and what she thinks she knows is wrong.

Substitute "Obama" for "Bachmann" and ask yourself if Cohen said anything similar in the 2008 Democratic primary campaign.

FEDERAL AUDITORS will soon review health insurance rates in 10 states. So I can expect my insurance rates to rise sooner - and more - than expected.

THOMAS SOWELL on the debt ceiling. I tend to disagree with Sowell about the usefulness of the debt ceiling; if nothing else, it does periodically call attention to the problem of government overspending. But I do understand this comment: "'If you didn't invite me to the big take-off, don't invite me to the crash landing.' This was Obama's big spending spree, but 'bipartisanship' requires Republicans to either split the bill or be blamed if the government shuts down or defaults."

ANOTHER CONGRESSMAN bites the dust. At least he might not have to vote on the debt ceiling.

PLEASE don't wake the baby.

CAN YOU IMAGINE the uproar in the U.S. if the government - even partially - funded the restoration of a Christian church?

GROW YOUR OWN CHAIR


From my email.

SLOWLY? Obama May Be Slowly Isolating Himself.

NO, MR. OBAMA, You Cannot Balance the Budget With Rainbows and Unicorns. You may have to register to see the video. It's worth it.

HANG TOUGH, MR. SPEAKER. For those of you that think small business and the elderly support the administration's economic plans, read here and here - especially the comments.

PULSEJET TECHNOLOGY: Can the Millennium Falcon really fly?

Linked from here, complete with gratuitous Nazi comment.

CONGRESS not expected to act soon on FAA extension. As I predicted, keep the essential services going and no one will notice.

It's not the best way to downsize government, but it works.

MAKES SENSE TO ME: "A rising tide of D.C. voters and elected officials is calling on Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. to resign after he agreed to pay the city back $300,000 he was accused of stealing."

To leave him in office would just be giving him a chance to re-steal the $300K. But knowing D.C. voters, he'll remain in office unless convicted - and even then, I wouldn't bet against.

PAUL KRUGMAN: means-testing Medicare “is an even worse idea, on pure policy grounds, than even most liberals realize.” Even stopped clocks are right twice a day ....

ALMOST: Are We Broke Yet?

Linked from Instapundit.

WE REACHED THE MOON - and abandoned it - in my lifetime. Now it's beginning to look we'll abandon manned space in my lifetime as well.

MICHAEL BARONE: To Get a Mandate, GOP Must Win Another Election.

HOW OBAMA SAVES/CREATES JOBS: Replace High-Paying Energy Jobs with Low-Paying Housekeeping Jobs.

DON'T FEEL OBLIGED TO COME BACK: Quaids Say California Corruption Preventing Their Return From Canada.

FROM POTUS TO (IM)POTUS: Obama Now Leading From the ... Sidelines.

JEFF JACOBY: "Could Michele Bachmann become the next US president? I have no idea. But this much I do know: She wouldn't be the first one to live with migraine headaches."

PERHAPS OBAMACARE WON'T DO TOO MUCH DAMAGE: Utah's Health Insurance Exchange Is No Great Success.

"[I]T'S BECOMING more and more clear now that Democrats may be actively be trying to spook financial markets in the hopes that Republicans will bear the brunt of the blame." Read it all.

OH, DANG. I'm still going to get my Social Security check.

ANOTHER CATASTROPHIC FAILURE OF GUN CONTROL. Follow the links.

BONEHEAD STUPID. I saw this at a payment window recently.

If your check is dishonored or returned for any reason we will electronically debit your account for the amount of the check plus a processing fee of $35.00.

Uh, yes. If your check bounces, we'll add $35 to it and electronically send it to the same bank that refused it the first time.

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, go fly a kite.

PEGGY NOONAN: Out of the Way, Please, Mr. President. The President might not have been smart enough to take Noonan's advise, but Speaker John Boehner was: "I have decided to end discussions with the White House and begin conversations with the leades of the Senate in an effort to find a path forward."

LAME DUCK PRESIDENT: 2012 can't come soon enough.

"AS NASA RETREATS from an ambitious human spaceflight program for the foreseeable future, foreign countries are moving ahead with their own multibillion-dollar plans to go to the moon, build space stations and even take the long voyage to Mars." I will not be surprised to see a significant number of space workers expatriate to countries with active space programs.

ON THE DEBT: reality and repercussions. Read it all, particularly reader Michael McFatter's comments, with which I tend to agree. Speaking broadly, those of the liberal progressive persuasion seem to genuinely believe that money comes from ATMs and electricity from wall outlets. That it is not so is completely beyond their comprehension.

YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK: FAA Orders Pilot to Give Himself Surprise Drug Tests.

Does the government over-regulate much? A helicopter pilot who runs his own one-pilot charter company has been ordered by the FAA to adopt a random drug testing program, with the same requirements as major airlines. In other words, "I'm responsible for periodically surprising myself with a random drug test," says Philip Greenspun, the only official "safety sensitive" employee in his small company.

Recently, Greenspun wrote to Cato-at-Liberty.org, elaborating on how an FAA inspector took a look at his company's drug testing policy, and found it wanting. In order to comply with government regulations, as an employer Greenspun must undergo training that would enable him to recognize when an employee is on drugs, presumably so he can bust himself.

As an employee, he needs to take another training course so that he'll know about the many ways his employer can surprise him with a random drug test. "So really I'm learning about how I might trap myself," he says.

Doesn't the FAA have anything more important to do than regulate drug testing at a one-man show? Apparently not. Greenspun reports that about five minutes after the FAA inspector left, he received a call, from none other than the FAA, wanting to schedule an audit of his drug testing program. At least he won't have a problem rallying his staff.

From my email.

FAA HAS PARTIAL SHUTDOWN. Nobody notices.

From the comments: "Think of it as a defunding test case and an exercise in prioritizing funds expenditures so that the money available is effectively spent rather than spread around in a thick layer, like [the] wastrels usually do."

A PROLIFERATION of robot babies.

THE END OF AN ERA: Atlantis reentry, captured from the International Space Station.

BERNIE MARCUS: Obama Is Choking Recovery.

JONAH GOLDBERG: The Terminology of Taxation.

AFTER YESTERDAY'S performance by the President, Speaker Boehner was right. It's time to take the keys back.


The cartoon is here.

WHY OBAMACARE MUST BE REPEALED: It Should All Be Free.

THANKS, MR. PRESIDENT: "U.S. taxpayers likely lost $1.3 billion in the government bailout of Chrysler, the Treasury Department announced Thursday."

I'M CRAZY, and it's the Republicans' fault. (You may remember Amanda Marcotte from the ill-fated John Edwards presidential campaign.)

OOPS! Wrong Borders.

PAUL GREENBERG: No Time to Go Wobbly.

Plus this: "The progression of American leaders since 1787, the year of the constitutional convention, should be enough to instill a little humility in even the most fervent believer in the evolution of man."

THE OBAMACARE EFFECT on employment.


ObamaCare was signed into law on March 23, 2010. Enough said.

WHAT A SURPRISE: Congress regards NASA as a jobs program.

END OF AN ERA: The Atlantis has landed.

THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: What's next?

"We're trying to tell people it's there," Suffredini told SPACE.com. "A lot of people don’t know its there, sadly enough. And in a lot of cases people don’t know what it can do for them. We need people to know it's an asset out there they can utilize and there's all kinds of benefits if we can figure out how to utilize it."

'How to utilize it' should have been known before the ISS was built.

PAUL GREENBERG on the 'mercy killing' of Britian's News of the World.

OBVIOUSLY the ethics didn't take.

EDUCATION IS WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT -- and it's the Bush administration's fault. Of course.

HAS IT BEEN 42 YEARS ALREADY?

POPULATION CONTROL might not be a bad idea if it is liberals whose population is being controlled.

POVERTY, AMERICAN STYLE: "In contemporary America, poverty is not so much a material condition as a spiritual one, often characterized by drug abuse, alcoholism, mental illness and illegitimacy. Until voters have a better understanding of what today’s poverty is and is not, it will not be possible to craft effective solutions to the very real problems–mostly behavioral–that afflict a significant portion of our population."

HOW TO ACHIEVE A BALANCED BUDGET: don’t pass an increase in the debt ceiling. Make government live within its means right now.

U.S. SUPREME COURT again rejects most decisions by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "... the 9th Circuit was often out of step even with the high court's liberal justices, who joined with the conservatives in 12 unanimous rulings."

SPACE NEWS: The MightyEagle is landing.

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER REID is giving "Dirty Harry" a bad name.

HEH: Shared Sacrifice.

THOMAS SOWELL on Good Things.

WHO WILL BE HELD RESPONSIBLE in the Atlanta Public School Cheating Scandal?

The children, obviously. If they had done better on the exam there would have been no need for the school system to ... er, "modify" their test scores.

"UNLESS WE come to grips with spending now, there isn't going to be a future."

"THERE IS NO RATIONAL REASON why a small republican experiment in 1776 grew to dominate global culture and society -- except that America is the only nation, past or present, that put trust in the individual rather than in the state and its elite bureaucracy."

Read it all.

BOOSTER CAMERA VIDEO from the Atlantis launch. Cameras mounted on the two solid rocket boosters that helped propel space shuttle Atlantis into orbit on July 8 provide unique angles of the launch from the Kennedy Space Center and their subsequent water landing downrange in the Atlantic Ocean.

The whole sequence is about 30 minutes long, 5 minutes each from 6 embedded cameras. SRB separation is at about 120 seconds in each video; then the remaining video is of the booster tumbling in reentry before the parachutes open for landing at about 400 seconds.

FIRE THE MBA'S and put engineers in charge. "[M]oving numbers around can do only so much. Over the long haul, you've got to invent or improve real products and services to grow."

THE GREAT CHARADE: The spenders are negotiating among themselves how much debt they’re going to burden you with.

Read it all.

DEFICITS ARE A GRRRL'S BEST FRIEND: And this is what passes for education these days? The only intelligence is in the comments.

FROM MY EMAIL: a little history of Social Security. Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. He promised:

1.) That participation in the Program would be completely voluntary;

2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes into the Program;

3.) That the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year;

4.) That the money the participants put into the Independent 'Trust Fund' rather than into the General Operating Fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other government program; and,

5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.

Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month -- and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the federal government to 'put away', you may be interested in the following:

Q: Which political party took Social Security from the Independent 'Trust Fund' and put it in to the General Fund so that Congress could spend it?

A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the Democratically- controlled House and Senate.

Q: Which political party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

A: The Democratic Party .

Q: Which political party started taxing Social Security annuities?

A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the 'tie-breaking' deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the U.S.

Q: Which political party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?

A: Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party.

Even though the email is clearly partisan, the lesson to be learned is nonpartisan: the Government is under no compulsion to honor the terms of a contract. Which is why I strongly favor privatization (it's also a better financial deal).

FLASHBACK: Every Democrat in the Senate voted against raising the debt ceiling in 2006. To be surprised would be to assume politicians have convictions.

TEXAS GOV. RICK PERRY used to be a Democrat! And, um, so did Ronald Reagan.

QUOTE OF THE CENTURY: "Frankly, I don't know what it is about California, but we seem to have a strange urge to elect really obnoxious women to high office. I'm not bragging, you understand, but no other state, including Maine, even comes close. When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to Washington, we're number one. There's no getting around the fact that the last time anyone saw the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Maxine Waters, and Nancy Pelosi, they were stirring a cauldron when the curtain went up on 'Macbeth'. The four of them are like jackasses who happen to possess the gift of blab. You don't know if you should condemn them for their stupidity or simply marvel at their ability to form words." -- Los Angeles Times columnist Burt Prelutsky.

From my email.

AND YOU'RE SERIOUSLY going to tell me that the federal debt ceiling must be raised? "The federal government helped fund a study that examined what effect a gay man's penis size has on his sex life and general well-being."

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON on St. Obama and the Debt Dragon.

The annual deficit and the aggregate debts are so massive that all the talk of a few billion cuts here and there, or even a trillion or so, means little. To save us, we would have to slash two or three entire departments (e.g., perhaps energy, education, agriculture, etc.), end all agriculture subsidies, raise the retirement age, freeze cost of living raises for Social Security, clamp down on food stamp and entitlement abuses (almost 50 million now receive them), and do far, far more — while encouraging the private sector to drill, mine, grow food at unprecedented rates, as government trimmed regulations and revised the tax code to encourage wealth creation.

So let's do it. Especially the part about slashing 2 or 3 departments.

JEFF JACOBY on the light bulb ban: "[It] may not be the biggest issue on the nation's agenda. But it's intrusive and obnoxious and it sets many teeth on edge."


Life in ObamaLand ....

IS IT 2012 YET? Just undo it.

TAX LOOPHOLES ARE BAD -- unless it's my loophole.

WHY COLLEGE EDUCATION FAILS: "In the same time period [1975-2008] the total number of administrators rose 221 percent, from 3,800 to 12,183." Follow the link for details.

A BRIEF HISTORY of the U.S. Federal Government and Innovation: From World War I through World War II (1917 – 1945).

I posted Part I here. I'm hoping for a Part III picking up in 1945, since my own areas of professional expertise (communications technology and radar) have their origins -- at least of interest to me -- in the immediate post-WWII period.

WHOLE FOODS, half wits.

OOPS! 'Carmageddon' fails. As predicted.

More here: "Our public officials are increasingly more interested in lifestyle hectoring than in actually doing their jobs."

WHICH PRESIDENT is Barack Obama most like? I had a hard time choosing between Jimmy Carter and Zaphod Beeblebrox.

From the comments, I would judge that Obama is in a class by himself ....

THINGS THAT MAKE OBAMA CRY make me laugh. Be sure to scroll to the bottom.

YOU SAY "GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN" like it's a bad thing. My favorite comment: "I've just 'survived' the mayhem of the Minnesota State government shutdown, where we learned that it is the function of state government to license beer labels. Bring on the Federal Government shutdown."

We should shut the whole thing down and then restart only those parts the people notice.

Linked from Instapundit.

SPACE-X CEO ELON MUSK: "I think we're at the dawn of a new era of spaceflight, one which is going to advance much faster than it ever has in the past."

OBAMA 3.0: "The sad thing now is that no one knows what the president will say about deficits on any given day, other than a rough (and often wrong) calculation of what he thinks will win in November 2012."

CORRECT: The One becomes The Jerk. "It’s one thing to try to act like an adult in the room, but when you try to act like the only adult in the room by holding your breath and stomping your feet, your cover’s been blown."

AFTER WATCHING THE PRESIDENT for the past 26 months I have determined he has two negotiating positions: Arrogant and petulant.

Linked from Instapundit.

HEH. If the Obama phenomena is any indication, I'd agree that higher IQs are existential threats.

MORE: proof here.

WOULD YOU TRADE YOUR CAR for a lifetime pass on public transit? No, and here's why:

Cars didn’t shape our existence; cars let us escape with our lives. We’re way the heck out here in Valley Bottom Heights and Trout Antler Estates because we were at war with the cities. We fought rotten public schools, idiot municipal bureaucracies, corrupt political machines, rampant criminality and the pointy-headed busybodies. Cars gave us our dragoons and hussars, lent us speed and mobility, let us scout the terrain and probe the enemy’s lines. And thanks to our cars, when we lost the cities we weren’t forced to surrender, we were able to retreat.

Linked from Instapundit.

HONEST DEMOCRAT wonders if Obama has any idea what he's doing.

He's not alone.

JOHN STOSSEL: Who's got the better grasp of reality?

THOMAS SOWELL on the Obama administration's (anti) business policies: "The biggest losers from creating an adverse business climate may not be businesses themselves -- especially not big businesses, which can readily invest more of their money overseas. The biggest losers are likely to be working people in America, who cannot just relocate to Europe or Asia to take the jobs created there by American multinational corporations."

I'm not so sure about the last part; the number of American expatriates is rising.

HOPE: Jobless Presidencies Should Result in Jobless Presidents.

SO YOU HAVE A COLLEGE DIPLOMA - now what?

CAN A CONGRESSMAN possibly be that stupid? Well, yes. Yes he can.

WALTER WILLIAMS: Failing Liberty 101.

I'm at a loss for words. Read it all.

EXACTLY! The drama queen in the room.

PAUL GREENBERG: Something is Missing. Something is missing all right, but it's not a liberal education. It's a classic liberal education.

THE RIGHT TO WORK: A fundamental freedom.

JEFF JACOBY: In defense of flogging. I wonder ....

SPECTACULARLY UNSUCCESSFUL QUADCOPTER EXPERIMENTS


No quadcopters were (permanently) harmed. The original video is here and an earlier post is here.

OH, MY: Washington Post's Jobs Section Hacked; 1.27 Million User IDs and E-mail Addresses Taken.

SO WHAT'S THE DOWNSIDE? The issue isn’t default but government shutdown.

SARAH PALIN: I don't trust this President. Neither do I.

LET'S START BY not paying Congress and the Obama administration.

MORE: Washington gets $200 billion a month, Social Security costs $50 billion a month, and Obama is threatening to starve Grandma?

REMEMBER President Obama's Twitter town hall? Well, here are some questions that were never answered.

REPUBLICANS SHOULD TAKE A PLAY FROM THE OBAMA PLAYBOOK -- vote "present" on raising the debt ceiling.

Clever.

SOME OBSERVATIONS on "Carmageddon."

There are several broader lessons from this. First, why don’t people in LA change their behavior to get this result all of the time? Simple: the ordinary range of congestion is not intolerable, despite what people say. (This is what economists call “revealed preference.”) In other words, LA probably has on average the optimal amount of congestion. Second, it means all the dreams and schemes of planners and do-good social engineer/interveners are irrelevant, when they aren’t counterproductive (which is most of the time). Third, humans aren’t as stupid as our elite minders like to think.

The lessons to be (not) learned (yet again) are that (1) it's never as bad as the doomsayers would like us to believe; (2) all the schemes of do-good social engineers are irrelevant (counterproductive is more like it); and (3) humans aren't as stupid as our elite minders would like us to believe.

These are lessons for politicians, both liberal and conservative, and if they are not learned soon, I'm looking forward to a political "karmageddon" in November 2012.

CONSTITUTION? We don't need no stinkin' Constitution.

ATC RECORDINGS show that Southwest Airlines pilot reacted immediately after fuselage ruptured in mid-flight.

As he should have. I've pointed out at least twice before that aircraft safety is the pilot's responsibility. Aircraft controllers are there to aid and assist, not control.

THE PATH TO BANKRUPTCY was a long one.


Follow the link and look around at the other charts.

ATLANTIS FROM 89,000 FEET: the picture is here.

PROJECT GUNRUNNER: paid for with your stimulus dollars.

Not only do they want to steal your money and restrict your Second Amendment freedoms, they're willing to let you die. Disgusting.

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BENEFITS. So apparently the Democrats' plan for deficit reduction is to make doctors work for free and indenture our children for life. Makes perfect sense ....

NICE SOCIAL SECURITY CHECK you got there, buddy. Too bad if something were to happen to it.

WELL, THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES WITH CAPABILITY: Russia to send 2014 Sochi Olympic torch to space for longest relay.

FROM THE EMAIL: Bear tragedy in Montana.

Everyone should heed the warnings not to feed wildlife because they become dependent and don't forage for themselves any longer. The photo below captures a disturbing trend that is beginning to affect U.S. wildlife.


Animals that formerly were self-sufficient are now showing signs of belonging to the Democrat Party. They have apparently learned to just sit and wait for the government to step in and provide for their care and sustenance. This photo is of a black bear in Montana turned Democrat. He's nicknamed Bearack Acorn Obearma.

It is believed that he has become a campground organizer.

WALTER WILLIAMS: Gross Media Ignorance. I would only add that "media ignorance" is a tautology. Read the whole article.

MAYBE THE DREAM HASN'T ENDED: Sierra Nevada signs NASA deal for space plane.

More on the Dream Chaser spaceplane linked here.

IN GOD WE TRUST; all others pay cash. Now, if only I had cash ....

IT'S ... BACK! The Misery Index Rises Again. Jimmy Carter redux is a best-case scenario.

HUH? It's racially discriminatory to prohibit racial discrimination.

SENATE MINORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL:

“[A]fter years of discussions and months of negotiations, I have little question that as long as this president is in the Oval Office, a real solution is unattainable,” McConnell said. “I was one of those who had hoped we could do something big for the country. But in my view the president has presented us with three choices: smoke and mirrors, tax hikes or default. Republicans choose none of the above. I hoped to do good — but I refuse to do harm.”

Even flourescent lights eventually brighten.

SHUTTLE DOWN: Six capabilities lost. And a final comment:
"[P]erhaps the greatest lesson of the shuttle for future spaceship designers and space exploration theorists: If you build a spacecraft, or any other machine, with a predetermined and limited set of capabilities (as NASA is now doing), you will usually get just those predictable capabilities and little more. You will not, as happened with the shuttle, learn to use it more and more efficiently and keep discovering new ways to do new things not even imagined when the vehicle was first conceived. These capabilities, in the case of the shuttle, turned out to be the only way to respond to many unexpected problems. And nobody should be surprised that the unexpected awaits us in outer space."

FROM MY EMAIL: Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli on the latest ObamaCare ruling.

I wanted to update you on the 6th Circuit's appellate ruling in the healthcare case. There are a lot of nuances to the ruling, so let's start at the beginning and go through them one at a time.

Before I begin, I need to offer a disclaimer. The way this case was decided, it ended up being very complex - so please bear with me.

Process

Remember that in an ordinary appeal (not to the Supreme Court), three judges sit together to decide the appellate case.

There are four appellate courts that have heard appeals in the healthcare cases: the 4th circuit (including Virginia); the 6th circuit; the 3rd circuit; and the 11th circuit (where our 26 sister states argued their case). Only the 6th circuit has ruled so far. We are awaiting rulings from the other three circuits.

Because three judges sit on each of these cases, an important procedural rule to be aware of is that the narrowest opinion in the majority is deemed the governing opinion of the court. The rationale for this rule is that the narrowest opinion is the one that everyone in the majority agreed upon, and then other opinions 'added' to that 'base' opinion. This is a simplification of course, but that is the governing rule of interpretation.

This rule of interpretation is important in the 6th circuit's case because all three judges wrote separate opinions in the case.

Guts of the Ruling: Individual Mandate

The three judge panel split 2-1, with two judges concluding that the individual mandate is constitutional, at least in this case. One of those judges concluded that the mandate is constitutional, period. However, Judge Sutton, who wrote the narrowest prevailing opinion, said only that it was constitutional in this case, but could be unconstitutional on a case by case basis in other cases - a very unusual ruling indeed.

Because of the unique approach taken by Judge Sutton, it seems unlikely that other judges (or Justices) will follow his approach.

More on Judge Sutton's opinion in a moment...

Other Guts: Taxing Power

While upholding the constitutionality of the individual mandate, the court voted 2-0 to reject the federal government's argument that the individual mandate and accompanying penalty could be sustained under Congress' taxing power. You may ask, 'where was the third judge?' The answer is that Judge Martin did not address the subject.

Judge Martin reasoned that he had already upheld the individual mandate under the commerce clause, so there was no need to address the taxing power argument. However, both Judges Sutton and Graham did address the subject - and both rejected the feds' claim that the penalty was a 'tax' and thus fell under Congress' constitutional taxing power.

As a reminder, what the feds are arguing is that the penalty you must pay if you fail to buy the government-mandated health insurance is in fact a tax, not a penalty. Furthermore, they say, that Congress has broad authority to levy taxes under Article I, section 8 of the constitution (this is certainly true). Therefore, this reasoning goes, Congress was simply exercising its constitutional taxing power by imposing the penalty on those who fail to obey the government diktat to buy approved health insurance.

Put simply, the feds are saying that they can order you to do just about anything, then assess a financial penalty against you if you fail to act, and because they deem that penalty a tax, the whole thing is constitutional. This is the most radical claim in the whole case - by far.

Those of you that have heard me speak on this matter have heard me say that I am loathe to make any specific predictions on how this case will go, but that I will predict that no judge or justice in America will agree with the federal government's radical taxing power argument.

So far, so good on that prediction!

The Scorecard

So here is how the judges lined up in this case:

Judge Martin: individual mandate IS constitutional; did not vote on taxing power.

Judge Sutton: individual mandate IS constitutional (in this case); penalty is NOT a tax.

Judge Graham: individual mandate is NOT constitutional; penalty is NOT a tax.

Judge Martin didn't vote on both issues because he knew that the feds only needed to win on one to sustain the statute, so he didn't vote on the tax issue.

Judge Sutton concluded only that the individual mandate was constitutional in this case, so because he presumably foresaw circumstances in which the individual mandate would not be constitutional, he proceeded to also rule on the tax question.

My Opinion of the Opinions

Two of the judges (Sutton and Graham) agreed that the exercise of power by the federal government in mandating individuals to buy government-approved health insurance is "unprecedented." This is consistent with my view that for the federal government to win this case, the Supreme Court will have to go farther than it has ever gone before in expanding the commerce power of Congress. However, for the states to prevail, the Court need not go beyond or overturn any prior commerce clause case.

Judges Sutton and Graham thus agreed that it is the feds that are seeking a change in the status of the law related to the commerce clause, and despite saying that such a change is only for the Supreme Court to undertake, Judge Sutton implicitly accepted the change anyway by ruling the mandate constitutional.

Judge Sutton unusually challenged the Supreme Court to take definite action. Most strikingly he said that the Supreme Court "either should stop saying that a meaningful limit on Congress' commerce powers exists or prove that it is so." Amen brother!

Additionally, both Judges Sutton and Graham spoke predictively about the 'direction' of Supreme Court cases related to the commerce clause and federalism - a decidedly unusual feature of a lower court opinion.

I am unfamiliar with any case ever that saw such brazen expectations of Supreme Court involvement explicitly written into the opinion. It seems that virtually all of the trial and appellate judges who have touched this case are confident that it's going on to the Supreme Court. Again, very unusual, but I do agree.

The two greatest weaknesses of the controlling opinion - in my humble opinion - are the failure to effectively digest and respond to the arguments about the distinction between regulating "activity" vs. "inactivity," and the mistake of not treating the case as a facial challenge to the statute.

That's all for now! As always, we'll update you on the rulings as they come in.

Stay tuned.

REMEMBER THE STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE? I thought it was a political gesture-cum-blunder at the time; now there's proof.

THAT'S RACIST! "[P]eople just sort of do it as a way of mocking people who are overly sensitive about race issues." And the ones being mocked are completely clueless.

THOMAS SOWELL: "Talking points trump reality in political discussions.... Reality simply does not have the pizzazz of clever talking points."

Who needs reality when you have talking points?

HOW TO REDUCE THE DEFICIT: "[T]he government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the 'stimulus,' and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead."

ON EDUCATION: "I've been accused of being ignorant, but I've never been accused of not having a degree."

In today's environment, my sense is that having a post-graduate degree is a requirement for being ignorant.

SARAH PALIN: The Sugar Daddy Has Run Out of Sugar; Now We Need New Leaders..

[F]irst and foremost we must cut spending, not “strike a deal” that allows politicians to raise more debt! See, Washington is addicted to OPM – Other People’s Money. And like any junkie, they will lie, steal, and cheat to fund their addiction.

The addiction analogy is right on the mark.

THE COLLISION of narcissism and reality.

Obama, according to Obama, is quite simply better, much better, than those around him. He is a man of pure motives and unparalleled reasonableness, extraordinary intellectual depth, and unsurpassed seriousness. Others are driven by narrow self-interest, by the political calendar, by outside pressures. They are too ignorant or too weak to do the right thing, the good thing, the hard thing.

Not Obama.

Linked from Pajamas Media's Tatler.

FOX?

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW about the Left: "We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money."

WHISKEY, SEXY, DEMOCRACY.

WE HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE and it is "You want fries with that?"

YOU DON'T SAY: Medicare is Lousy Health Insurance.

THAT'S THE PROBLEM: “I’ve never had a real job. I’ve only worked in public service.”

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has told the White House he intends to step down after an agreement is reached with Congress to raise the debt limit.

See the second paragraph under "Around the Bigs."

OOPS! TESTS SHOW wireless network could harm Global Positioning Satellite [GPS] systems.

STOP GLOBAL WARMING: fly more often.

YOU'VE NEVER SEEN A DRIVE SYSTEM LIKE THIS


The article is here.

THE CLOUD isn't looking so good.

WAR DOGS -- a photo essay. More here.

GOOD QUESTIONS FROM MY EMAIL: After Katrina, the media blamed the lack of response on the Bush administration's dislike of black people. Can we then conclude from the lack of media coverage and response by the Obama administration that Obama doesn't like white people?

Where are the Hollywood celebrities holding telethons asking for help in restoring Iowa and North Dakota and helping the folks affected by the floods? Where is good old Michael Moore?

Why is the media not asking the tough questions about why the federal government hasn't solved this problem? Not asking where the FEMA trucks and trailers and food services are?

Why isn't the Federal government moving Iowa people into free hotels in Chicago and Minneapolis ?

When will Spike Lee say that the Federal government blew up the levees that failed in Des Moines ?

Where are Sean Penn, Bono, and the Dixie Chicks?

Where are all the looters stealing high-end tennis shoes, cases of beer and television sets?

When will we hear Governor Chet Culver say that he wants to rebuild a 'vanilla' Iowa ... because that's what God wants?

Where is the hysterical 24/7 media coverage complete with reports of shootings at rescuers, of rapes and murder?

Where are all the people screaming that Barack Obama hates white, rural people? My God, where are Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Oprah, and their pals?

How come you will never hear about the Iowa flooding ever again? Where are the government bail-out vouchers? The government debit cards?

More people died in these floods than from Katrina ... how come the media doesn't report that?

There must be one heck of a big difference between the value of the people of Iowa and value of the people of Louisiana.

MICHAEL BARONE on why the Civil Service is no way to run a business: "No rational person would choose civil service as the way to manage a large organization."

GOP SEEKS A BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT: "We think it's pretty clear regardless of what we are ultimately able to negotiate here in the short term that we put the federal government in this kind of fiscal straitjacket for the future so that we cannot get into this position again."

"ANOTHER UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE of President Barack Obama's health care law has emerged: Older adults of the same age and income with similar medical histories could pay widely different amounts for private health insurance due to a quirk of the complex legislation."

Wasn't it (thankfully former) Speaker Nancy Pelosi who said "We have to pass it so you can see what's in it?" Well, we're seeing it - and we're not liking it.

JOHN STOSSEL: A new day in politics? I'm not optimistic. It's going to get worse before -- maybe -- it gets better.

THOMAS SOWELL: Is democracy viable? It's beginning to look like the answer is "no."

DOES THE CONSTITUTION MATTER? If it doesn't, then your Freedom doesn't matter.

OH, MY: California delays its carbon trading program for a year. I don't understand; just because what little remains of California's manufacturing and energy sectors will flee the state is no reason to abandon environmental nirvana.

"IT'S JUST A QUESTION OF MATH. If you don't ask the wealthy to pay their share, the money is going to come from children and the elderly."

Uh, huh. Note that the American 'middle class' is missing -- they're protected. Those remaining are either wealthy, elderly, or children. The elderly and children are victims -- hence also protected. The remaining Americans are the wealthy -- to be used by the liberal ruling class who dine on other people's money.

GOOD NEWS -- but not for environmentalists.

Natural gas just might be the energy solution environmentalists say they want, but actually can’t stand because nothing would put them out of business faster.

Read it all.

BIG GOVERNMENT: Small Business Should Be Smaller.

THE JOY OF BEING A TEST PILOT: crew flies Boeing 747-8 to Pittsburgh for a sandwich.

U.S. PLANS STEALTH SURVEY on access to doctors. The plans died almost within hours of becoming public, of course, but the plans themselves tell you one important fact about big government liberals: they don't trust the American people.

THE SHUTTLE ERA HAS ENDED. Does anyone care?

Some do. It may be the destination that captures the imagination, but it's the voyage that creates the progress.

MORE: Dream Chaser project hits milestones.

BACKING DOWN? Speaker John Boehner:

Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes. I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase.

Now is not the time to back away, Mr. Speaker. If we must risk default in order to get spending under control, then we must do it. Tax changes must wait for a later day.

"WITH THEIR HANDS in my pants, my physical health, my home, and even my toilet, I have never felt so uncomfortably close to my government."

No argument from me.

THE FIVE best sentences ever written:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them; and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

Illustrated.

RAY STEVENS on the Obama Budget Plan.

MORE, PLEASE.



In Orleans, Cape Cod, MA, shoppers stocking up for the 4th of July got a surprise shot of patriotism to start their weekend! This flash mob was organized by the SpiritOfAmericaBand to wish everyone a happy 4th of July!

The video is here.