HEH. “[T]he next time your elected local or state official holds a press conference about global warming, the Middle East, or the national political climate, expect to experience poor county law enforcement, bad municipal services, or regional insolvency.

GOOD NEWS: Study confirms that college is pretty much a total waste of time.

Except possibly the ‘for profits’ where certification - not graduation - is the goal.

CLUNKER MATH (from my email)

A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year. A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons of gas a year. So, the average “Cash for Clunkers” transaction reduced gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year.

The government claims 700,000 clunkers have been replaced so that’s 224 million gallons saved per year. That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil. Five million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption but more importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel cost about $350 million dollars.

So the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million. Or in other words, it spent $8.57 for every $1.00 saved.

I’m pretty sure they will do a better job with our health care, though.

THE OBAMA APPROVAL INDEX: two years down; two to go.


It was inevitable, I think, that the President’s approval would “bottom out” at some point, but the timing is curious, beginning sometime before the 2010 elections, and increasing more sharply following the Republican landslide vote. Note that those ‘strongly approving’ have remained relatively constant, while the ‘strong disapprovals’ have begun to trade places with the ‘mixed reaction’ middle.


Could this reflect a more charitable view of the President now that his policies can be blocked by Congress?

GEORGE WILL on government hubris and the inevitable fall.

The hubris that is the occupational hazard and defining trait of the political class continues to cause government to overpromise and underperform. This class blithely considers itself exempt from the tyranny of the bell-shaped curve - the fact that in most occupations a few people are excellent, a few are awful, and most are average.

Our political class are all from Lake Woebegon.

NASA REVEALS three visions for a future airliner.

The design concepts reveal both two-engine and three-engine versions of the Boeing hybrid wing-body, a Northrop Grumman concept modelled closely on the Scaled Composites White Knight and a Lockheed Martin design featuring a box wing and twin, tail-mounted engines.

Here’s the Lockheed Martin design.


The Northrop Grumman and Boeing designs can be found at the link above.

OH, JEEZ: Letting sleeping dogs lie in your bed can kill you.

Why can’t these nanny-state do-gooders do something useful -- like jump off the Empire State Building?

CARD CHECK: “Such blatant help for union political allies certainly makes the [Obama] administration's intentions clear, and tells us who really owns this White House.”

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: sending our tax dollars to NGOs to lobby for more tax dollars.