TIMELINE: the story of the Democratic Party’s absolute refusal to come to grips with the country’s fiscal crisis.

GOV. RICK PERRY is getting a second look, and the reviews are positive:

Miniter & Miniter: Optional Government, and
Zoller: Rick Perry Offers a Feast of Reform Ideas.

I'm impressed. Not in full agreement, but impressed.

Newt Gingrich is also getting favorable coverage.

HEH. The "Obama tube."

NOMINATE someone other that Obama ... please!

Hillary?

MEET THE OWS PROTESTORS. Which one do you want your tax dollars to go to?

THE CULT (?) of journalistic objectivity. Conor Friedersdorf in a nearly incoherent post on the works of James O'Keefe: "... [M]ore evidence that pretending reporters have no opinions or biases is no longer tenable."

Friedersdorf is confusing opinion with bias and both with objectivity. I have no objection to either opinion or bias, provided they are kept in the opinion pages, where they belong, and not the news pages. I expect news to confine itself to who, what, where, when, how, and only sometimes why (if that can be established as factual and not opinion). I can generate the opinion myself.

Linked from Instapundit.

SO FAR: Cost to cities for Occupiers exceeds $13 million.

Just add it to the deficit tab.

I HAVE BEEN highly unimpressed with Patrick Pexton as the Washington Post's ombudsman. Here's why.

THE HANDWRITING IS ON THE WALL: Obama's Medicare chief Donald Berwick quits.

ANOTHER REASON not to trust the Washington Post's Dana Milbank.

NBC PROVES ITS BONA FIDES as a member of the Lamestream Media: No way to treat a lady.

NOT SOON ENOUGH: Will Demography Defeat Democrats?

FIRST LOOK: Electronic Warfare Missile. OT&E (operational test and evaluation) should be conducted in Iran.

HEH. Occupy DC expects to be raided, tells campers to remove drugs. Can you imagine that happening at a Tea Party protest?

PARALYZE GOVERNMENT: not a bad idea. It might surprise working Americans to find out that they can do perfectly well without it.

JEEZ: Every time I think I have the leaves under control, Nature provides me with a new batch to mulch.

WHOLE FOODS founder John Mackey's free market plan for creating jobs. It's refreshing to see someone who, one would think is tied to the environmental movement, actually understand free market capitalism.

SUPERCOMMITTEE: Failure or Success? It depends on the goal. It will be up to the voters in the next election to make it a success.

RUSSIA'S stricken Mars probe contacted. With luck -- and hard work -- it may not be necessary to attempt a 'shootdown'.

A BUMPER STICKER FOR THE NEXT ELECTION? I've always wanted to use the phrase “a bridge to hope and change nowhere” and it just dawned on me that it's the perfect description of the Obama administration.

WHY THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT will never amount to a hill of beans.

RUSSIA PROBABLY ISN'T CAPABLE of shooting down its wayward spacecraft with tons of toxic chemicals inside that may soon crash to Earth.

The $163 million Phobos-Grunt, made by Moscow-based NPO Lavochkin, got stuck in low-Earth orbit after its Nov. 9 launch. It may crash within weeks if scientists are unable to establish contact and activate its propulsion systems. The window to send the spacecraft to a Martian moon, its destination, ends today, state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

I wonder if they'll ask the U.S. or China, both of whom have successfully intercepted satellites, to attempt to destroy it.