DEBRA J. SAUNDERS: Occupy Jail.

NOTHING TO SEE: no violence here. Just move along now.

THE FLORIDA REPUBLICAN PRIMARY:


Courtesy of Mallard Fillmore.

FROM MY EMAIL: There is finally conclusive evidence that Osama bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi are well and truly dead.


Yesterday, they both registered to vote in Chicago .

OBAMA’S TAX POLICY


All it takes is a “Congressional bypass” operation.

Linked from The Wizard of ID.

AMERICAN NARCISSUS: The vanity of Barack Obama.

Linked from PowerLine.

THE NEA’S [AND OBAMA’S] PLAN: Keep your ‘kids’ captive longer.

The usual liberal solution; do more of what hasn’t worked in the past.

NOT MINE: What demographics won’t Romney win?

ROMNEY, GINGRICH on space policy.

Gingrich's message to the space industry was that, under a President Gingrich, Americans would return to the moon, build a permanent base there, and reach out toward manned flight to Mars. Romney's message was that, as president, he would consult experts to come up with an affordable mission for the space program.

I prefer Gingrich.

HEADLINE OF THE DAY: Skunks flood California city looking for love.

EIGHT YEARS IF WE’RE LUCKY: How much longer for Newt?

D-DALUS: "a flying machine that floated like a hummingbird, traveled as fast as a jet, was as quiet as a hot-air balloon, and was simple enough that a car mechanic could repair it."

I’m looking forward to seeing a prototype.

MILTON FRIEDMAN explains the 2012 election – in 1979.

BECAUSE THEY’RE OVERPAID TALENT-FREE EGOMANIACS: Why are singers always screwing up the national anthem?

SHOULD BICYCLISTS BE LICENSED?


If not, then why should drivers? For the money, of course.

THE DEMOCRATS love to boast about how much they care, however, when push comes to shove, they only care with other people's money.

TWO MORE environmental setbacks.

JONAH GOLDBERG: Obama's Vision for a Spartan America.

FUEL ECONOMY is for the little people.

TWO DIVAS for the price of one.

OBAMA'S STATE OF THE UNION translated into English.

A PERFECT STORM of planetary proportions.

IT'S THE VISION THING: Gingrich vows to establish permanent base on the moon by 2020. Good for him; America needs a vision of things to come. Think of Kennedy's 'land a man on the moon by the end of the decade' and Reagan's 'shining city on a hill' visions - both came true.

More here and here.

OBAMA: no more bailouts; no more handouts -- except for my lackeys.

COMMENT OF THE DAY:

It is not usually a good thing when I find something green on my bread or cheese. I am thinking the same is also true of those “green jobs” that are touted so much by this administration.

From this Michelle Malkin post.

THE OBAMA DOCTRINE: Do as I say, even as what I say is self-contradictory.

JEFF JACOBY: Shut up, they explained. I’m somewhat sympathetic to the concept, but until someone can clearly define what constitutes a ‘negative ad’ I’ll continue to support free speech.

PRESUMPTIOUS IGNORANCE:

This may be the golden age of presumptuous ignorance. The most recent demonstrations of that are the Occupy Wall Street mobs. It is doubtful how many of these semi-literate sloganizers could tell the difference between a stock and a bond.

Yet there they are, mouthing off about Wall Street on television, cheered on by politicians and the media. If this is not a golden age of presumptuous ignorance, perhaps it should be called a brass age.

[snip...]

One of the reasons for so much presumptuous ignorance flourishing in our time may be the emphasis on "self-esteem" in our schools and colleges. Children not yet a decade old have been encouraged, or even required, to write letters to public figures, sounding off on issues ranging from taxes to nuclear missiles.

Our schools begin promoting presumptuous ignorance early on. It is apparently one of the few things they teach well. The end result is people without much knowledge, but with a lot of brass.

Read it all.

PENTAGON TO CUT Air Force Global Hawk drone program; Navy version will continue. A Global Hawk is a Global Hawk is a Global Hawk; this simply punts the acquisition cost down the road a bit.

THE STATE OF THE ELECTION speech by the Redistributor-in-Chief was not well received. In my view Obama’s SOTU speech can easily be summarized in eight words: “obey me or I’ll tax you to death.”

PRESIDENT OBAMA: 'The state of our Union is getting stronger'.

THE IDEA that our universe is embedded in a broader multidimensional space has captured the imagination of scientists and the general population alike. Of course. Who wouldn’t want to ‘jump ship’ to a parallel universe that didn’t contain President Obama?

CLEARLY THEY’RE NOT BEING PAID ENOUGH: Federal employees owe $1.03 billion in unpaid taxes.

THOMAS SOWELL on Newt Gincrich’s candidacy: “Sometimes caution can be carried to the point where it is dangerous. When the Super Bowl is on the line, you don't go with the quarterback who is least likely to throw an interception. You go with the one most likely to throw a touchdown pass.”

MYSTERY SURROUNDS Air Force's secretive X-37B space plane.

“MORE AMERICAN ADULTS lacked health insurance coverage last year than in any year since Gallup and Healthways started tracking it in 2008. The uninsured rate has been increasing since 2008, climbing to 17.1% in 2011.” Isn’t that what happens when people become unemployed?

GOVERNMENT: protecting the consumer from competition.

PREPARE YOURSELF for the State of the Union address tonight.



The GOP SOTU web site is here.

WHY WOULDN’T business owners ‘go Galt’? They are ... just last night my wife and I talked to a (now part-time employee) of a small excavation business that used to be located on property a quarter-mile or so from our house. The owner closed his business, sold all his equipment, leased his home, and moved back to southern Virginia to reopen as a much smaller operation with a few part-time employees. Keeping a bigger operation simply wasn’t worth the effort.

WHY SHOULD WE? Obama officials say we don’t trust government enough.

ON A CLEAR DAY you can use your smartphone.

HEH: “Chuck Norris is a columnist and impossible to kill.” More seriously, he endorses Newt Gingrich for President.

THOMAS SOWELL: “Intellectuals have all too often promoted these envy and resentment ideologies. There are both psychic and material rewards for the intelligentsia in doing so, even when the supposed beneficiaries of these ideologies end up worse off. When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.”

WHITE DRESS SHIRTS are racist -- if worn by a Republican.

DEMOCRATS’ ENERGY POLICY: “reasonable profits” boards for energy companies. OK, let’s ask two questions: (1) Are “reasonable profits” the same for green energy companies as for conventional energy companies? And (2) if green energy companies fail to make “reasonable profits”, will they be subsidized so they do?

CRONY CAPITALISM: gouging citizens one regulation at a time.

TEN REASONS why we must vote for President Obama.

DAY BY DAY on the value of the mainstream media.

PRESIDENTIAL NONSENSE: Obama’s economic vision.

President Obama's vision was shared by our Pilgrim Fathers of the Plymouth Colony in modern-day Massachusetts. They established a communist system. They all farmed together, and whatever they produced was put in a common storehouse. A certain amount of food was rationed to each person regardless of his contribution to the work. Many Pilgrims complained that they were too weak from hunger to do their share of the work. As deeply religious as the Pilgrims were, they took to stealing from one another. Gov. William Bradford, writing his history of the colony in "Of Plymouth Plantation," said, "So as it well appeared that famine must still ensue, the next year also if not some way prevented."

And history tells us they damn near died that first year.

CAN’T HAVE RELIGION IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE: Missing from the Martin Luther King Memorial -- God.

AN IGNORED DISPARITY: credentials versus marketable skills.

[C]olleges and universities can ... turn out vast numbers of people with credentials, but with no marketable skills with which to fulfill their expectations. There is nothing magic about simply being in ivy-covered buildings for four years.

In countries around the world, people with credentials but no marketable skills have been a major source of political turmoil, social polarization and ideologically driven violence, sometimes escalating into civil war.

Read it all.

THE FOOD STAMP PRESIDENT:


Read more here.

THE U.S. HAS BEEN WITHOUT A BUDGET during the entire Obama administration -- and now this. Budget? We don’t need no steenkin’ budget ... we’ll just print more money.

PRESIDENT OBAMA reveals who he really is -- and the picture isn't pretty.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The 2012 Election Circus.

RANDOM THOUGHTS from the retirement lane.

"The buck stops here" -- Harry Truman
"The buck punts here" -- Barack Obama

AND CHURCHES SUPPORT THESE BOOBS? Sometimes charity goes too far.

THE SOUTH PEOPLE will rise again. I’ve been arguing this since before the 2010 election. It’s good to see other people notice as well.

BACK TO THE FUTURE PAST: Brown Asks California to Cheer Rail Project.

THOMAS SOWELL: Ignoring disparity.

WHY LIVING IN FLORIDA might not be so bad.

DON’T PET THE OWS PROTESTERS: they bite.

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: three years down, one to go. Here are some charts, taken from the Rasmussen Obama Approval Index. The first is Obama's approval rating, dating back to his inauguration. For the last 2-1/2 years his approval rating has been consistently negative.


This chart is the same data, subdivided into 'Strongly Approve', 'Strongly Disapprove', and 'Mixed Reaction' -- those who either mildly approve or mildly disapprove. Note that at the end of 2010, the 'Mixed Reaction' population dramatically increased to around 35% of the population and did so by moving from the 'Strong Approval' population.


The last chart shows the data from calendar year 2011. Note that the trend lines show the 'Strong Disapprovals' and 'Mixed Reactions' still continuing to increase, again at the cost of losses in the 'Strong Approval' population.


President Obama is due for a tough election year.

CIVILIZATION IS FRAGILE. "Its continuance requires respect for the law, tough-minded education, collective thrift, private investment, individual self-reliance, and common codes of behavior and civility -- and exempts no one from those rules. Such knowledge and patterns of civilized behavior, slowly accrued over centuries, can be lost in a single generation."

SHADOW'S WORLD is on temporary hiatus, as the office computer is down with a severe viral infection. Blogging will be intermittent until the machine is nursed back to health.

COMING SOON TO A TV NEAR YOU: This year the State of the Union address will be on January 24th. Nine days later, on February 2nd, it will be Ground Hog Day. One involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to an insignificant creature of little intelligence for prognostication. The other involves a groundhog.

ANOTHER:

I was eating breakfast with my 13-year-old granddaughter and I asked her, "What day is the 20th of February?"

She said "It's President's Day!"

She is a smart kid.

I asked "What does President's Day mean?" I was waiting for something about Washington or Lincoln ....

She replied, "President's Day is when President Obama steps out of the White House, and if he sees his shadow we have one more year of unemployment."

You know, it hurts when hot coffee spurts out your nose....

"THE SMOKE coming out of those stacks is the most beautiful sight in the world. It means there is progress being made somewhere. Somewhere, some place, someone is making progress. If there is no smoke coming out, we look at it as trouble.”

REINCE PRIEBUS: The Ethics of Audacity.

ONE MILLION SIGNATURES; how many forgeries?

MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTESTERS toss mostly smokeless bomb over White House fence.

WILL SOMEONE please teach the Left the rudiments of good tax policy?

LIBERALISM: No laughing allowed.

BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT TOILET TRAINED: Taxpayers on Hook for D.C. Protester's Potties.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: So Why Read Anymore? History. Repeat.

OBAMACARE: reduce access and grow government.

IF ELECTED PRESIDENT, will you appoint your GOP rivals as a part of your administration, to utilize their skill sets ... in order to unite and restore our republic?

YOU CAN TALK, OR YOU CAN NAVIGATE, but you can't do both. It's beginning to look like LightSquared didn't donate enough to Obama's campaign. They should demand their contributions back....

AN IGNORANT CONGRESSMAN. Is there another kind?

DEATH BY WEALTH (TAX).

LEAN BACKWARDS -- at least you won't fall flat on your face.

FROM HOPE & CHANGE TO HATE & FEAR: "Barack Obama came to Washington promising hope and change, but he’s worked to spread hate and fear. I can think of no greater bipartisan effort that all Americans should undertake this fall, than voting Obama and his administration out of office. For the sake of our country, and our freedom, we must do better."

BREAKING THE GOP cycle of capitulation. Voters must make it absolutely clear that the 'capitulators' will be gone from Congress in 2013.

WHO IS ANTI-SCIENCE? The skeptics or the believers?

"WHATEVER YOU MIGHT THINK is the purpose of higher education, there is a case to be made that public funding of college-level studies should bear some relation to the requirements of the national economy. In mainland China, where most higher education is paid for by the state, the government has found this case persuasive. They have recently announced that funding of college majors will in the future be determined by the graduate employment rates. Fields in which the employment rate for graduates falls below 60 percent for two consecutive years will have their state subsidies cut back or eliminated. It pains us to find ourselves in agreement with the Chinese Communist party on anything at all, but this new policy is surely a sound one. If applied in the U.S. , it would have two highly desirable side effects: one, there would be fewer unemployable graduates available to populate the "Occupy" movement, and two, the liberal professoriate would be furious."

From the dead tree edition of National Review (Dec. 31, 2011).

THE GRECIAN COLUMNS wouldn't fit in the convention center: Democrats move last night of convention to Charlotte stadium.

REX MURPHY: Thou must not question Big Environment. They don't want you to know who they're blackmailing ....

Linked from Instapundit.

YES, INDEED. Let's spread the wealth!

HOW ABOUT we try redistributing the ability to create wealth?

DIVORCE AGREEMENT. This has been floating around the interweb for a year or so now, but with the election fast approaching, it seems to get more and more relevant in describing the disconnect between liberals and conservatives.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:

We have stuck together since the late 1950's for the sake of the kids, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has clearly run its course.

Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right for us all, so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.

Here is a model separation agreement:

Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a similar portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.

We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them.

You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU.

Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military.

We'll take the nasty, smelly oil industry and you can go with wind, solar and biodiesel.

You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell. You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them.

We'll keep capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street.

You can have your beloved lifelong welfare dwellers, food stamps, homeless, homeboys, hippies, druggies and illegal aliens.

We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks.

We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood

You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us.

You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security.

We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.

You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism, political correctness and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N. but we will no longer be paying the bill.

We'll keep the SUV's, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Volt and Leaf you can find.

You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors.

We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right.

We'll keep "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "The National Anthem."

I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute "Imagine", "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing", "Kum Ba Ya" or "We Are the World".

We'll practice trickle down economics and you can continue to give trickle up poverty your best shot.

Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.

Would you agree to this?

CALIFORNIA COMMISSION approves regulations on … battery chargers. Pay $2 for the charger and save $1.19 in electricity -- makes sense to me.

GOOD IDEA: Putting Medical Records Into Patients' Hands. Patients should have more than access; we should have ownership.

BRIAN PRESTON summarizes the Republican debate in South Carolina.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE to fund the rich.

PUT 'EM ON HOLD.

ONE MAN RULE: Obama thumbs his nose at the Founders.

SANTORUM looks for a late surge:

Donning his trademark sweater vest to meet an after-church lunch crowd here, Santorum implored the state's evangelical voters to pick a candidate who will defend their values rather than settle for a nominee, like front-runner Mitt Romney, just because he was judged more electable.

"I hear some say we need to put these social issues aside," said Santorum, insisting Republicans need a nominee who could provide a "true contrast" with President Obama. "They don't know America. America is a moral enterprise not an economic enterprise."

Here's my problem with Santorum: we're not electing a preacher for President; we did that 3 years ago.

"I'm going with Romney," said Jill Williams, a stay-at-home mom from Myrtle Beach. "I could care less about who a bunch of strangers endorse out in Texas [Christian leadership conference in Houston]. I care about beating Obama. If that happens, I can deal with all the other things that might not be perfect about Romney."

I still have some hope for Gingrich or Perry, but I will vote for Romney if it comes to a choice between him and Santorum.

WHY SHOULD WE? Obama Officials Say We Don't Trust the Government Enough.

MORE PROOF the Nanny State needs to go.

DON'T TRY TO TELL OBAMA THAT: "He's not a God.... "

THE LEAF-BLOWER PARADOX and the fundamental fallacy of Obamanonics.

According to Obama, EPA regulations create jobs. “When we put in place new common-sense rules to reduce air pollution, we create new jobs building and installing all sorts of pollution-control technology.”

[This] is the equivalent of hiring thousands of men to drive steamrollers over America’s farmlands. Not only have we lowered unemployment by creating thousands of new Steamroller Driver positions, but we’ve created more jobs in the agricultural sector as well, since the farmers now have to hire workers to re-plant all their crops!

Read it all.

NEW YORK: taxing it's way to prosperity. Uh, huh.

SHOTGUN VS. HOME INVASION: shotgun wins.

THEY'RE INBRED, AND THEY DON'T WORK: Journalists' dirty little secret.

More proof: "The media tend to assign each candidate a character flaw as a form of shorthand (John McCain was volatile, George W. Bush was dopey, Obama is all talk)."

Milbank must have taken an honesty pill recently.

LARRY KUDLOW: Isn't a Bainful Turnaround What America Needs?

There's a very troubled company out there called U.S. Government Inc. It's teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. And it badly needs to be taken over and turned around. It probably even needs the services of a good private-equity firm, with plenty of experience and a reasonably good track record in downsizing, modernizing, shrinking staff and making substantial changes in management. Yes, layoffs will be a necessary part of the restructuring.

A quick look at the income statement of this troubled firm tells the story. Just in the past year (FY 2011), the firm spent $3.7 trillion, but took in only $2.2 trillion in sales revenues. Hence its deficit came to $1.5 trillion.

Just in the first three months of the new year (FY 2012), the firm's troubles continued. Outlays for all purposes came in at $874 billion, but income was only $554 billion. So the shortfall was $320 billion. No hope of a self-imposed turnaround here. Indeed, both the senior management and the board of directors show no signs of making major changes to their business strategy. Hope for future profits? That's out of the question. The firms only chance of survival is a takeover.

Maybe it is time for a venture capitalist to step in ....

OBAMA'S MODEL: crony capitalism and corporate welfare. This, not Bain, is real vulture capitalism.

I WOULD fly with this pilot.

IT'S ONLY UNCIVIL if you do it.

HOPE: Bloomberg's Law(suit).

Much more here.

TWO TIMES ZERO IS STILL ZERO: What if humans could be made twice as intelligent?

THE FIELD IS THINNING: Huntsman to drop out of GOP primary race. I wish he'd enter the Democratic primaries challenging Obama. He'd be an excellent Democratic candidate.

BILL O'REILLY: The 'spin stops here' one brochure at a time.

TECHNOLOGY'S END, and technology's promise. Watch the video here.

LOST IN THE PRAYERS OF ATHEISTS: Tebow's on God's side, not vice versa.

PRIVATE EQUITY EXPLAINED.

WHY SHOULD Obama recognize it? He's probably never seen one before.

MORE GOVERNMENT STUPID: DC Law May Relocate Rehabilitated Rat Families To Virginia.

PREDICTION: grilled cheese sandwich to cause constitutional crisis.

THERE'S STUPID, REALLY STUPID, AND THEN THERE'S GOVERNMENT STUPID: Oil companies fined for not using a fuel that doesn't exist.

OBAMA'S ENDLESS POWER TO APPOINT may be coming to a screeching halt.

I GOT MINE; now to "spend more time with my family."

TAILHOOK PROBLEMS with the carrier-based version of the F-35?

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW about progressivism.

BEDBUGS: "They sound like politicians."

HMM: Italian Cruise Ship Reported Torpedoed By Iranian Submarine.

Linked from the PJ Tatler.

DOUBLE JEOPARDY.

THE NEW YORK TIMES: "Are We Biased Enough?" Not for their Progressive readers; they're too nuanced and well-versed in 'critical thinking skills' to be able to read a simple factual statement without help.

DARPA PLANS to repurpose retired geosynchronous satellites. No doubt a useful but challenging task. What surprises me, though, is that there are roughly 1,300 satellites in geosynchronous orbit; that works out to about 100 miles (or 0.3 angular degrees) between satellites if they were uniformly distributed in orbit (and they're not).

It's getting crowded up there.

NO BIAS HERE; MOVE ALONG: Supreme Court Recognizes Religious Exception to Job Discrimination Laws. A more honest headline would read "Supreme Court Recognizes Limits on Government Interference With Religious Freedom."

IS THERE AN OBAMA DERANGEMENT SYNDROME? Yes. but it's still on the Left, directed at the Right. Here's an astute observation:

It’s about feelings and self-identity for Progressives. They’re like monkeys. They’ve got enough primate brain to form tribes, but they just don’t use the higher faculties. So it’s no surprise that flinging crap is their modus operandi.

It's from the comments at another website.

HEH: Charlotte stadium likely hosting Obama acceptance speech built with all nonunion labor. Just as bad (for Obama), it's named the "Bank of America" Stadium.

ON INCOME INEQUALITY: "So long as the income gap is smaller, [Obama] would rather have the poor poorer."

[Bumped] Here's the original Margaret Thatcher quote.

CARTOON OF THE DAY: just in time for the playoff game.

YES. NEXT QUESTION. Is Obama living in a parallel universe?

DEFENSE SPENDING is a shovel-ready investment. So Obama must trim it back immediately.

SARAH PALIN: on Michelle Obama.

DIDN'T GET ENOUGH THE FIRST TIME? Solyndra seeks to award bonuses to remaining employees.

WHAT WILL America look like on November 7, 2010? (Registration required; it's free.)

PART-TIME CONGRESS: Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL) will introduce the Citizen Legislators Act next week. I'd be willing to grant them full-time pay, requiring them to spend at least 5 business days each month meeting with their constituents and requiring them to stay out of Washington except on days the Legislature is in session.

INSTAPUNDIT: John Galt was unavailable for comment.

John Galt replies: I am indeed one of the one million 'vanished workers' who has given up all hope of returning to the workplace. Fortunately I can afford to be non-employed, though it was neither by intention or desire that I became so.

TWITTER WAR: RNC Chairman Reince Priebus wins. Not that it was particularly difficult.

JOE HICKS: Playing the race card again (registration required; it's free).

PAUL GREENBERG: Occupy Everything!

AND YOU THOUGHT voter fraud couldn't happen. Want to rethink your objections to requiring photo ID to vote?

ANOTHER IRANIAN NUCLEAR SCIENTIST goes "boom."

"Witness the firepower of a fully armed and operational blog!”

MARIJUANA, YES; cigarettes, no.

FAR OUT! New Deep Space Mission Ideas Draw NASA's Eye.

MARYBETH HICKS: New Hampshire Learns Lesson in Parental Rights. Parents can now object to material being taught in school and are further empowered them to find and pay for suitable, educationally acceptable alternatives to the curricula being foisted on their children. In objecting to the law, Gov. John Lynch is reported to have said:

For example, under this bill, parents could object to a teacher’s plan to teach the history of France or the history of the civil or women’s rights movements. The intrinsic value of education is exposing students to new ideas and critical thinking. This legislation encourages teachers to go the lowest common denominator in selecting material, in order to avoid ‘objections’ and the disruption it may cause their classrooms.

I might be more supportive of Lynch's position if the education establishment could convince me that 'critical thinking' meant something other than 'critical of everything traditional thinking'.

JOBS FOR ADULTS ONLY. If you're a teen or young adult, plan on keeping your room in your parents' house.

A WEALTH TAX? So now if I scrimp and save over a lifetime of working and just happen to find myself "wealthy" I get taxed again? This is nothing more than a death tax without the prerequisite of death.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY proposes offering a class in Occupy Wall Street. "I suppose the class will teach people how to camp out in a city park. Under a continuation of the Obama administration, this might actually become a good life skill."

Read the rest.

IRAN: they can threaten us, but cannot -- or will not -- protect their own citizens.

IS HE FINALLY DOING SOMETHING RIGHT? President Obama will reveal a new proposal to consolidate federal agencies.

JOHN RANSOM: Obama Can’t See Unemployed from Martha’s Vineyard.

IN D.C. NO LESS: Occupy protesters no longer welcome.

THE FIRST REAL SPACEPLANE: an airplane mission for Titan.

HISTORY LESSON FOR THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: "If you want redistribution, you'd better first produce growth."

BLIND TO THEIR LIBERAL BIASES:

Indeed, many liberals don't even view themselves as liberals. Rather, they are reality- and fact-based creatures. Only conservatives allow their biases to taint their objectivity. Liberals will admit that some conservatives are rational, but to be both rational and conservative, they must be evil. They know the policies they support are wrong, objectively, but they choose to do so anyway -- or something like that.

Liberal dogma: if you're rational and conservative, you must be evil.

D.C. LAWMAKERS propose requiring all students apply to college. They're punting. D.C. schools are well-known to be atrociously poor, they ran off Michelle Rhee, the best school superintendent D.C. ever had, and now they're trying to force universites to provide remedial training to 'cover up' their own shortcomings.

What a bunch of doofuses.

BARRY RUBIN: Where's the common sense? In the Republican Party, although I will concede it could express it better.

HOUSE SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: Nearly 30 Bipartisan Jobs Bills Await a Vote in Senate; More on the Way.

FROM MY EMAIL: Ruger Firearms is coming out with a new and intimidating pistol in honor of U.S. Senators and Congressmen.


It will be named the "Politician". It doesn't work and you can't fire it. (Nor can you afford it.)

JONAH GOLDBERG: Conservative Establishment Divided Against Itself. I respect Goldberg, but I think he's somewhat off base.

First I don't see that the 'conservative base' has gotten more conservative over the years (and I've been around a few); it only seems so because the liberals have become much more extreme after their successes in the 90's.

Second, the 'anti-establishment tumult' is just that -- anti-establishment. While the Tea Party is predominately conservative, it's mad at the self-serving bureaucrats and congresscritters of both parties. Last election I voted Republican; this election I will add 'anti-establishment' to my essentially conservative agenda and vote the rascals out.

NAACP: keep blacks on the plantation. It's not just the NAACP; it's a liberal mantra that only liberals can take care of the black community -- provided they stay on the plantation.

GROUP HEALTH INSURANCE for the masses. This is an idea I'd like to see happen, and the first step to make it happen will be to allow the masses (i.e., me) to purchase insurance across state lines. The second step will be to prevent the governments (state and federal) from dictating minimum insurance coverage requirements.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: All the news you didn't see in the mainstream media in 2011 (and the news you won't see in 2012).

INTERESTED IN the Republican candidates' tax plans? Here's the chart to see.

To me, Gingrich and Perry clearly have the best tax plans because both are proposing a flat tax and both are proposing at least some change to Social Security/Medicare (I want full privatization). Romney is much better than Obama, but I don't see him suggesting any changes to either Social Security or Medicare, which are the two most significant budget problems in the U.S. today.

Linked from Yid with a Lid.

ROMNEY: "I enjoy firing people." Who wouldn't?

More: “Maybe the Democrats should run on this question: Do you want a guy with experience firing people to go to Washington and … fire some people?”

TRUTH? Who needs truth when you can have stagecraft?

OBAMA FLIP-FLOP: We were against unpaid internships before we were for them.

"THAT PATIENT IS NOW INOPERATIVE."

IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, 'acceptable' is pronounced 'winner'. I'm not ready to grant Romney the Republican nomination yet, but he is certainly more acceptable than the current occupant of the White House.

WILL YOUR CAR (with you in it) be the next victim of a cyberattack?

THE DONKEY WHISPERER:



Roger Williams is running for Congress in Texas' newly-created District 33.

WIND FARMS: Hidden expenses cancel out 'green' benefits. The complete report is here.

CDC REPORT: Binge Drinking Rates in U.S. ‘Alarming’. And it will get much, much worse as the CDC continues to redefine binge drinking. I'll be a binge drinker to when the definition becomes two beers in a single day.

MASSIVE NEW OIL DEPOSIT discovered in the arctic. And it's not under Obama's jurisdiction.

FROM THE 'YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME' DEPARTMENT OF OVERREGULATION: FAA waives rules, says paid pilots can guide whooping cranes to Florida using bird-like plane.

KODAK AND THE POST OFFICE: "We cannot preserve everything that was once useful."

PAUL GREENBERG: A brief history of Republicanism.

ANOTHER DAY, another rat, and another sinking ship.

RANDOM THOUGHTS from the retirement lane. Watching the Republican debates, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum remind me of a T-shirt I saw recently in North Carolina. It read: 'You Look Like I Need Another Drink'.

POLL: Americans, 2-1, fear Obama’s reelection. If it seriously looks like an Obama reelection, I'm going consider investing in Rosetta Stone.

THE 2012 ELECTION: a battle for capitalism. Will the takers outvote the earners?

BYRON YORK: Is New Hampshire fit to pick a President? The mainstream media will never let facts interfere with the politically correct narrative.

DEATH THREAT from Chris Matthews: "If I Were Voting [in New Hampshire] I’d Vote for Huntsman."

LEFTISM MAKES YOU MEANER. That's what happens when you're proven wrong time and time again and no one takes you seriously.

AND YOU thought you had privacy?

ALWAYS READY: Penis Tattoo Leads to Permanent Erection.

CAN SARAH BE FAR BEHIND? Todd Palin endorses Newt Gingrich for President.

OCCUPY FAIL: Rat population has 'exploded around Occupy DC camps.

[Mohammad N. Akhter, the director of the District’s Department of Health] said his concerns about the health and safety at the camps prompted him to order a city-wide review of conditions there, including input from health inspectors, mental health professionals, experts on the homeless and others. He is reviewing their findings this week.

Mental health professionals. Good call

ECONOMY IN DEAD HEAT WITH U.S. DEBT. Expect it to lose if Obama is reelected.

WHY OBAMA WANTS TO TAX THE RICH: to offset the green subsidies he's giving them.

IT'S INCREASINGLY CLEAR that the real racists are Democrats.

A NEW MEANING for the phrase "pumped up."

SINKING SHIP: Obama Chief of Staff Bill Daley to step down.

DEREK HUNTER: Pitching in to help President Obama. Yes, I plan to pitch in to help him -- out.

OBAMA: "The math is the math." No, it isn't. Math is a tool, not a fact, and to be useful it must be grounded in reality, not imagination.

DID YOU get your ObamaCare waiver?

Documents released in a classic Friday afternoon news dump show that labor unions representing 543,812 workers received waivers from President Barack Obama‘s signature legislation.... By contrast, private employers with a total of 69,813 employees, many of whom work for small businesses, were granted waivers.

Waivers for friends.

OBAMA IN KINDERGARTEN: 'doesn't work well with others'.

U.S. WINS in war of government stupidity.

HOW DO YOU SPELL 'tinpot dictator'?

JEFF JACOBY: Pull the parachute. Better yet, go to a part-time government.

VOTE FOR DAMON; if not him, then Newt.

CALIFORNIA'S BULLET TRAIN hits (financial) brick wall. Debris everywhere.

JEFF JACOBY: A 'referendum' on Romney. Jacoby pretty well nails down the dilemma. I'm looking for a principled conservative to take the reins in 2013, but I'll settle for Romney in the knowledge that anyone, even my cat, is a better choice than Obama.

MICHELLE MALKIN: Snobs and sore losers.

ANOTHER VOTE in favor of marriage.

BIG GOVERNMENT, BIG POVERTY: "Excessive federal spending isn’t preventing poverty. If anything, it seems to be exacerbating it."

HEH. U.S. NAVY rescues Iranian fishing boat from Somali pirates.

HACKERS plan space satellites to combat censorship. Responding to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)?

RATS RETURN to Occupy D.C. No surprise there.

POPULAR CULTURE: too stupid to vote? Probably so.

JEFF JACOBY: Is the Supreme Court really supreme? I'm beginning to wonder ....

MAKING THE CASE FOR THE F-22/F-35.

Fifth Generation Fighters from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

FROM MY EMAIL: How to fix the economy in three easy steps:

Dear Mr. President,

Please find below my suggestion for fixing America 's economy. Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan. You can call it the "Patriotic Retirement Plan":
There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force. Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.

2) They MUST buy a new AMERICAN Car. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed.

P.S. If more money is needed, have all members in Congress pay their taxes .... And while you're at it, make Congress retire on Social Security and Medicare. I'll bet both programs would be fixed pronto!

It's expensive enough ($40 trillion) that Congress and the Obama administration might take it seriously.

KEITH OLBERMANN'S new network affiliation?


I hope not. Right now ONN is still funny.

EVEN ENGINEERS get it wrong on occasion:

A toothpaste factory had a problem: they sometimes shipped empty boxes, without the tube inside. This was due to the way the production line was set up, and people with experience in designing production lines will tell you how difficult it is to have everything happen with timings so precise that every single unit coming out of it is perfect 100% of the time. Small variations in the environment (which can't be controlled in a cost-effective fashion) mean you must have quality assurance checks smartly distributed across the line so that customers all the way down to the supermarket don't get mad and buy another brand instead.

Understanding how important that was, the CEO of the toothpaste factory got the top people in the company together and they decided to start a new project, in which they would hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem, as their engineering department was already too stretched to take on any extra effort.

The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, third-parties selected, and six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution - on time, on budget, high quality and everyone in the project had a great time. They solved the problem by using high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box would weigh less than it should. The line would stop, and someone had to walk over and yank the defective box out of it, pressing another button when done to re-start the line.

A while later, the CEO decides to have a look at the ROI of the project: amazing results! No empty boxes ever shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place. Very few customer complaints and they were gaining market share. "That's some money well spent!" - he says, before looking closely at the other statistics in the report.

It turns out the number of defects picked up by the scales was 0 after three weeks of production use. It should've been picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report. He filed a bug against it, and after some investigation, the engineers come back saying the report was actually correct. The scales really weren't picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.

Puzzled, the CEO travels down to the factory, and walks up to the part of the line where the precision scales were installed. A few feet before the scale, there was a $20 desk fan, blowing the empty boxes out of the belt and into a bin.

"Oh, that," says one of the workers -"one of the guys put it there 'cause he was tired of walking over every time the bell rang."

From my email.

NO SHIT, SHERLOCK: Payroll tax cut raises worries about Social Security’s future funding. The 'lockbox' is empty; Social Security is in hock to the tune of ... well, big bucks, it's taking in less in taxes than it pays out, the taxpaying population is decreasing relative to the number of retirees, Uncle Sam Obama just cut the tax rate (again), and everything will remain peachy wonderful?

NOT AT WAL MART: light bulb standards will phase in on Jan. 1. I was in my local Wal Mart this morning, and couldn't afford to buy all the 100-watt incandescent bulbs they had on their shelves.

"THE CASE FOR LIMITED GOVERNMENT is becoming increasingly inseparable from the case for religious liberty." Increasingly, I'm seeing the 'social justice' movement as government-powered bigotry agaist the religious and successful.

RISK FACTOR: Are you safer with software?

LIGHTS OUT for the AirBorne Laser (ABL):

[In] February 2010, the ABL engaged and destroyed its first test target — a solid-rocket fueled Terrier Black Brant rocket. This was followed just more than a week later by another shootdown, this time of a liquid-fueled foreign missile target.

But

Despite finally shooting down its first target, ABL has cratered under the substantial funding required for its work, cost-prohibitive and improbable employment scenarios and, most recently, pressure on the Pentagon budget resulting from growing national debt.

Like many military developments, the technology problems are hard but soluble; the employment problems (getting close enough to fire without being close enough to be fired upon) are harder and sometimes insoluble.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The New Old Europe.

IF OBAMACARE is so good, why are doctors so skeptical?

THOMAS SOWELL picks Newt Gingrich for the Republican nominee. Ann Coulter picks Mitt Romney. Personally, I prefer Rick Perry, but I could vote for Gingrich or Romney.

SURPRISED? Federal Pay Rises Faster than Private Pay.

TEAM ROMNEY TO OWS: "Go to work!" It's in the last few seconds of the video.

OCCUPY DC DEMONSTRATORS bolstered by migrating NYC Occupiers. Good luck, guys; it's in the low teens here with the wind chill.

A REMINDER from Walter E. Williams: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

AFTERBURNER: Bill Whittle takes a look at the state of this country three years into Obama’s rule (registration required; it's free) and has amassed a breathtaking list of Obama administration failures.

CONCERNED:

I am really concerned about North Korea's appointment of the "dear leader" Kim Jung Il's youngest son to be the new leader of North Korea-- a nuclear power!

After all, Kim Jung Un had no military experience whatsoever before daddy made him a four-star general in the military. This is a snot-nose twerp who has never accomplished anything in his life that would even come close to military leadership: he hasn't even so much as led a cub scout troop, coached a sports team or commanded a military platoon. So, setting that aside, next they make him the "beloved leader" of the country. Terrific!

Oh, crap! I'm sorry. I just remembered that we did the same thing here. We took a community organizer who has never worn a uniform and made him Commander-in-Chief; a guy who has never led anything more than an ACORN demonstration and made him the leader of this country. I'm sorry I brought this up, never mind.

From my email.

2011: ANOTHER YEAR of Obama administration scandals.

UNDER THE OBAMANAUTS the quality of federal regulation is plummeting.

NO SURPRISE: Economic downturn good for the political class.

BARBEQUE? PETA wants a 5/22 Cow Memorial.

RANDOM THOUGHTS from Thomas Sowell. Here are two of my favorites:

If you don't like growing older, don't worry about it. You may not be growing older much longer.

What do you call it when someone steals someone else's money secretly? Theft. What do you call it when someone takes someone else's money openly by force? Robbery. What do you call it when a politician takes someone else's money in taxes and gives it to someone who is more likely to vote for him? Social Justice.

Read them all.

SCANDAL-FREE: the 2011 Obama admininstration. There are none so blind as those who will not see.