TIME FOR SARAH to grapple. OK, so I understand the concept:

Palin must learn how to convey to her audience that she comprehends and can grapple with the depth and nature of presidential-level problems. This is the fundamental weakness to which most ... criticisms of her are tethered.

Translated, she must become smoother, more “nuanced” to quiet the frayed nerves of the “sophisticated” coastal elites of both parties who despise her. I understand that.

But ...

Frankly, I want those very same sophisticated coastal elites of both parties to understand – and feel – the contempt I have for them.

A NEW LOW in the Rasmussen Obama Approval Index.

Hmm. ObamaCare is getting passed ... shouldn’t his approval be skyrocketing?

NOT ONLY was it a heckuva lot more than $15, it was my money.

[Update via Instapundit]: "Cash for cloture". Follow the links.

YOU DON'T SAY: "The rushed, secretive way that a bill this destructive and unpopular is being forced on the country shows that "reform" has devolved into the raw exercise of political power for the single purpose of permanently expanding the American entitlement state."

DRUNK PILOT steals airplane; takes off.

Actually, he's a skilled acrobatic pilot at an air show. Many years ago, I saw a similar routine by another pilot flying a stock Piper Cub. What he was able to do while never getting more than 50 above the runway was amazing.

SENATOR MARY LANDRIEU (D-LA) sold her vote for $300M. How much did Sen. Nelson (D-NE) sell his vote for?

God help us all - Congress won't.

ONLY FIVE MINUTES before these photos were taken, you could see the asphalt.



About 7 inches of snow have been cleared from the top of the driveway. The lawn tractor's snow blade can handle only about 10 inches,so it looks like tomorrow's going to be some hard physical labor.

I was hoping for a break at about 8 inches of snow ....

[Update] The back porch ruler now reads almost 11 inches.

[Update; 1:30 pm] The ruler is now buried; time to switch to a yardstick.

[Update; 6:00 pm] The yardstick now reads 16 inches; it's still snowing.

A NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: please shut up!

I know it's snowing outside; it does that in the winter. I also know how to deal with it, and I can do without your silly advice and fatuous "look at me braving the danger to show you what you can see looking out the window" commentary.

A SNOWY VIEW from our window:



Almost 7 inches at 8:30 am; another 10-12 inches expected before it's over tomorrow morning.

It's going to be a long day.

A MOST AMAZING Remote Controlled [RC] model airplane -- click here to see it fly.

This perfectly scaled model of the SR-71 "Blackbird" built by a German RC enthusiast is one nifty toy.

Enjoy.

HONK TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING

And the cars to which these horns are attached don’t emit CO2?

I know it’s foreign to them, but perhaps these folks could at least try thinking?

Via Tim Blair.

OH, MY. SARAH PALIN IS HETEROSEXUAL: “The failed Vice Presidential nominee took time off from shilling her book to vacation with her son Trig, daughter Piper and opposite sex spouse Todd, in President Barack Obama's birth state of Hawaii on Tuesday.”

Don’t you think the fact that she’s given birth to five children might be a clue?

ANOTHER EXAMPLE of political correctness run amuck:

An eight year old elementary school student in Taunton was sent home from school and required to undergo a psychological evaluation after drawing a stick figure picture of Jesus on the cross.

The second grader at Maxham Elementary school was told by this teacher that the drawing was violent. This was after the class was asked to sketch something that reminded them of Christmas....

The school denied that the student was suspended: “School officials did not specify any action they took, but said they followed ‘well-established protocol,’ including reviewing the child's records and consulting with school psychologists.”

At the moment, this appears to be a "he said, she said" case. But given school tendencies toward "zero tolerance", the way to bet is against the school.

BLOWING MY OWN HORN: why systems engineers are really, really important.

One major problem with most invocations of the precautionary principle is that people tend to apply it to whatever danger they want to prevent, but largely ignore it in considering the potential dangers created by the policies they advocate.

It’s called risk assessment.

Link from Instapundit.

BLAME A BILLIONAIRE: “In 1998, when the Clinton White House found itself in the middle of the Lewinsky scandal, one of its key defense strategies was to attack the conservative philanthropist Richard Mellon Scaife as the dark power behind the allegations against the president.... Now it's the Obama White House that is in trouble.... And now, as in the Clinton years, White House surrogates are looking for a billionaire to blame.”

But the Left’s billionaires are - of course - pristine and without sin. Read the whole thing.

AND THE WALLS came tumbling down.

Well, we can hope.

SOMETHING LIGHTER: A new Claris poll tells us that one of the most popular members of President Obama's team is White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, approved by 50 percent and disapproved by 33 percent. Many of those approving say they have fond memories of Gibbs coaching the Redskins and managing his racing team, while others credit him for leading a well-run NCIS team.

AND YOU THOUGHT OBAMACARE would only cost a trillion dollars or so .... Uh, no. It makes HillaryCare look cheap by comparison:

This weekend, the Congressional Budget Office released “a very strange memo” titled, “Budgetary Treatment of Proposals to Regulate Medical Loss Ratios.” You wouldn’t know it from the title, but that little memo is the smoking gun that shows how congressional Democrats have very carefully hidden more than half the cost of their health care bills.

The whole article is here.

Link via Megan McArdle.

STILL WHINING AFTER ALL THIS TIME: “The president's still whining about the problems he inherited when he took office and he's still blaming Republicans. And the American people are tuning him out at a stunning pace.”

Um, Mr. Obama? It’s your administration now. You’re responsible.

MAKING MONEY ON CAP’N TRADE: “The EU's emission trading scheme (ETS) may have been the deciding factor in the closure of the Corus Redcar steel-making plant – reported last week , giving the company a windfall bonus of up to £1.2 billion from the plant closure – on top of other savings.”

It’s a clever scam - and perfectly legal. The company can effectively double it’s “cap’n trade” income by closing its steel plant in England, "offshoring" production to India and bringing that steel plant’s emissions down from over twice the EU level to the level currently produced by the steel plant in England. The details are here.

Sweet.

Linked from the Wall Street Journal (scroll down).