SWELL: 26 years on the government dime (six in college; 20 on welfare) and all is forgiven.

THE [OWS] PROTESTERS "don't want to end crony capitalism, with its handouts and government favoritism; they want to participate in it."

ELIZABETH WARREN: I provided the intellectual foundation for Occupy Wall Street. Chaos is an intellectual foundation?

DON'T TELL THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Scientists reveal millions of regulatory elements in human genome.

MUCH OF THE MEDIA has taken the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) study released this week as proof that global warming is real. Dr. William Briggs is less sanguine.

BEST has confirmed what everybody—and I mean everybody—already believed: that temperature changes. BEST has not—I repeat not; I repeat it in bold: not; I repeat it in italics: not—proved why the temperature has changed.

That is, BEST has not given any evidence that the temperatures changes because a particular theory of anthropogenic global warming is true. Nor has it proven that any AGW theory is false. BEST says nothing one way or another. As in nothing. As is not one thing. As in it remains mute. As in AGW is not confirmed nor discomfirmed by BEST. As in the debate is not over.

BEST believes that, over the past two centuries, the temperature went up in about two-thirds of all land-based stations. BEST also believes, and has so stated, that the temperature went down in about one-third of all land-based stations. As in decreased. As in became cooler. As in, it is not so that everywhere became hotter.

BEST has said nothing about temperature changes over most of the EARTH’s surface, which is to say, the oceans. As in BEST had nothing to say about most of the planet. And BEST has confined itself to a very brief period of time.

Read it all. Then go to Briggs' original post (math warning) for more. I found the comments especially fascinating, not so much because I really understood them, but for the reminder of how much I've forgotten in the nearly 35 years since my Ph.D.

NOW TAXPAYERS get to pay for diapers. How freely we spend other people's money.

OCCUPY OAKLAND - a photo essay. Be sure and read the comments.

MEMO TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: "When Charles Schumer, John Kerry, Barney Frank, Deval Patrick, and the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association are all warning that your regulations are destroying jobs, maybe it’s time to start putting ... people ahead of fish."

IT COULD BE WORSE: How the Washington Post campaigns for Obama’s re-election.

I COULD USE ANOTHER PHD: Borrow lots of money, go to graduate school, vote for Obama. It's free!

OBAMA BASHES PRIVATE JETS, private jet sales then plummet, now a bunch of jet-making workers lose their jobs. That reminds me that I saw an Obama "Yes, We Did" bumper sticker on a car in front of me this morning. I sure the Piper workers will be happy ....

WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, there's Cain's new video. I like the video, and the subliminal message that there's a new - and politically incorrect - sheriff in town. Good work, Herman!

APPLY THE 'CLASS' TEST to all government legislation.

FIVE MYTHS helping to drive Occupy Wall Street.

I'm of the opinion that every piece of "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help you" legislation be tried out on government employees for a minimum of 10 years before being foisted off on the public at large.

POLITICAL MATH: it's all about context.

THE HOME AFFORDABLE REFINANCE PROGRAM (HARP) II is pathetic because it doesn't forgive people who bought overinflated homes they couldn't afford in the first place.

Sorry, Felix; that's not a bug, that's a feature.

OCCUPY OAKLAND EVICTED: To save on overcrowded jails, once they had them surrounded, the police should have put up a fence and locked the gate.

A WAY to look at the debt ceiling:

Let's say you come home from work and find there has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood and your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings.

What do you think you should do ... raise the ceilings, or pump out the shit?

Your choice is coming Nov. 2012

From my email.

EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM TEST: The state can 'seize control' and 'there is nothing we can do'. Frankly this -- and the accompanying comments -- are just a wee bit over the top and miss the essential point, which is "Just what constitutes an 'emergency'?" Already our local EBS system goes into hyperdrive every time there is fog, a rain shower, thunderstorm, snow, or winds greater than 30 knots, warning us to get off the roads, get to emergency shelter, or cower in the basement.

It's a case of the "little boy who cried 'wolf' too many times" without the ability to tell the little twerp to sit down and shut up.

CALLING IT LIKE IT IS: the cult of global warming is losing influence.