WILL DEMOCRATS 'go for it' on immigration reform? Obama, Pelosi and Reid seem to be driven by a desire to avoid, not confront, the voters' top priority, which is the economy and jobs.

Well, of course. They tried – and failed spectacularly. Now it’s time for Plan B: divert America’s attention from that failure.

What’s Plan C for when B fails?

AVATAR SETTING ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY. "Actress Sigourney Weaver testifies before the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on the topic of ocean acidification. Because, you know, she played an environmental scientist in Avatar."

Yes, real scientists are just so ... so .... icky.

IN MEMORIAM


Dixie (1996-2010). Rest.

PENSION REFORM? Oh, my, this one is good! Especially the reader comment that “prevailing unemployment” be extended to Congress.

POLICY CHANGE: progressives rename themselves.

WORSE THAN A PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS: A Plague of ‘A’ Students.

SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT - so I’ll have more of it to enjoy for myself.

Link from Instapundit.

IF PRESIDENT OBAMA IS 'AMUSED’ by the Tea Partier’s distaste for ObamaCare, then what must he think of the Constitution?


by Nate Beeler at the Washington Examiner.

DEMOCRATS AT THE EDGE OF THE ELECTORAL CLIFF with a long fall to the bottom.

We can only hope.

POPULISM OF THE PRIVILEGED: the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto laughs at the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne.

OBAMA’S SPACE PROGRAM; more conservative than Bush’s space program.

Rand Simberg, who blogs at Transterrestial Musings, argues in favor of the Obama plan for restructuring America’s manned space program, believing it is, at least, a (poorly conceived and badly executed) step in the right direction toward space colonization.

Others, including Neil Armstrong and many in the astronaut corps, strongly disagree.

In the long run, I have to agree with Simberg. Manned spaceflight will never be more than a ‘lab curiosity’ until the next Pan Am starts scheduled suborbital and orbital service. In the short term, though, the astronauts are correct; Constellation is needed to ‘keep the dream alive’ until Pan American World Spaceways is in operation.

The pity is that this argument should have been had - and settled - 15 years ago.

OBAMANOMICS: coming to an economy near you. Read it and weep for the America you thought you knew.

CLIMATEGATE IS DEAD; long live Climategate. The IEEE’s energy correspondent sees the handwriting on the wall: the British House of Commons's attempted whitewash of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit failed.

NEVER IN THE FIELD OF HUMAN CONFLICT was so much said by so many for so little. “[T]he torrent of words that spewed forth for two days at the Washington Convention Center would have been enough to fill every missile silo in the world.... [but] ... We are no closer to meaningful sanctions against a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. And the only countries to have ever been caught disseminating nuclear capacity – Pakistan and North Korea – were not part of the discussion.”

The Washington Post story (Obama secures 47-nation pact at nuclear summit, 14 April) is here.

THE POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT & THE TEA PARTY: Richard Fernandez of the Belmont Club comments: “Nothing throws [politicians] for a loop more than some[one] that doesn’t want anything they can bestow. The Tea Partiers already know the establishment is bankrupt. They don’t want to be the next Botox Queen, the next guest on Oprah or the man with Internet access on Air Force One; they only want their freedom and a chance to meet the crisis with common sense, if that’s not asking too much.”

AN AGE OF UNTRUTH. Victor Davis Hanson on liberal lies and other hypocrisies.

IN SEC VS. GOLDMAN, who's really at fault?

The answer is, of course, everyone.

What I find amusing is Chris Stirewalt’s comment: “As Goldman is now finding out, the problem of being in business with the government is that sometimes they cheat for you, but when the political climate demands it, they start cheating against you.”

"TO KEEP US FROM OWNING GUNS, DC politicians are willing to trade our voting rights."

While I happen to think this is the right call (no voting rights for D.C.) for the wrong reason (maintain tight gun control regulation), I am amused by this quote: “In Washington, D.C., we get precisely the representation we deserve.”

FDA PLANS to limit amount of salt allowed in processed foods for health reasons. Chris Stirewalt comments (fifth item):

What in the hell?

The FDA has the power to limit sodium content in food? When did that happen?

[I]n the post-American America, those who fail to heed the warnings are a cost to all of us mandatorily insured workers of the world. A government that has a fiduciary interest in your blood pressure is a government that will run your life.

What a prissy country this has become.

But, but ... it’s for your own good.

AND IN LOCAL NEWS: At the company I work for, a “staff member complained about coworkers speaking vehemently about their political beliefs while at work — to the point that this person felt uncomfortable.”

There’s a ‘right to be comfortable’? I wonder if I can cite feeling uncomfortable as a reason for walking out of the annual ‘diversity training’ sessions.