A WHINY PAEAN TO PORK AND POWER: Sen. [Arlen] Specter on Tuesday wanted to show us what was wrong with Washington -- and, unwittingly, he did.

MICHAEL BARONE: States with no income tax grew faster in the last decade.

CANADA'S OIL SANDS DEVELOPMENT gets (mostly positive) top-level review. Which annoys IEEE's resident environmental activist.

Never let facts interfere with your vision.

O HOLY NIGHT: some thoughts on the meaning of Christmas.

STANDING WATCH ON CHRISTMAS: attributed to Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Giles, U.S. Navy, Al Taqqadum, Iraq.

Read it all.

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS from 42 years past.

THE SPIRIT OF SANTA is alive and well in America.

MERRY CHRISTMAS


The National Christmas Tree in front of the White House.


Our family tree.

A GOOD QUESTION: Would global warming be so bad? Myself, I've never heard a satisfactory answer.

SMART STANDARDS for the smart grid. Unfortunately, there’s no standard for “No (control).”

THE NEW YEAR CANNOT COME TOO SOON: Voters elected Republicans to end Obamaism, not expand it.

MORE YEARS wandering in the desert.

Small businesses, like my 53-person outfit, see no reason whatsoever to do anything but hold tight to our cash for the next two years.... This is not fear; rather it is a rational business approach to having low confidence in future conditions.

The next election is only 2 years away. Will business continue to sit on the sidelines? I fear they will unless the next Congress aggressively moves against the current administration.

OBAMACARE: who decides? I would hope the Constitution, but I’m not confident the judiciary will agree. The key element appears to be judicial interpretation of the Constitution’s Necessary and Proper clause, and I hope Judge Hudson’s interpretation (“[the Necessary and Proper Clause] is not unbridled.”) is sustained.

PAUL GREENBERG: the end of books. The quote, I think, is from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, but I've been unable to find my copy to confirm it.

DOD CONFIRMS flash drive breached its IT security in 2008. I was on assignment in Iraq at the time. It caused some consternation in the IT community, but our mission was unaffected.

AT LEAST THE ACRONYM IS ACCURATE. Intelligence community responds to WikiLeaks with a Wikileaks Task Force.

WE’RE IN THE BEST OF HANDS: National Intelligence Director James Clapper unaware when asked about the arrest of 12 alleged Al Qaeda-inspired plotters in London. Don’t worry, though; Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is on top of everything 24/7/364 in all 57 states.

It's a three-ring, all-clown circus.

RANDOM THOUGHT: If BMWs are such mechanical marvels, why does a new BMW dealership opening locally have a 60-bay service department?

CLIMATE CHANGE. There's a mini ice-age coming. No, no, no ... that snow outside is what global warming looks like.

Who to believe?

Well, the man predicting a mini ice-age is an astrophysicist studying the sun who seems to have a history of making accurate predictions; the one predicting global warming admits that "climate scientists" missed the warming effects on atmospheric circulation that is now bringing heavy snows to London.

My money's on the astrophysicist.

More here.

I WOULD NOT HAVE BELIEVED Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen could possibly sink lower in the miniscule regard I hold him, but with this column ("Not his corps competency"), he did. Cohen is a man who does not deserve the freedom the military confers upon him.

[Update] A rational response to the Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal - from a Marine's wife.