HOW A BAILOUT really works.

RANDOM THOUGHTS from the retirement lane. Effective January first, 100-watt incandescent light bulbs will be banned in the U.S. by an act of environmental stupidity. So when my supply of 100-watt bulbs gives out (in a year or two) I'll end up replacing the fixtures where I need 100-watt bulbs with fixtures that will hold two 60-watt bulbs.

So consider this: where I now use a single incandescent bulb that consumes 100 watts of electrical power and produces 1440 lumens of light output, I will eventually use two bulbs consuming 120 watts of electrical power and producing 1580 lumens of light output (which I could use, by the way, as my eyes are getting older).

So for all practical purposes, I will get a modest 9% improvement in light quality by paying a 20% increase in the cost of electricity for every 100-watt bulb I replace. Plus the cost of the new fixture.

All in the name of "improving energy efficiency."

UPDATE: Temporary reprieve.

ANDREW KLAVAN: Wall Street on Trial.



Linked from here.

I MUST BE doing something right -- I just got a hit on this blog from the U.S. Senate office of the Sergeant at Arms.

SPHINX WITHOUT A RIDDLE. Those who fail to learn history are condemn us all to repeat it.

CLIMATE CORRUPTION 101: "[I]n the name of 'climate', the United Nations wishes to regulate and tax the economy of the planet — stripping resources from the most productive economies to hand them out as assorted UN bureaucrats deem fit."

It's well past time to withdraw from the U.N.

FORMER SENATOR EVERETT DIRKSEN: A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon it adds up to real money. House passes one trillion dollar (annual!) budget bill.

IN THE LONG RUN paternalism doesn't look all that great to me.

Linked from here.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The rise of the new German empire.

NEWT IS RIGHT: I'm glad I cleaned the bathrooms.

"YOU'RE CARRYING WATER for the Mexican on the Fourth Floor."

GINGRICH: A walk on the wild side.

Who was the last person to actually cut government? Who was the last person who actually led a movement that balanced the federal budget? . . . The last time there was true welfare reform, the last time government was cut, Gingrich did it.

[W]hen government last made progress he was part of it. They have a very practical sense of politics now. The heroic era of the presidency is dead. They are not looking to like their president or admire him, they just want someone to fix the crisis. The last time helpful things happened in Washington, he was a big part of it. So they may hire him again. Are they put off by his scandals? No. They think all politicians are scandalous.

The criticism of Gingrich reminds me of something I once heard during the time the old Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended: that the Soviets were genuinely fearful that the U.S. was 'crazy enough' to blow them all away. Perhaps it's time to show the world that America is no longer a paper tiger.

DANA LOESCH responds to a Media Matters article blaming Christians for poverty. Read the charts to see who to blame -- they're damning.

As for Media Matters, the best description of their article is a single word: incoherent.

MICHAEL REAGAN: Has the Right gone mad? No, only the Republican establishment, and they'll get their comeuppance in 2014.

COLLEGE SUICIDE leads to new alert. The next step will be a warning label on all college admission letters: "WARNING - the college experience may lead to higher risk of suicide."

SATELLITES AND ASTRONAUTS could one day take off on a rocket carried by the largest aircraft ever flown, cruise to 30,000 feet and then blast into orbit.

Billionaire Paul Allen on Tuesday announced the creation of Huntsville, Ala.-based Stratolaunch Systems to develop a carrier aircraft with a wingspan wider than a football field to carry and deploy a SpaceX rocket. The initiative reunites Microsoft co-founder Allen with legendary aerospace engineer Burt Rutan. They developed SpaceShipOne and together won the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004 for being the first privately funded, manned vehicle to reach space twice in two weeks.

Check the link above to see a short simulation of the flight/launch sequence.

OBAMA'S coming for your email address! I'm not worried; it'll allow me to verify my spam filter -- and my friends.

HUH?

“OWS as a topic of study offers prismatic opportunities to consider the changing shape of inequality in our society and the dynamic processes of repertoire change in social movements globally, from the picket line to the sit-in, to the consideration of life course trajectories, among other themes central to the sociological apprehension of the modern context, ...”

The link is here.

[OCCUPY L.A.] PROTESTER is the face of Time's 'Person of the Year'. Hmm. Based on the impact of the 2010 elections, I would think that the Tea Party might have been so named in 2010. But then they were a force for good, not ill.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS ECSTATIC: WalMart kills birds.