Random links

Random links from Pundit:

Ahmadinejad: Neda's death is 'suspicious'

"Well, if the CIA wants to kill some people and attribute that to the government elements, then choosing women is an appropriate choice, because the death of a woman draws more sympathy," Ghadiri said.

Prominent Dems propose pay plan for health overhaul

Asked to define "bipartisanship," Daschle replied, "The involvement of
one or more Republican."

Heartless: The disturbing glee at Mark Sanford's downfall John Dickerson

The snap judgments failed to acknowledge a grain of the fundamental human carnage we were witnessing. You can laugh at Sanford, as you can laugh at a video of a wrecked Amy Winehouse falling all over her house. But at some point, even though they did it to themselves, you have to feel sorry for them as human beings. You can do that, I think, and not be a fan of adultery or drug use.

Read the rest.

Beholding a Mindset [Jay Nordlinger]

Incredible:

Then Mrs. Clinton made a most remarkable statement. She said, “Some might say President Obama is left-of-center. And of course, that means that we are going to work well with countries that share our commitment to improving and enhancing the human potential.”

So, under conservative presidents, America is not committed to improving and enhancing the human potential? What a statement! Our government is indeed bewildering right now. If I can wax just slightly demagogic (but only slightly): Are we intent on being approved by Chávez, Ortega, and the Castros? Or are we standing up for U.S. interests, principles, and values? Come on!

Reading, and Mocking, the Palin Profile So You Don't Have To

Jim Geraghty performs a public service. The thing is 9800 words long!

Kristol: Liberal Media and GOP Hacks vs. Palin

Is there any real chance that "several" Alaskans independently told Purdum that they had consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders? I don’t believe it for a moment. I’ve (for better or worse) moved in pretty well-educated circles in my life, and I’ve gone decades without “several” people telling me they had consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

*Updated to add What's in Waxman-Markey

And how will this bill affect you? It has regulations on every single aspect of your daily life. There are light bulb restrictions (no more than 60 watts in your candelabra); in fact there's a whole section that deals with lamps. If you decide to build a new home, it must meet new and specific energy requirements. If you decide to sell your existing home, a federal inspector must inspect your home, determine it's energy rating, and if your home is found to be unacceptable then you must retrofit and make changes before you will be able to sell.

There's an entire section on planting trees including guidelines on "scientific based measurements outlining the species and minimum distance required between trees planted...in addition to the minimum required distance to be maintained between such trees and building foundations, air conditioning units, driveways and walkways...". Do we really need the federal government telling us where we can plant trees?

There's a section dealing with outdoor lighting in which you are given instructions about landscape lights, lights in your swimming pool, lights on artwork and other architectural lighting. The federal government is going to tell you what wattage that light can be and how many you can have. In some cases the lights must be capable of producing two different light levels (100 and 60 watt).

There are new government regulations for water dispensers, hot tubs and other appliances. They're going to regulate water usage, and regulate wood stoves. Any wood stove that does not meet regulation must be "destroyed and recycled."

Madness. I mean, thank you, Dear Leader, for giving us the guidance we need.

Comments welcome.

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Assorted unpleasantness

Or should it be 'unpleasantnesses'?

If you're feeling a bothersome pricking in your thumbs it's because Al Franken is coming to Washington.

The unanimous court wrote that "because the legislature established absentee voting as an optional method of voting, voters choosing to use that method are required to comply with the statutory provisions."

They went on to say that "because strict compliance with the statutory requirements for absentee voting is, and always has been required, there is no basis on which voters could have reasonably believed that anything less than strict compliance would suffice."

What can you say about voters who can't get the job done? Honestly, is it that hard to fill out a ballot?

But there's no doubt that Al will really elevate the tone of the joint.


A Congressional moment of silence for Michael Jackson nearly "nauseated" Rep. John Yarmuth:

YARMUTH: Um, I was close to nauseated by it. I thought it was outrageous. In my two and a half years, we’ve never done that for anybody else who’s a celebrity. We’ve done it for former members, and that’s about it, for former members who’ve passed away … I basically got up and walked back to the cloakroom and got off the floor, because I just thought it was totally uncalled for and over the top.

ZIEGLER: And were you alone in that feeling?

YARMUTH: Oh, no, the cloakroom was pretty well packed. I think there were a lot of people who were disgusted by it.

Someone close to me said he would have played his kazoo.

Remember that PKU test they performed on your newborn at the hospital? Someone may be using that blood for research. From the Washington Post's Health section, a story about state governments and hospitals retaining and using infant blood samples without parental permission. There are numerous reasons why parents and others are opposed to this:

. . . the states can still link each sample to an individual child -- and that worries some parents, patient groups, bioethicists and privacy advocates, especially with advances in genetics and electronic data banks linking medical information from different sources. [. . .]

"But you could use someone's DNA to make some inferences about their future health, about their future behavior, and if you got samples from their parents or a DNA databank, you can make inferences about family relationships." [. . .]

"Once learning the genetics of one child, you could see an insurance company seeing that possibility for the next child and making it clear that this is a preexisting condition that the company would not cover. Or perhaps an employer that found out about it wouldn't want to have us as an employee," said Twila Brase of the Citizens' Council on Health Care in St. Paul.

And so on. Read the rest. I'm out of time.

Comments welcome.

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ACORN and the Census

Will ACORN be allowed to apply their create-or-save skills, so prominently displayed in their voter-registration efforts, to the 2010 census? The good news is that some people are trying to keep ACORN's grubby paws away from our doorbells and the Census.

But there are democrat votes at stake here, so you can bet that they will do everything in their power to keep ACORN involved, and to skew the count in their favor.

A little ACORN nostalgia:
NYT killed ACORN story
How rotten is ACORN?

Comments welcome.

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Obama lied, press corps . . . laughed

The WH press corps is laughing but the joke is on us.

Obama spokes-tool Robert Gibbs becomes a literal laughing stock when he lamely tries to avoid saying that Obama's "no taxes for the middle class" pledge is headed for the undercarriage of the bus.

From Hot Air:

Obama pounded McCain for wanting to pay for health care by taxing benefits, rode into D.C. promising Change, and now he’s going to eat a crap sandwich by reversing himself because it turns out personal charisma doesn’t work on hard economic numbers. So Axelrod and company have to go out and face the firing squad and “explain” via stuttering half-answers why Barry O lied about this last year. It’s a political microcosm of Obama’s economic M.O.: They borrowed political capital by pledging “no new taxes” to win the election and now down the road the bill’s finally come due.

But he's not actually going to eat that sandwich. We are.

As for the press corps, they're a cynical bunch. They've paid for the production of this tragicomedy with their professional integrity and now they're enjoying the show. Hope it was worth it.

Related post here.
Obama dishonesty anthology here.

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WaPo on the celebrity 'rule of three'

The Washington Post's desperation is showing. It's evident in their full-page ads, written in stunning Engrish prose, for "valuable" coin collections worth $12.50 (complete with safe!) and "miracle heaters" (complete with cabinet!) made by "Amish craftsmen." These make hilarious family read-alouds but don't do much for the dignity of the paper. But then they publish EJ Dionne every week, too.

I tried to ignore the Style section last week that carried three Jackson stories, each with a huge photo, on his dancing, his singing, and his 'fashion sense.' The Post has been so loaded with Jacksonia that it's a challenge to leave the paper folded without his image facing out.

But this article is just pitiful:

For Celebs, is Death a True 'Triple Threat'? by David Montgomery

A quick scan reveals:

• 'celebrities' die all the time, just like the little people on the obituary page
• "skeptics deny it"
• lots of people die on the 25th day of the month, so be careful
  
• some sorry saps actually believe this nonsense

We're presented with the dilemma of Billy Mays. His untimely death makes an awkward foursome if you count Ed McMahon. So either he doesn't count -- he wasn't an actor, after all -- or two more celeb heads are gonna roll. Seventies sitcom 'icons' better be on their guard.

Belief in superstition is a sign of deep stupidity and it's always depressing to come across a living example. The last time I got my hair cut one of the stylists was declaiming about a sure-fire method of predicting the sex of a baby. I can't remember what it was -- something about craving beef jerky, carrying the baby 'in the back,' or the pattern of the spatter after the ritual chicken sacrifice -- but it had nothing to do with ultrasound technology.

Anyway, enough of Jackson. A day or two after his death I took a look at the obituaries and easily found a dozen that were more worthy of our recognition than MJ. One woman in particular was someone I would have enjoyed knowing, I think. I'll try to find it and post it if I can.

*Found it. Her name was Antoinette Colijn Mayer.

Comments welcome.

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'Pop' is free to be . . . whatever

But not necessarily the person God made him/her to be. Because that information is being withheld for his/her own good. And to prove an ideological point, or try to.

Lifesite News:

In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, a Swedish couple said they are refusing to disclose whether their two-and-a-half-year-old child, called "Pop" in the media, is a boy or a girl. They said that their decision, made at the time of the child's birth, was based on the feminist theory that "gender" is a "cruel" "social construct" that forces children into artificial roles.

"We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset," Pop's mother said. "It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead." The parents say they never use personal pronouns, referring to him or her only as Pop.

So the inescapable (and potentially politically loaded) realities of pregnancy and childbirth had little effect on these parents, who still declare that "gender is just a social construct." A woman would have to be the queen of denial to cling to that notion after pushing a baby out of her birth canal.

This insanity can't continue much longer. At some point Pop will pop the inevitable question -- Am I a boy or a girl? -- and they won't be able to play God anymore. And Pop's friends will be less willing to go along with this mystery than any of the adults involved.

Quotes from my kids:

"That's pretty much one of the creepiest things I ever heard."

"Freaks."

I don't know where they pick up that hate-speech.

This has to be their first child. Pundit and I saw nature in action when our fourth child (and first boy), one year old, picked up a baby doll and hurled it across the room. He didn't learn that from his sisters, his mother, or even his father.

Comments welcome.

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Energy tax means big bucks for maker of Roundup

You might think that requiring the increased use of potent herbicides would be inconsistent with saving the planet and all that.

Please read this article by Timothy Carney, written just before the House passed Waxman-Markey: Pelosi buys off agri-business to advance climate bill

What began as a liberal crusade to slow man-made global warming is increasingly becoming a pork-fest for well-connected corporations.

In order to get a vote today on greenhouse gas restrictions, House Democrats have bought off farm-state lawmakers with gifts to the farm lobby and the ethanol and agri-chemical industries — gifts that further undermine the legislation’s purported environmental benefits.

Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland, two of the environmentalists’ corporate enemies, now stand to profit handsomely from the Waxman-Markey bill’s cap-and-trade scheme, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the hope of slowing the shift in climate.

If you thought this bill was about protecting the environment the joke was on you.

This is a win not only for farmers, but also for Monsanto, the bio-tech giant specializing in genetically modified seeds and herbicides.

Here’s how it works: Farmers need to kill weeds around their crops. They can till the ground to kill the weeds, a practice that releases carbon dioxide buried in the soil. Alternately, they can spray the fields with chemicals that kill the weeds, thus leaving the CO2 underground.

The latter practice requires farmers to buy an herbicide such as agricultural Roundup, made by Monsanto, and also to buy Monsanto’s genetically modified Roundup Ready seeds, which grow into plants that can withstand repeated Roundup spraying.

With the help of Monsanto, Novecta, a consulting and lobbying arm of the Iowa and Illinois Corn Growers Associations, has called on Congress this spring to grant farmers valuable offsets for shifting to “no-till” farming, a shift that will spur sales of Roundup and Roundup Ready seeds. Thanks to the Peterson-Pelosi deal, this scheme could become law.

The result of this will be food crops that have survived repeated sprayings with potent herbicides. Unbelievable. (But rest easy, parents. The demon carbon will be kept in the soil rather than released into the air.)

Read the rest for details on Pelosi and company's buy-off of the ethanol lobby.

h/t: Pundit

Comments welcome.

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Video: Milbank v Pitney on prearranged question

Fascinating:


Hat tip: Snaggletoothie

I often read Dana Milbank in the Post. I've heaped scorn on him taken serious issue with him in the past, but it's a fact that, since Obama's election, he's skewered the left as well as the right. (See links here.) I don't know Pitney but he comes across as a weasel in this dispute. Background on the prearranged question and Milbank's columns here.

Comments welcome.

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Frogs finding water in pot uncomfortably warm

Axelrod to Stephanopoulis:

"The president had said in the past that he doesn't believe taxing health care benefits at any level is necessarily the best way to go here. He still believes that," Axelrod told me on This Week, "But there are a number of formulations and we'll wait and see. The important thing at this point is to keep the process moving, to keep people at the table, to the keep the discussions going. We've gotten a long way down the road and we want to finish that journey."

I pressed Axelrod on whether Obama will draw a line in the sand and veto any bill that funds health care reform with tax hikes for people making under $250,000 a year -- despite a pledge Barack Obama made during the 2008 presidential campaign not to raise taxes on the poor and middle-class.

"One of the problems we've had in this town is that people draw lines in the sand and they stop talking to each other. And you don't get anything done. That's not the way the president approaches us. He is very cognizant of protecting people -- middle class people, hard-working people who are trying to get along in a very difficult economy. And he will continue to represent them in these talks," Axelrod said.

"But they're also dealing with punishing health care costs, and that's something that we have to deal with."[emphasis added]

That little three-letter conjunction says it all. The answer is no, Obama will not rule out raising taxes on the middle class, regardless of what he said over and over and over during (and after) his campaign. Someone has to pay for the Obamacare monster. After bleeding the 'rich' dry he will have to move on to the middle class, because that's where the money is.

The punishment, to use Axelrod's word, has yet to begin. An Obamacare tax on top of an all-pervasive (and conveniently invisible) energy tax may be more than our weakened economy will stand.

How far will the Obama administration be able to push it before palpable alarm sets in among taxpayers? The government's lack of restraint may be their undoing. Boiling the frogs is only supposed to work if the heat is turned up slowly and imperceptibly. If you crank it to high the frogs are supposed to jump out, right?

h/t: Hot Air

See motorcitytimes for more.

Comments welcome.

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Various

I don't seem to have anything to say this morning. But see the following:

RS McCain has an exhaustive special report on IG-gate.
Tea partiers in Chicagoland are going after turncoat Mark Kirk today, who deserves it.
Bill Kristol finds [gasp] more Obama hypocrisy.
Michael Jackson was [gasp again] a mess.

Also see sidebar of recommended reads on the left. Perhaps the muse will kick in after a cup of coffee.

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Anthology of lies

Well, not exactly. An anthology of Obama's lies would have the heft of the Encyclopedia Britannica. This is more of a short list of articles about our president's complicated relationship with the truth. I'll add more as I find them.

The most recent addition is Ed Morrissey's The rank dishonesty of the Obama administration:

Obama has essentially endorsed the detention policies of George Bush without the courtesy of apologizing for slandering him over the last two and a half years. Obama and his allies screeched endlessly about indefinite detentions, and not just in Gitmo, either. They specifically railed against the holding of terrorists without access to civil courts in military detention facilities around the world, specifically Bagram, but in general as well. Not even six months into his term of office, Obama realized that Bush had it right all along.

Did he even have the grace to admit that? No. Instead, the White House took the cowardly method of a late-Friday leak to let people know that Obama had adopted the Bush policy all over again.

(Don't tell me anyone is still hoping to see some strength of character from Obama.)

Victor Davis Hanson, who has labored to give order to Obama's universe of lies in Just Make Stuff Up, would call the above an example of Trotskyization:

Sometimes the past is simply airbrushed away. Barack Obama has a disturbing habit of contradicting his past declarations as if spoken words did not mean much at all.

Other works on Obama's nuanced concept of truth:

Jim Geraghty: All Barack Obama's statements come with an expiration date. All of them. (mentioned above by Morrissey)
Doug Powers: Obama Actually Expects us to Believe . . .
Fred Barnes: Obama's Quirks
WSJ: Obama and the 911 Families
Charles Krauthammer: Obama Hovers from On High

*Additions:
Victor Davis Hanson: Obama and the 'Noble Lie'

Related posts here.

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Red Red Robin

People are telling me I need to adjust my attitude (see sixth comment). Here goes:



Read about Steve Goodman, 1948-1984

(I've posted this a few times before but you probably haven't seen it. If you have, just politely feign interest.)

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Saturday night Sinatra

Sinatra noir: What is This Thing Called Love?



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The lunatics are running the asylum . . .

. . . but at least we still have Mark Steyn. He comments on the escapades of our nation's weirdest (please let it be true) governor. Given Mark's musical theater background he's not going to miss the Evita! angle.

Excerpt:

Not that the governor didn't do his best to keep his end up on the pop culture allusions: "I've spent the last five days crying in Argentina," he revealed, in presumably unconscious hommage to Evita.

The plot owed less to Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber than to one of those Fox movies of the early Forties in which some wholesome All-American type escapes the stress and strain of modern life by taking off for a quiet weekend in Latin America, and the next thing you know they're doing the rhumba on the floor of a Rio nightclub surrounded by Carmen Miranda and 200 gay caballeros prancing around waving giant bananas. In this case, the gentlemen of the South Carolina Press were the befuddled caballeros and Gov. Sanford was bananas.

You already know, don't you, that Mark isn't finished with the banana motif.

But seriously, folks, he has a point, and this is it:

. . . big government more or less guarantees rule by creeps and misfits.

Read it all.

I haven't had the heart to read his column on the life and death of Michael Jackson yet. But I will.

Update: Read it. Here's a bit:

In an in-depth interview with Oprah Winfrey, the King of Pop pooh-poohed the preoccupations of the press. “If I had a chance to talk to Michelangelo,” he squeaked, “I would want to know about the anatomy of his craftsmanship, not about who he went out with. That’s what's important to me.” [He walked right into that one, didn't he?]

But, as with Michelangelo’s David, Oprah’s eye was drawn to one region in particular. “Why do you always grab your crotch?” she asked, alluding to his principal choreographic innovation. “It happens subliminally,” he said, although a more plausible explanation is that he was just checking on the one bit of him the plastic surgeon hadn’t got to. I remember running into the critic John Simon after some terrible musical: “I enjoyed one couplet,” he said. “‘When did Michael Jackson/Become Anglo-Saxon?’”

[. . .]

By the Eighties, his celebrity pals were mostly post-menopausal women such as Katharine Hepburn and Sophia Loren. When asked whether he’d proposed to Elizabeth Taylor, his lips remained sealed, although that may be just an unfortunate side-effect. It could be that the marriage story was simply a misunderstanding: he asked Liz for her hand and she said: “Why not? You’ve already got Diana Ross’s nose.”

Ba-da-boom.

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Disgusted

I never thought I'd have this in common with Michelle Obama, but I'm not feeling so proud of my country this morning; the painful truth is that every member of Congress was elected by American voters. And now, with lots of assistance from our chosen representatives, we're committing societal suicide.

See Michelle Malkin for the eight most-wanted for selling out taxpayers. Namely:

• Mary Bono Mack (202) 225-5330
• Mike Castle (202) 225-4165
• Mark Kirk (202) 225-4385
• Leonard Lance (202) 225-5361
• Frank LoBiondo (202) 225-6572
• John McHugh (202) 225-4611
• Dave Reichert (202) 225-7761
• Chris Smith(NJ) (202) 225-3765

Take their names down in your little notebook and strike them off in 2010. I'm especially disgusted with Chris Smith and Mark Kirk. (*The above list was updated to link to contact information for each rep. Share your thoughts and feelings with them. Hat tip to NORC. **Updated again with phone numbers. H/T MM)

Thanks to all of the above (and many more) for delivering our property and liberty into the hands of Frank, Pelosi, Waxman and other assorted unconvicted felons. Free rein/reign over the American economy makes it that much easier for them to stuff their pockets with taxpayer dollars and bribes.

While we're at it, way to go, American voters, for electing such a cool president. In your addled celebrity-worship-warped minds, coolness is all. A culture that adores the famous for being famous because fame confers coolness is a sitting duck for the likes of Obama, whose image fits so perfectly into the template of contemporary cool. (And a tip of the hat to our msm, too, without whom none of this would be possible.)

How fitting that images of another great example of coolness, unconvicted child-molester/freakazoid Michael Jackson, should be everywhere right now. Only an ailing culture would fall all over itself for a performer who, at his peak (before the extreme self-mutilation), defined himself by his artificiality. It was evident in his dance moves, in his over-produced sound, and in the silly pseudo-uniforms he wore. Eventually artificiality bloomed into bizarre unnaturalness. A healthy culture would have averted its eyes from a man so overwhelmed with self-hatred. But we're suffering from cultural arrested development and have developed a taste for self-destruction. Get ready for multiple tell-all books from the inner circle (time to cash in!) that will curl your hair, and endless tributes that gloss over his pervitude.

While I'm being judgmental, this disgusted me, too: First lady Michelle Obama brought her two little girls (and her retinue, natch) to a Beyonce concert. The girls are eight and not quite eleven years old.

Beyonce told Vogue Magazine shortly after that Michelle Obama said she was a role model for her girls.
"She told me she was very happy that her girls have someone like me to look up to," Beyonce said then of Sasha and Malia. "And I'm like, 'Oh, my God.' You have to feel fortunate to be one of the people whom parents don't mind their children looking up to. The older I get, the more I think about the amount of influence I have on these young girls, and it's scary sometimes. But I also understand how lucky I am to have that."

Hmm. Two thoughts: this isn't about Beyonce and how cool this is for her; and yes, it's pretty scary.

Using Beyonce as a role model for our daughters is beyond me. Her highly sexualized style of performing isn't the stuff I'd choose to nourish the minds and imaginations of my girls. I think Michelle is setting a lousy parenting example here. (I was going to link to some vintage Beyonce but I decided it constituted a near occasion of sin.)

Back to politics; our hopes now rest in the arms of that august body, the US Senate, under the leadership of Harry Reid and its various sterling members.

For some positive and constructive counsel, click here, cuz I got nuthin.

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Cross-posted in the Green Room.

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Cap and trade bill passed in House

Energy tax passes.

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Ikenga: Obama as "African colonial"

Rush Limbaugh read from this article today and it was pretty fascinating:

Obama, the African Colonial

The author, L. E. Ikenga, enlightens us on the AC concept. Read it and see for yourself whether Obama fits the profile.

The author's warning:

The Igbos were once made up of a confederacy of clans that ascribed to various forms of democratic government. They took their eyes off the ball and before they knew it, the British were upon them. Also, understand this: the African colonial who is given too much political power can only become one thing: despot.

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Rahm Emanuel on "bipartisanship"

Dana Milbank:

And he acknowledged that Obama's dream of bipartisanship may need to be redefined downward. The absence of GOP moderates -- in no small part because Emanuel targeted them when he was running the House Democrats' campaign effort -- "makes getting quote unquote bipartisanship done hard," he said. He proposed that the health-care legislation in Congress could be bipartisan without Republican votes. "This will be bipartisan; there will be ideas from both parties, and individuals from both parties in the final product," he said. "Whether Republicans decide to vote for things they promoted will be up to them."

I can't resist quoting this:

At the Monitor breakfasts, the guest speakers typically push their plates away to speak; Emanuel ate from his, and occasionally punctuated his remarks with soft burps.

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The growing backlash against global warming

*Continuous updates on House vote here*


The indefatigable Ed Morrissey quotes Kimberley Strassel in today's Wall Street Journal who gives us some actual good news:

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

There's much more at both sites, so click and read. Multiple countries are axing their cap-and-trade schemes based on scientific proof against global warming, but the US government under Obama (as in the case of socialized medicine and socialism in general) is behind the curve.

The pseudoscience is coming apart and the truth, based on real science, is coming out:

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.) [emphasis added]

Dishonest scienticians give science and scientists a bad name, violate the public trust, and do a great deal of harm to society. They deserve our contempt.

Related posts on bogus scientists:
Blind faith in global warming
Birds from dinosaurs? Never mind.

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Take action now against Cap&Trade TAX: House votes today

They say the vote on H.R. 2454, the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade ENERGY TAX is going to be close. Take a few minutes now to make yourselves heard. This mega-tax will hit us and our economy where it really hurts.

Go to Michelle Malkin for call lists and new information on the EPA suppressing inconvenient data. If global warming were a slam-dunk reality with honest science behind it, why the need to suppress data?

Pat in Shreveport points out that jobs will be lost and the cost of everything will rise:

The Heritage study also points out that energy costs will skyrocket: "President Barack Obama described the plan best when he said “[u]nder my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” And skyrocket they will. In total, a typical family of four will see its energy costs rise by over $22,800 from 2012-2035." I don't know about you, but my energy costs are already incredible. And we all know what happens when energy costs rise. Everything else does, too.

Last summer when gas prices were $5.00, the cost of everything else in the grocery store went up. Not just a few cents, either. Milk jumped from $2 to $4 a gallon, a pound of cheese jumped from $1.50 to $4.50...

Do you remember that? My family really felt it when grocery and gasoline prices spiked. We thought twice about every dollar we spent and every mile we drove. The spike was caused by the rise in oil prices. And now the government wants to deliberately bring those crazy-high prices back, under the guise of saving the planet, and at a time when the economy is in no condition to sustain such a hit.

But even those who may believe that global warming is a reality do not, because they cannot, assert that Waxman-Markey will have anything more than a miniscule, marginal effect on bringing down the temperature. But it will have deleterious effects on the entire economy. See the graphic in this post at Power Line. Like the proposed health care 'reform,' the C&T tax will give the federal government control over another chunk of our economy:

Republicans point out that the Waxman-Markey bill would create a convoluted federal bureaucracy that would control key sectors of the economy and of our lives. . . . The Democrats, not having read the bill, were unable to comment.

Discouraging, isn't it, that legislators don't read the laws they impose on us? Here's what James Madison said about bills that are too long and convoluted to be read. Would he be able to wrap his mind around this morbidly obese piece of #%$@ legislation?

h/t: Doug Ross

Related post here.

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Michael Jackson

I didn't plan to say a word about Michael Jackson but found the following in my inbox. I couldn't agree more:

Jonah Goldberg on Michael Jackson:

And while we’re at it, his relatively early death wasn’t “tragic.” He was one of the richest people in the world. He spent his money on perpetual childhood and he was perpetually with children not his own.

Meanwhile, in the last ten days, we’ve seen or heard of remarkable people who’ve given their lives for freedom in Iran. We’ve heard of innocents killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the last decade, America has lost thousands of heroes in noble causes and thousands of innocent bystanders who were denied the simple joys of life through no fault of their own. Those deaths are tragic, and we're hard pressed to think of more than a handful of names to put with the long line of the dead.

If anything, Michael Jackson’s life, not his death, was tragic.

Read the rest. It's all good.

h/t: Pundit

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Who's up for a monster tax increase?

If you know any poor deluded Americans who believe that Obama isn't raising our taxes clue them in with the following:

Jonah Goldberg: Losing with ACES

The bill represents a terrible deal for American taxpayers. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, ACES is projected to impose costs averaging about $1,100 each year on every American household by 2050. What do we get in return? Even if the law works precisely as intended — not very likely — the grand result will be that, a century from now, we should expect surface temperatures to be a about one-tenth of one degree Celsius lower than they otherwise would be. Of course global warming will impose costs, but the expected costs of ACES are at least ten times the program’s expected benefits, even using the EPA’s cost estimates and assuming the full achievement of its goals.

WSJ: Cap & Tax Fiction

The biggest doozy in the CBO analysis was its extraordinary decision to look only at the day-to-day costs of operating a trading program, rather than the wider consequences energy restriction would have on the economy. The CBO acknowledges this in a footnote: "The resource cost does not indicate the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap."

[. . .]

The reality is that cost estimates for climate legislation are as unreliable as the models predicting climate change. What comes out of the computer is a function of what politicians type in. A better indicator might be what other countries are already experiencing. Britain's Taxpayer Alliance estimates the average family there is paying nearly $1,300 a year in green taxes for carbon-cutting programs in effect only a few years.

Americans should know that those Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history. Even Democrats can't repeal that reality.

Cantor: Cap & Tax ad

Our electric rates will "skyrocket." That's not from critics but from Obama.

The Corner: Blacks opposed to energy tax

Only 11 percent of survey respondents said they would be willing to pay one hundred dollars more a year for electricity in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The numbers dropped to 6, 4 and 1 percent when respondents were asked if they would be willing to pay an extra two hundred, three hundred, or six hundred dollars a year for electricity.

WSJ: Gore stays home

More links and comments from Pat in Shreveport and Gateway Pundit.

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Obama declines to personally commit to Obamacare; ABC ratings were 'sickly'

Will ObamaCare be good enough for Obama's own children? The president was asked this excellent question by a neurologist. From ABC via Ed Morrissey:

Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the New York University Langone Medical Center, said that elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loves ones get sick, they will be able to afford the best care available, even if it’s not provided by insurance.

Devinsky asked the president pointedly if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn’t seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he’s proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get.

The president refused to make such a pledge, though he allowed that if “it’s my family member, if it’s my wife, if it’s my children, if it’s my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.["]

Says Ed:

If ObamaCare isn’t good enough for Sasha, Malia, or Michelle, then it’s not good enough for America. Instead of fighting that impulse, Obama should be working to boost the private sector to encourage more care providers, less red tape and expense, and better care for everyone.

Here's the video.

And by the way, my husband was right: people did not want to watch this.

President Obama's town hall meeting on health care delivered a sickly rating Wednesday evening.

The one-hour ABC News special "Primetime: Questions for the President: Prescription for America" (4.7 million viewers, 1.1 preliminary adults 18-49 rating) had the fewest viewers in the 10 p.m. hour. The special tied some 8 p.m. comedy repeats as the lowest-rated program on a major broadcast network.

Maybe the thrill is gone, or at least going?

Linked by Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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IG-gate link-o-rama

Courtesy of RS McCain who encourages us to let go of the Sanford betrayal and move on to more critical matters. Click away:

http://www.memeorandum.com/090625/p33#a090625p33

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/06/25/obama-plays-hardball-with-watc

http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2009/06/eleanor-acheson-lobbyist.html

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/06/25/now-multiple-ig-gate-investigations/

http://rightwingnews.com/mt331/2009/06/obama_vs_the_watchdogs.php

http://spectator.org/blog/2009/06/25/eleanor-acheson-lobbyist

http://soitgoesinshreveport.blogspot.com/2009/06/everybodys-talking-aboutneil-barofsky.html

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/80771/

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/80801/

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The downside of promoting green jobs: fewer jobs

How to refute an inconvenient truth? A lesson from Robert Gibbs. (It's easier than you think.)

George Will: Tilting at Green Windmills

The Spanish professor is puzzled. Why, Gabriel Calzada wonders, is the U.S. president recommending that America emulate the Spanish model for creating "green jobs" in "alternative energy" even though Spain's unemployment rate is 18.1 percent -- more than double the European Union average -- partly because of spending on such jobs?

[. . .]

The president's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, was asked about the report's contention that the political diversion of capital into green jobs has cost Spain jobs. The White House transcript contained this exchange:

Gibbs: "It seems weird that we're importing wind turbine parts from Spain in order to build -- to meet renewable energy demand here if that were even remotely the case."

Questioner: "Is that a suggestion that his study is simply flat wrong?"

Gibbs: "I haven't read the study, but I think, yes."

Questioner: "Well, then. (Laughter.)"

Actually, what is weird is this idea: A sobering report about Spain's experience must be false because otherwise the behavior of some American importers, seeking to cash in on the U.S. government's promotion of wind power, might be participating in an economically unproductive project.

Dear God in heaven, save us from this Orwellian insanity. Read the rest.

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Making treatment decisions for the 'temporarily alive'

Mark Steyn: And So It Begins . . .

The administration's plan to control health-care costs:

President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don't stand to gain from the extra care.

But don't worry. A "panel of experts" (Barney Frank and two executive vice-presidents from ACORN) will make that determination.

So relax: You'll be able to "opt out" of government health care, in a very permanent sense . . .

So apparently Obama has again referred to his grandmother's dilemma when she broke her hip after her cancer diagnosis. He's used her as an example before. I don't think this is a great example. Condemning one's gramma to months of pain and immobility with a broken hip, ending only with death, isn't what most people would choose for their loved ones, no matter how temporarily alive they may be. That's Obama's phrase, but used in relation to babies, not grannies, though the principle applies here just as well.

Linked by Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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Sanford's betrayal continued

Michelle Malkin has quoted Jenny Sanford's statement and some starkly contrasting "love email" from Sanford to his paramour. Just a couple of comments:

IDIOT! He obviously married up in the character department but was too much of a fool to value his stupendous luck.

MORON! A governor who conducts an illicit romance via email is too brainless to be in charge of anything.

JERK! Sanford's 'jerkitude' (thanks, Michelle) becomes jerkitude squared when the other woman has kids, too.

Some reactions from the betrayed right:

George Neumayr:

In any case, what exactly is "exotic" about adultery at this point? Monogamy looks more singularly exotic these days.

Michelle Malkin:

He had a hell of a lot more passion and pathos for his mistress than his own wife. He referred wistfully to the “great friendship” and “that sparking thing” he had with the mistress for eight years — during which his wife was raising his four children.

If you can’t honor your marriage vows, how can you expect voters to trust you to honor your damned oath of office?

Don Surber:

I am sick of these cheaters in high office. I am sick of how they embarrass their supporters. I am sick of how they humiliate their wives. I am sick of how they abuse the public trust.

RS McCain:

Really, Mrs. Sanford, just shoot the two-timing son of a bitch. Please. No jury in South Carolina would ever convict you.

Robert Belvedere (excerpted from a comment on my previous Sanford post):

Mr. Sanford should resign the governorship. He is a conservative. We conservatives preach high standards of moral and ethical behaviour. We are therefore obligated to hold ourselves to those high standards. When we violate those standards and we are elected officials who were elected based on the advocacy of said high standards, we have betrayed those who voted for us. Therefore, the only honorable action to take is to resign the elected office.

[. . .]

Last and least, he has damaged the conservative cause at a very bad moment for it. If he has any honor, he should figuratively take the Luger, go in his den, and do the right thing for the sake of those of us who are struggling to save this country as it speeds down the road to perdition.

You are not damned for eternity sir, but you are obliged to spend some time in purgatory.

Quoted from and linked to at: Sanford and Hon

Sister Toldjah asks: Was it worth it?

The Anchoress has lots more links.

Addendum: If the reaction from the left is to scream hypocrite at the top of their lungs, have at it. But some will try to use Sanford's betrayal of his family and supporters as a club with which to beat the Christian family itself. Case in point from Firedoglake:

Jenny Sanford's statement to the media is one big dog whistle to the fundy faithful.

[. . .]

Psalm 127 is at the heart of the "Quiverfull" folks -- a far right evangelical movement, devoted to extreme patriarchal gender roles, homeschooling, and of course they are against any form of birth control or abortion.

Note to Peterr: Homeschooling isn't just for right wing Bible-thumping extremists. And it isn't just the "Quiverfull" movement that rejects any form of artificial birth control; it's the teaching of a large organization called the Catholic Church. As for abortion, most people are opposed to it in most circumstances. That's not an extreme point of view.

I can't really speak to the "extreme patriarchal gender roles" because that could mean anything from men who only cook outdoors to women who breastfeed their babies. But if it refers the traditional family structure in which the father is the breadwinner and the mother stays home and cares for the children, that's only extreme if you believe that two guys, three cats, and an organic herb garden is a mainstream family.

Previous post: Sanford's betrayal

Linked by Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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Support for Walpin crosses party lines

Finally, that elusive bipartisanship Obama has been promising us. But it wasn't his powers of persuasion that made it happen. Rather, it was the flagrant Chicago-style tactics he used in the firing and smearing of IG Gerald Walpin that has united Americans from the left, right, and middle.

Andy McCarthy gives his personal testimony to Walpin's clarity of mind and character, and links to the letter, signed by 145 lawyers of various political persuasions, emphatically doing the same.

Most recent posts here.

Sanford's betrayal

He said he went to Argentina because he wanted "to do something exotic." But the bizarre and intriguing mystery of the disappearing governor has ended with the dreary banality of marital infidelity.

Just a couple of comments: people like Gov. Sanford make it very, very difficult to convince our teens and young adults that all politicians aren't corrupt in one way or another. This is precisely the kind of thing that sours the idealistic young on politics and converts them into cynics. Sanford was correct when he said that, in addition to hurting his wife and children (the self-centered rat), he has hurt his state and his party. The conservative movement doesn't need perfection but it does need sincere people who live the values they promote.

Philandering is a security issue, too. Enemies can use secrets such as adultery to influence public officials. And for a governor to drop off the face of the earth for days on end to be with his girlfriend? Maybe he should resign. That shows a significant lack of judgment and/or self-control.

Hot Air has a three minute clip from the press conference. (Q: Who are the girls behind him? The non-stop smiling is quite disturbing.) Thank goodness the betrayed wife opted to spare herself the obligatory appearance alongside him at the press conference. May God help them.

Follow-up: Sanford's betrayal continued

Linked by Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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Obama: Healthier people must have insurance forced on them

Happy Obamacare Day! No, I'm not actually watching this shameless propaganda marathon. But Jake Tapper reports that Obama's thinking on individual mandates has evolved (and that's never good, because politicians' 'thinking' only evolves in one direction -- to the left). Obama was against the individual mandate before he was for it:

President Obama said that while "mandates are an example of... something that I was resistant to during the campaign... this is an area where people have made some pretty compelling arguments to me that if we want to have a system that drives down costs for everybody, then we've got to have healthier people not opt out of the system.

If you can only keep the 'healthier people' in the system by forcing them, so be it. In Obama's world that's called fairness.

More from Jake Tapper:

Continued the president, "So, those choices are being made by employers constantly, right? I can't pass a law that says, 'I'm sorry, employers, you can never make changes to the health care plans that you provide your employees.' What I can say is that the government is not going to force you to, your employer or you to join a government plan, for example. If you're happy with it, and your employer's happy with it, keep it."

He won't need to pass such a law because a government plan will push private insurers out of business.

Continued Mr. Obama, "If your employer is not providing you the health care that you need, then we're going to give you a set of options to make sure that you continue to have health care. And I think that is the kind of commitment that the American people expect and, you know, it, and I think is achievable, as long as we stay focused on driving down costs, as well as expanding coverage."

Next on the Obama agenda, and he thinks this is also achievable: a plan that will allow Americans to have their cake as well as eat it. Also, free lunches for all Americans.

Most recent posts here.

Sick-making

Who knew? Episcopal minister Nina Churchman says that God rejoices in legalized abortion. And I always thought He was into that bonum, verum, pulchrum stuff. Talk about counter-intuitive, huh?

But if He likes abortion, He might also enjoy suicide bombings, ethnic cleansings, and child pornography.

Unfortunately the reverend Nina is not alone.

Most recent posts here.

MSM have forfeited their right to cry foul (updated)

Dana Milbank comments on the prearranged question asked by HuffPo's Nico Pitney:

Pitney asked his question, as arranged. Reporters in the room looked at each other in amazement at the stagecraft they had just witnessed. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel looked at the first row of TV correspondents and grinned.

The reporters are "amazed" that Obama is rigging a question or two? After greasing the treads for their candidate by averting their gaze from potentially immense news stories, smearing his opponents, and spinning everything in his favor they're surprised when he doesn't play by what's left of their rules? Pleeze.

Still, the private agreement -- to call on a questioner under condition that he ask his question on a particular topic in a particular way -- is very close to what the left justifiably deplored when there were accusations (denied by the media) that the White House was pre-screening reporters and their questions before news conferences.

And Pitney was not the only "plant" at yesterday's [sic] news conference. Later, Obama passed over the usual suspects to call on Macarena Vidal of the Spanish-language E.F.E. news agency. The White House called Vidal in advance to see if she was coming and arranged for her to sit in a seat usually assigned to a financial trade publication. "Okay, Macarena Vidal," Obama called out, as the regulars adopted baffled expressions. She asked about Chile and Colombia. [emphasis added]

The irony is delicious. Did the media lapdogs really think that Obama would respect them in the morning? Even this bit of favoritism and flagrant violation of their vestigial integrity won't make honest men and women of them. They'll continue to put out for their Sugardaddy-in-Chief.

Related: Obama still giving peace a chance in Iran

Cross-posted in the Green Room.

*Wednesday morning updates:

See Ed Driscoll's Life In The Dinosaur Media.
Please read all of Caroline Glick's The Obama effect:

It is hard to think of an example in US history in which the media organs of the world's most important democracy so openly sacrificed the most basic responsibilities of news gatherers to act as shills for the chief executive.
[. . .]
THE MOST IMPORTANT repercussion of the US media's propagandistic reporting is that the American public is denied the ability to understand events as they unfold.

h/t: Andy McCarthy

*From Milbank's fleshed-out Wednesday morning column:

As if to compensate for the prepackaged Huffington Post question, Obama went quickly to Fox News for a predictably hostile question from Major Garrett. "In your opening remarks, sir, you said about Iran that you were appalled and outraged," Garrett said. "What took you so long?

"I don't think that's accurate," Obama volleyed testily, calling his toughening statements on Iran "entirely consistent."

The host of "The Obama Show" dispatched with similar ease a challenge from CBS's Chip Reid, asking whether his hardening line on Iran was inspired by John McCain. "What do you think?" Obama replied with a big grin. That brought the house down. And the studio audience laughed again when ABC's Jake Tapper tried to get Obama to answer another reporter's question that he had dodged. "Are you the ombudsman for the White House press corps?" the president cracked.

Maybe he is, or should be; at least he's trying to hold Obama and his media-toadies accountable.

But wait, there's more hilarity:

The laughter had barely subsided when the host made another joke about Tapper's reference to Obama's "Spock-like language about the logic of the health-care plan."

"The reference to Spock, is that a crack on my ears?" the president asked.

And the crowd roared. They can't get enough of his lame stand-up material.

Most recent posts here.

Obama still giving peace a chance in Iran

I missed the press conference while I was out doing errands and enjoying a few blissful Obama-free moments in the car with Frank. It's just as well. He makes me want to scream and rip my hair out, follicles and all. (Obama, not Sinatra.)

I think Gateway Pundit may be headed toward baldness, too:
President Clueless Says It's Not Too Late For Iranian Government to Peacefully Resolve Unrest -- Says Justice Will Prevail

He notes Obama's baffling assertion that "it's not too late" for the government of Iran to choose a "peaceful path." (Er, it actually is too late for the seventeen people who have been killed. But let's move forward!) From GP:

Peaceful path?
What planet is he living on?
This man is too much.

[. . .]

Obama's final statement on Iran-- "We've got to believe that justice will prevail."
He can't possibly be this daft. Can he?

Obama paid his strongest lip service thus far to condemning the Iranian government and called the murder of Neda Soltan "heartbreaking." But . . . he's still going to wait and see how things shake out. Just in case the murdering thugs have a conversion experience and see the error of their ways?

From Fox, this bit from Gibbs was interesting:

But the White House left open the possibility Tuesday that it would intervene should the violence in Tehran escalate.

"Obviously if a tremendous escalation happens -- if tanks happen -- we would respond to that immediately," Gibbs said.

Michelle Malkin and Dan Riehl find the staged, pre-planned HuffPo question laughable and pitiful. The latter has video of their embarrassingly botched play-acting. Awkward! (If you're going to do this kind of thing you need to rehearse more, guys.)

Members of the press corps (including Tapper and Garrett) who had the audacity to ask impertinent questions felt the wrath of the One, who becomes snippy and sarcastic when crossed. See Michelle: "In other words: Do as he says, not as he smokes."

Follow-up: MSM have forfeited their right to cry foul

Linked by Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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A few items

I'm short on time so I'll pass these on the lazy way:

Outrageous --
Gateway Pundit: Would the US Invite Hitler or Saddam to the 4th of July?

To the point --
John Boehner: Where are the jobs, Mr. President?

Weird --
TPM: The disappearing governor

ACORN bullies --
Michelle Malkin: ObamACORN bully tactics exposed

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Obama: Fatherhood begins at conception?

Great catch from Tim Graham:

Barack Obama infamously said it was "beyond my pay grade" to decide when human life begins, but that’s not what his Father’s Day lecture in Parade magazine says. It suggests that a child's life begins at conception, and it's not just a fetus whose humanity can be defined arbitrarily by a right to "choose":

That is why we need fathers to step up, to realize that their job does not end at conception; that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one.

I'm guessing that also means that real fathers don't feel "punished by a baby."

What it really means is . . . nothing. Any connection between Obama's words and truth are coincidental.

*Update: More from Matthew at CMR.

Related: Obama's day of conversation about fatherhood

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Awkward moment for overzealous Harry Smith

Good grief. The mainstream media is so fawningly, abjectly devoted to Obama that even he has to rein in their efforts to suck up to him by demonizing Bush/Cheney.

Harry Smith soils himself in the presence of his idol:



To his credit, Obama refuses to go along with Smith's characterization of Bush's remarks as "treacherous," so the zealous disciple tries again with Cheney. Obama actually laughs at him. That had to hurt.

It's not easy being a toady. Getting stepped on now and then by the big boss is part of the job description.

Go to Hot Air for commentary.

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Plumbing the depths of IG-gate

Ain't no school like the Old School: RS McCain is going to get to the bottom of the IG scandals even if he has to see people in person.


Obama won't be able to wave his scepter and make this all go away for the simple reason that there are multiple investigations underway. TARP watchdog Neil Barofsky has been very busy:

Since Barofsky took the job in December, he has launched at least 20 criminal investigations and six audits looking for wasted dollars.

This hasn't endeared him to Geithner. And as McCain points out:

The criminal investigations are important, because any interference in such investigations could be considered obstruction of justice. And the Treasury angle to the IG probe bears close watching, because Geithner's starting to look like an excellent candidate to become the next guy under Obama's bus.

The firing of IG Gerald Walpin continues to snowball:

Now here is where the story gets really interesting. On the very same day that the president fired Mr. Walpin, St. Hope's executive director, Rick Maya, left his job at St. Hope. He did not go quietly. His resignation letter charged Mr. Johnson and several St. Hope board members with numerous ethical violations. Most explosively, he charged that a board member improperly deleted e-mails of Mr. Johnson's that already were under a federal subpoena.

Suddenly, the problems at St. Hope begin to look as severe as Mr. Walpin had charged rather than being minor infractions.

And the FBI is "investigating potential obstruction of justice at St. Hope."

Related stories here.

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Steyn: Uighur fever

A few meager excerpts below from Mark Steyn, who subbed for Rush today and was totally on his game. Media Matters has an audio clip of Mark making a joke about resettling "hot Uighur babes" to his "pad" in New Hampshire. I would link to it but the photo of Mark is so unflattering. Commenters, who were apparently absent on the day when God was passing out a sense of humor, are scandalized by Mark's shameless misogyny.

Steyn admits to being infected with "Uighur fever" (catch it!). I've got Uighur envy, which is a little different. They're having the tropical island vacation I've always dreamed of -- white sand, clear azure water -- all while feasting upon butter pecan ice cream. It's the Uighurs' world; we just live in it.

Excerpts:

"I've got a picture on my desk of a demonstration in Tehran. The protestors are holding up signs with my state motto: 'Live Free or Die.' We're lucky in that we don't have to make that decision today in our lives."

"Government health care changes the relationship between the citizen and the state -- and, in fact, I think it's an assault on citizenship."

"In the age of big government we're going to destroy a health care system in order to solve a problem that doesn't really exist."

"I've got Uighur fever now, haven't I? I can't get it out of my head."

Most recent posts here.

The Emperor of Ice Cream

I've got mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, why shouldn't the president take his daughters out for ice cream, or do eighteen holes with Brainless Joe on Father's Day?

On the other hand, public displays of mirth (click and scroll down for photo) and recreation (see another photo) create the perception that Obama is unaffected by the bloody, brutal Iranian crackdown. George Bush, though painted as a cretinous villain (or alternately, a villainous cretin) gave up golf during wartime so as not to offend a grieving parent. That's not required, but you'd think it might be politically shrewd for Obama to a least make a pretense of absenting himself from felicity awhile out of respect for those who are literally dying for freedom. (And there's always the what-if-Bush-had-done-that factor. But that's implicit in almost every news story about Obama. Sigh.)

And speaking of the Obama media, Mark Knoller is nothing if not thorough:

Lifted from Mofo. H/t: Steyn subbing for Rush.

Knoller has to feed the rabid fan base, I guess.

Patterico puts together a stark compare-and-contrast here.

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Brave and beautiful

They are certainly courageous. But are all Iranian women raving beauties?


Photo above is reputed to be Neda Agha Soltan who was murdered in the streets of Tehran.







I'm sure photographers naturally gravitate toward these gorgeous faces. Even so, feminine beauty seems pretty rampant in Iran.

Most recent posts here.

Iranian revolt highlights Obama's inadequacies

If you can slog through the entirety of EJ Dionne's piece you win the Gunga Din prize today. I'm not suggesting it -- life is short and time is precious. And the wall feels so hard when you bang your head against it. But a quick scan tells me that Obama is caught between a political rock and hard place, and even liberals are questioning his abilities:

It's not easy to walk the progressive path. But Obama has always said that he knows how to deal with complexity. This is his chance to prove it.

Michael Barone isn't buying the self-propagated, msm-spread image of Obama-the-Brilliant, discussed here.

I guess this (via NTC News) is supposed to be a good thing? --

U.S. officials say Obama is intent on calibrating his comments to the mood of the hour.

Read on for more analysis of Obama's handling of the Iranian revolt:

"He's playing to multiple audiences. He's talking not only to the Iranians but also the Russians and the Chinese," two key partners in the effort to restrain Iran's nuclear ambitions, Drezner said. "The more ambitious and, for lack of a better word, Bush-like his language is, the more it will upset the Russians and Chinese."

The situation is indeed complex, but I thought that was always true of foreign policy. Welcome to the bigs, Barack. Too bad for us that you can't be sent back down to the minors when it becomes clear that you're not major league material.

Time will tell how well raising a finger into the wind and "steely temporizing" will work for him as the revolt escalates. Mark Steyn has pointed out the problem with assuming the "dispassionate, disinterested soul of moderation" stance: "You always have a dog in the fight, whether you know it or not."

The Hyacinth Girl wonders if Obama is able to learn from his mistakes, but she's not optimistic; that would require humility.

Victor Davis Hanson calls out for strong condemnation:

Does not Obama see that the world has been given a rare chance, thanks to brave Iranians—as if the German people had risen up in 1938 in fear of what was on the horizon . . .

Hanson goes on to give five reasons why Obama should take a strong stand, and then speculates on why he will not. As a student of history, Prof. Hanson recognizes hubris when he sees it. Here are some selected snippets but this is a must-read:

So now he waits to see who wins. And then will provide the soaring rhetoric postfacto to suggest that he was either the careful realist all along who foresaw the dissidents’ failure-or the enthusiastic moralist who always really did cheer on the mullahs’ demise. Robert Gibbs has both scripts already fed into the bookend A and B teleprompters.

Obama wants to rise above his country; but when his country is not held in disrepute (as is true among the Iranian people), he is an actor without a role.

People abroad really do prefer freedom and true constitutional government to autocratic grievance mongers who loot their country and brutalize the free. In such conditions, old-fashioned Americans, often inarticulate and perhaps clumsy, but honest in their belief in the universal appeal of human freedom, do better than all the nuanced Kennedy School intellectuals.

Obama is clueless. Hillary knows more, but not that much more (Bill knows less as his 2005 Davos disastrous encomium of Iran proved). Biden, well, is Biden. The brighter like Holbrooke serve on the second tier. In short, no one knows now to whom do you apologize? And if to no one, what then do you do? We’re back to sorta, sorta not shoot the pirates, kinda, kinda not stop the Koreans, maybe, maybe not keep renditions, tribunals, wiretaps, intercepts, and drone attacks-or why didn’t someone brief me on the problems with closing Guantanamo before I promised the world at end to our American Gulag?

His entire anti-Bush foreign policy is then in trouble.

I don't suppose we'll ever hear words like this coming from Obama's mouth:

The Iranian regime is responsible for the maiming and murder of many Americans and others who have been made its victims. The overthrow of the regime would be well deserved. We support the brave protesters who have taken to the streets of Iran to express their opposition to the regime and we wish them success in their endeavors.

Read the rest (short). H/t: AmPower.

Meanwhile, rumors swirl around the identity of Neda and the exact circumstances of her murder. But her martyrdom to Iranian freedom has already been established.

Linked by Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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