Thursday morning links

→ Maggie's Farm | 11 Mar 2010 | 4:17 am MST

Proof that Maggie's is a centrist website: Not on the list

Hey kids! Free ice cream medical care!

Byrd in 2001: I Told Clinton There Was No Way In Hell Reconciliation Was Appropriate For Health Care Reform

How the Medieval Warm Period disappeared

John H: There is no more corrupt entity in the world than the enviro-industrial complex.

Poll Suggests Obama's Arrogance Is The Problem. D'ya think?

Why, Joe?

Joe Romm has weighed in with a piece warning scientists to  avoid climate debates, whatever they do.

Licensing florists?

If Muslims Gay-Bash In San Francisco, Do They Make a Sound?

Moving From Yes to No on Health Care

→ The American Spectator and AmSpecBlog | 11 Mar 2010 | 4:09 am MST

It really should not be all that hard for a moderate Democratic U.S. House member to resist the pressure from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and thus to do the right thing by switching from a "yes" vote on Obamacare to a "no."

Imagine for a moment that you are -- to pick a "swing vote" congressman almost entirely at random -- freshman Rep. Mark Schauer of Michigan, who won his seat in the heavily Democratic year of 2008 with just 48.8 percent of the vote in a Republican-leaning district. You're a smart guy, a Phi Beta Kappa with a Master's Degree in Public Administration. You've been in elective office of one sort or another since you were 33 years old, in 1994, so you understand how politics works. You understand the interplay between popular opinion and an officeholder's considered judgment. And you know that proposals that fail to pass can almost always be revived in slightly different form if they really have merit.

What you would do and say would be something like this: First, you put out a big press release serving notice that you will announce, either in a speech in your home district or in a "special order" on the House floor, your decision on Obamacare. And when the time comes, you say this, or something very much like it:

"Everybody, this question about whether to vote for this health-care reform package in a tough one. Don't think it is easy, either way. As my constituents surely know, I voted for the House version when it came up for a vote last fall. I make no apologies for having done so. I thought long and hard about it, and it seemed like the right thing to do. It seemed to offer more advantages than disadvantages. We really do need to help the uninsured find coverage. We really do need to help people who feel the system is too complicated, too costly, and too uncaring. And in my considered judgment, the bill we voted on accomplished those goals, or at least moved enough closer to those goals that on balance it seemed a good idea.

"But here's something else I understand: I understand something that politicians too seldom acknowledge; I understand that I can be wrong. Even when I think I am right, I might be wrong. And if enough people tell me I am wrong, on something that I think is a fairly close call anyway, then it is my responsibility to listen. It is my responsibility not necessarily to change my mind, but to leave myself open to changing my mind. Minds should not be changed for slight reasons or momentary advantage, but minds should be able to change if the reasons are of substance.

"We as congressmen have two roles. To us and to our judgment, our constituents delegate much of their governing authority. They know that while they go about the business of doing the jobs that make our country go, and of caring for their families and befriending their neighbors, they cannot examine every clause of every piece of legislation that comes down the pike. They delegate that job to us, and we must sometimes use our best judgment even against what seems to be the prevailing opinion where that opinion is not focused or well-informed. If the issue is ordinary and I am sure, in good conscience, that my position is right, I have a duty to follow my conscience even if a finger in the wind would tell me that a slight majority of my district might disagree. As a delegate, I must not sacrifice conscience for short-term political expedience.

"But we also have a second role, and it is an important one. We are not just delegates free to rush headstrong in whatever direction we want; instead, we also are representatives. We represent those who elected us. We serve them and must respect their collective wisdom. We are their servants, not their masters. This is particularly true on big issues that earn lots of attention: If the public is strongly engaged in an issue, if the citizens themselves have the chance and inclination in the midst of their busy lives to study a major public issue and think about it hard and then to opine about it, then I no longer am so much more an expert on that issue than they are. They defer less to my judgment in those cases, and it right for them to do so. They expect me less to act as an independent-minded delegate than as a representative of their best collective views.

"Now it must be said that there is no simple mathematical formula to say where the two roles intersect or collide. But think of it like this: If I have reason to believe that 52 percent of my constituents take one position, but I feel strongly the other position is best for my country and my district, I should vote with my conscience and let the chips fall where they may. But if I am only slightly sure that one position is the better one, but a large majority, say 65 percent, of my constituents feel otherwise, then I have a solemn responsibility to follow their lead. This is especially true when not only the numbers, but also the depth and intensity of feeling, is on the other side. My ego must not be so great that I act as if my slight inclination outweighs their overwhelming opinions. I may still think that I am right, on balance, but I nonetheless must serve my citizenry's considered wishes. Not only that, but I must do so with pride in this system that insists that here, sir, the people rule.

"So we come to this health-care decision. I could pick a provision that I liked that was in the House bill that is not in the final bill we will consider -- and there are indeed such provisions -- and claim that the failure to include such a provision made the difference for me. Or vice versa: I might claim that the final version contains a new joker in the deck, to which I object. And that claim, too, would be honest.

"But to claim that it is for those reasons of pure policy that I vote 'no' would be dishonest. I could stand here all day and sound like a high-minded policy wonk, and while each statement might be technically true, the whole impression would be false. Because the larger truth is that my vote will be cast not because of my own great wisdom, but because I respect the wisdom of the people who sent me here. It is just not right, especially not in a republic, to cram a major change into law through the barest congressional majority, and a partisan majority at that, against the overwhelming opinions of the American people. And on this health-care legislation, there can be no doubt what the majority of the people believe, and what a large plurality of them believe with great passion after considerable reflection: They believe that this bill moves too far too fast, that it is too big and too scary, that it dictates too much and leaves too little choice to the individual. The majority may be right, or it may be wrong. But it has spoken in polls and at the ballot boxes and in letters and emails and phone calls and town meetings. And its message is utterly clear. Its message is to start over. To build a wider consensus before making such a big change. To slow down even though we in Washington might think our handiwork is not just well designed but of pressing importance.

"We in Washington must listen. Again, we must listen. And listen again. Some of us may not even like what we hear, but still we must listen.

"Toward that end, having not only listened but heard the message, I urge all of my wavering colleagues to make clear, in public, that we will not vote for this package -- and that we further urge our leadership to withdraw it and to try to rework it almost from scratch, with input from whichever of our Republican colleagues actually are serious about solving these health-care problems. Look: I do believe that there has been some bad faith shown by some of my Republican colleagues. But I also know, without a doubt, that many of them are serious and sincere and principled. It is high time we stop bashing each other and start respecting each other.

"So I will vote against the comprehensive health-care legislation soon to come before us. I will do so because sometimes we must take time to breathe and reflect. We should not take a step backward, but there is nothing wrong with taking a step sideways. If the step to the side, for a pause, allow us to better hear the people and act accordingly, it can only be a good thing.

"I will vote no, and many of my colleagues ought to do the same. This is a republic. We are not rulers. We serve. We serve. We serve.

"Thank you very much."

Bribes, Buffoons, and Obamacare

→ The American Spectator and AmSpecBlog | 11 Mar 2010 | 4:08 am MST

British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, during his travels in India, heard many stories about people on the "edge of destitution." In his memoirs, Muggeridge recalled an anecdote told to him about a poor farmer who was asked if he hated the government or the money-lender more. "After some thought the farmer replied that he hated the government more, because, whereas it was to the money-lender's interest to keep him just alive so that he could go on paying off his debt, the government didn't care whether he lived or died," Muggeridge wrote.

The American people seem to look upon Obamacare in a similar way: While they may not like health insurance companies, they dislike the federal government even more.

This week Obama delivered yet another speech casting health care companies as the devil and the federal government as the savior. But the American people aren't ready to swallow his sophomoric socialism, and for good reason: the assumption underlying it -- that remote bureaucrats and politicians, many of whom won't even be around by the time Obamacare is implemented, worry more about their welfare than health care companies do -- is thoroughly unconvincing.

If anything, bitter experience has shown Americans that the federal government manages to be as indifferent as the market but without any of its efficiency or responsiveness. As politicians and bureaucrats demonstrate on a weekly basis, the market has no monopoly on heartlessness and dishonesty.

"Stop lying about my record," Bob Dole once said to George H.W. Bush. Health care company executives could say the same to Obama. Who is he to lecture them on fairness and honesty? He can't even give a straight answer about how his plan will use tax dollars to abort unborn children. Compared to the slipperiness and corruption of his administration, many health care companies look straightforward and squeaky clean.

"Was it secretary of the Navy?" interviewer Larry Kane asked Congressman Joe Sestak after he said that the White House had dangled a job before him in the hopes that he would leave the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, a race the White House wants Arlen Specter to win. Sestak declined to answer, but the former Navy admiral acknowledged the offer of a federal job.

On Tuesday, Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, continued to evade this matter while rising to the easier, though still embarrassing, challenge of Eric Massa's wobbly charges. Perhaps the White House should have offered Massa the Secretary of Navy slot to keep him out of the way. He certainly seems ready to implement his version of post-Don't Ask, Don't Tell policies.

As he explained to an aghast Glenn Beck, his transition from "salty" naval culture to the expectations of political life has been bumpy. Massa cracked open his naval yearbook to show Beck old photos of what he described as a Caligula-level orgy in which he had participated. Apparently, Massa was hoping to adduce the photos as some sort of baffling defense of once-government-approved horseplay that had habituated him to obscene hijinks with staff. Beck should have asked him what naval yearbooks will look like after Don't Ask, Don't Tell falls.        

Capitol Hill Democrats naturally disowned Massa, and the same liberal media which earlier in the year had interviewed him respectfully about overturning allegedly repressive policies in the military declared him a crackpot and creep. A party and media that defended Bill Clinton against Kathleen Willey and usually shows considerable flexibility and sympathy when it comes to the vagaries of homosexual culture was in no mood to forgive Massa with health care on the line, even if he does have "recurring cancer." Once an honored and regular guest on MSNBC, he was now all leftists agreed a blowhard and buffoon of epic proportions.

The White House was fortunate in this regard. Massa is easily dismissed. But the farce, in which Obama's chief of staff made a guest appearance, probably did a little damage nonetheless. It's one more Democratic debacle that exposes the supposedly new and transcendent politics of Obama as tiresomely old, ribald, and familiar.  

Obama Accepts Paul Ryan's Premise

→ The American Spectator and AmSpecBlog | 11 Mar 2010 | 4:08 am MST

After talking incessantly about cutting waste, fraud and abuse from federal spending, on Wednesday, President Obama finally announced a plan to do so. His method: use financial incentives. 

The president has ordered all federal departments and agencies to "expand and intensify their use of payment recapture audits under the authority they currently have." Recapture audits consist of the government paying private sector auditors to discover improper payments that result from error or fraud. The plan is to "offer specialized private auditors financial incentives to root out improper payments." The more money the auditors save the government, the more they make. 

The White House says the increased audits could save taxpayers $2 billion over the next three years. That's only a small fraction of the $98 billion worth of improper payments the White House says were made last year alone ($54 billion from Medicare and Medicaid). But it's an improvement over current practice. It's also a fascinating admission from the president. 

The move acknowledges that the public sector has failed to properly police itself. Obama, who reflexively opposes "privatization" on principle, has expanded the privatization of an important government function -- auditing the government's own books. Why would he do that? He answers the question himself. Providing financial incentives to private auditors will save the government more money than relying on in-house bureaucrats to self-police. 

So the president has acknowledged that people will work harder toward a goal if given strong financial incentives to do so. With that acknowledgement, he has accepted the premise of Rep. Paul Ryan's "A Roadmap for America's Future," the very document the president has tried to dismiss as too extreme. 

Ryan proposes transforming America's entitlement programs from defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans. For instance, Medicare currently pays directly for all qualifying medical procedures. So there is no incentive to be careful about how much care you use or how much that care costs. Ryan would have Medicare give beneficiaries a set amount of cash (about $11,000 a year) to buy health insurance from a list of approved insurers (just as federal employees do now). If beneficiaries buy insurance that costs less than their Medicare payment, they can keep the difference in cash and invest it into a Medical Savings Account. 

Ryan would similarly change Medicaid. He would replace direct payments to service providers with an $11,000 refundable tax credit the poor could use to buy private health insurance. (Those who receive disability and long-term care under Medicaid would continue to receive the same services they do now.) Again, Ryan would use financial incentives to improve services and outcomes. 

These are ideas worth exploring. But the president has shot them down and his party is working hard to discredit them. It's the same thing they did to school vouchers and Social Security reform -- attack incentive-based reforms as "privatization." But the president's announcement yesterday makes it harder for the White House and the Democratic Party to continue to attack the concept of "privatization" as a risky scheme that doesn't work. If it doesn't work, then why is the president using it to save the taxpayers billions of dollars? And if it can save $2 billion just by providing auditors incentives to uncover improper payments, imagine how much could be saved by replacing the current system, which gives recipients strong incentives to over-use care or commit fraud, with one that gives them direct incentives to spend more wisely?

An Angry Pothead

→ The American Spectator and AmSpecBlog | 11 Mar 2010 | 4:08 am MST

WASHINGTON -- There has been yet another eruption of violence from what our Liberal friends a year or so ago were wont to call "the Angry Left." However, if you read the Washington Post you might think this recent outburst of violence came from talk radio.

The angry leftist behind the violence is John Patrick Bedell, 36, who on the evening of March 4 walked up to an entrance of the Pentagon, pulled a gun on two Pentagon guards, Jeffrey Amos and Marvin Carraway, and was shot dead. Both guards were wounded.

In the aftermath of this attack it was reported that Bedell was a pot-smoking intellectualoid from California who left word on the Internet that according to his findings a "coup regime" took over Washington at the time of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, and has governed the country "up to the present day." What is more, the "coup regime," according to Bedell, was complicit in 9/11. This judgment might strike you as extreme, but apparently it is not, at least not on the left. You will recall that President Barack Obama's recently resigned environmental, czar, Van Jones, had signed a petition to this effect before being invited into the Administration.

In the Post's report on Bedell's assault -- headlined "Pentagon Shooter's Erratic Journey" -- a high school classmate recalled: "I remember him [Bedell] being a sweet-natured, funny peacenik." Another acquaintance reported to the Post that Bedell was a heavy marijuana user, and elsewhere one of Bedell's brothers reported that he was a perpetual student who so far as the brother knew never held a job while bouncing from campus to campus and developing his esoteric theories. All in all, this glassy-eyed ideologue was surely a man of the left, the infantile left to be sure, but the left.

Nonetheless in the Post's companion piece analyzing Bedell's assault and appearing on page one under the headline "The Disaffected Lashing Out at Symbols of Power," Post reporters write of "Bedell's rampage as a distorted manifestation of the anti-Washington view that has driven the rise of right-wing militias." Yes, they said "right-wing militias." Then just a few paragraphs away from the Post's new report of Bedell being a pothead and a "sweet-natured, funny peacenik," the Post analytical piece gibbers on about "militias and hate groups" that "are interlinked to a much greater degree by the Web and mainstream radio and TV talk shows that echo many of the same viewpoints." So if Post readers think Rush Limbaugh had a hand in the recent assault on the Pentagon, they can be forgiven.

Now I actually listen to talk radio from time to time, and I cannot recall ever hearing one of the conservative talk hosts "echo[ing] many of the same viewpoints" of the wretched Bedell or any other member of the Angry Left. For that matter, I cannot imagine any member of the Angry Left finding himself in accord with conservative talk radio. How does one explain the Post's analysis, which is contradicted so starkly by the Post's news report? Does anyone edit the newspaper today?

My explanation is that some journalists are actually very pious people. They have a deep faith in their heroes, and the Angry Left remains revered in these journalists' trusting minds. They see a California pothead, who shares Van Jones's suspicion that the Bush Administration was complicit in 9/11, attempt to gun down Pentagon guards, and they want to change the subject. They change the topic to "right-wing militias." Unsatisfied with that act of legerdemain, they bring in talk radio and TV talk shows. It has all happened before.

On November 22, 1963, an American Communist, Lee Harvey Oswald, who admired the Cuban Revolution, gunned down JFK in Dallas, Texas, and the same kind of pious journalists caught gibbering in the Post the other day fastened the nation's attention not on left-wing violence but on right-wing critics of Kennedy living otherwise peaceful lives in Dallas. The violent potential of militant leftists was never pondered, though America was about to enter into a decade of protest that witnessed leftists burning down university buildings, bombing R.O.T.C. facilities, and otherwise committing acts of violence on behalf of peace and a better world.

Thus John Patrick Bedell, a life-long member of the Angry Left, gets himself killed while assaulting the Pentagon, and the pious journalists at the Washington Post lump the poor guy in with right-wing militias. It is shoddy journalism. Much worse, it is a shocking act of disrespect for the dead.

You Stay Classy, Sacramento

→ The American Spectator and AmSpecBlog | 11 Mar 2010 | 4:07 am MST

In many countries, electric utilities struggle to keep up with demand, and often fail. The World Bank estimates that almost 1.5 billion men, women, and children lack reliable access to electricity. They want it, but they can't have it. In new-agey   California, it's the other way around. The centerpiece of California's energy policy is really the absence of energy.

If that sounds crazy -- and it is! -- consider this impressive web of regulation that the government has spun: Elected officials enacted a moratorium on new nuclear power plants. New coal plants are illegal. Large scale hydropower is unthinkable for California's environmentally sensitive voters, because it harms fish. Natural gas plants emit half as much carbon as coal plants, but they are banned in much of California because they cannot get air quality permits for particulate emissions.

In 2006, the State Water Resources Control Board ruled that 19 coastal natural gas power plants were in violation of the Clean Water Act for using a process called "once-through cooling," by which ocean water is pumped into a power plant in order to condense steam into water to be reused. This can harm aquatic wildlife, so, at the behest of environmentalist groups, the SWRCB ordered coastal power plants to make costly refurbishments. According to the Energy Commission, "[I]t is likely that plant operators will choose retirement in the face of costly retrofits."

California doesn't have generation capacity to spare, so it will have to replace these plants, most of which are located in the southern part of the state. But the south California air basin is out of compliance with air quality standards for particulate emissions. It is well nigh impossible for utilities to obtain an air quality permit for a natural gas plant from the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Existing nuclear power is also under attack. In 2006, the legislature passed a bill requiring the Energy Commission to assess the nuclear plants' vulnerability to earthquakes. In fact, the legislation was designed to stack the deck against nuclear when these plants come up for relicensing. It is unlikely that California utilities can meet demand for electricity without these 21 power plants. Yet California's elected officials, in Sacramento and elsewhere, seem to think that conventional energy is unnecessary as long as the Golden State aggressively pursues conservation and renewable energy.

That's the theory anyway. However, the state's pro-green, anti-energy policies make it difficult even for the generation of alternative energy.

California is the country's leading dairy state, and the Energy Commission has identified methane emitted by cows as a major source of renewable energy. But it is impossible to make use of this "bio-methane" from California's dairy farms because air quality agencies refuse to permit a generating facility. The state's deserts are obvious locations for generating solar power. Yet California Senator Dianne Feinstein is trying to block the construction of solar power plants in the Mojave in order to protect a species of turtle.

California's mountain ranges are ideal for wind power. For many environmentalists, however, wind turbines are unacceptable, because the giant, rotating blades kill things that fly. The New York Times recently quoted a California wind power developer saying, "Regulators are concerned about birds; now they're concerned about bats..." Next they'll be concerned about taxpayers.

Just kidding on that last point. Renewable energies are far more expensive than burning fossil fuels but that's only a start. To meet the state's current renewable energy targets (20 percent of the state's electricity was supposed to come from renewable energy sources by this year), the Public Utilities Commission reports that California utilities would have to build seven transmission lines, at a cost of $12 billion, to move electricity generated by renewables in remote regions to the urban centers where the electricity is consumed.

However, there could be a catch. Transmission lines are almost impossible to build in California due to the onerous permitting process designed to mitigate environmental impact.

No problem! said Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. When it became clear that the state couldn't meet its 2010 goals, he simply moved the goalposts. He signed an executive order that increased the unworkable renewable energy targets and postponed them -- by a decade.

California's story should be a cautionary tale of how not to manage energy policy. Instead, it is touted by politicians and all too often swallowed hook, line, and sinker by gullible journalists.

There is something like a consensus among economists that "greening" the energy industry harms economic growth. But Schwarzenegger claims California "can grow the economy and simultaneously protect the environment" and Sen. Barbara Boxer maintains that California's energy policies have boosted employment by creating "green jobs."

Los Angeles congressman and chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee Henry Waxman ushered major climate change legislation through the House of Representatives last year. He based the renewable energy parts of the bill on the flawed model of his own state.

Barack Obama bragged in an Earth Day speech last year that the average Californian uses 50 percent less energy than the average American because the state government "put in some good policy early on that assured that they weren't wasting energy."

(It's worth batting that down, briefly. California has a moderate climate, high urban density, and an energy policy that drives up the cost of electricity. So, less air conditioning + less heat + high energy prices + most energy intensive industries have already fled the state = lower per capita energy usage.)

Writing in the Atlantic, Ronald Brownstein celebrated the "California Experiment" that "has consistently defined the forward edge of energy policy in America." In Time, Michael Grunwald argued that "California is not just ahead of the game" when it comes to energy, but that, "it's playing a different" -- altogether better -- "game." Think of it as Monopoly, except in this version everybody goes broke and has to sleep on the street.

Everybody except the well connected, that is. One California program that's being celebrated at the moment is called "decoupling plus." It is supposed to give utilities an incentive to pursue energy efficiency. Here's how it works: California regulators allow utilities to increase electricity rates to fund programs that lower energy consumption. If these programs reduce energy use below targets set by the state, then the utilities get to keep some of the value of the saved electricity.

Decoupling plus is supposed to restructure the utilities' interest calculus so that they give priority to energy efficiency. In practice, it's a huge transfer of wealth from taxpayers to favored utilities, with little enforcement. In September, the Public Utilities Commission slashed the utilities' savings targets for 2012 by 42 percent. According to a staff analysis, "review of the PUC's actions relating to energy efficiency incentives...reveals how the scales have been tipped further and further in favor of utility shareholders."

Brownstein writes that decoupling plus has "changed the motivation of utility companies." He's right, just not in the way he thinks. The program has given the utilities the motivation to lobby politicians and regulators in order to reap windfall profits.

For 2010-2012, the Public Utilities Commission has increased electricity rates by $3.1 billion to
pay for energy efficiency programs, and it has complete discretion over how much of this rate increase will end up with the utilities. So a utility's success will be achieved by overcharging rate payers and currying favor with politicians, who will then, no doubt, blather on about how Sacramento has saved us from ourselves.

To Infinity, and Behind!

→ Big Lizards | 11 Mar 2010 | 3:06 am MST

A little over a month ago, I noted the shift in our spacefaring strategy towards privatizing space exploration and exploitation, a strategy pushed, astonishingly enough, by President Barack H. Obama:

I'm just now picking my jaw up from the floor: Barack H. Obama has just decided to privatize -- space exploration?....

It's a little odd that such a lover of big-government Obamunism and nationalization of private resources would suddenly go all capitalist over the space program; I worry that this will just turn out to be more empty rhetoric. But entrepeneurs can use even empty rhetoric to fly below the radar and actually bring about some of the dreams that Obama has woven, perhaps unintentionally and against the president's own better judgment. Certainly there is no lack of players champing at the leash to jump into a newly revitalized private space-launch industry....

Republicans should seize this idea to show they're not just the "party of No," as Obama loves to claim. Here's a chance to champion science, space research, and private enterprise and entrepeneurship, all while showing some bipartisan flair! The GOP would have to be utter morons to let this fish loose.

Oh, wait...

I'm glad I tossed in that final cynical jab at the GOP (which may come to mean "grand obsolete party"); it makes me look less like a Pollyanna, sunny-side up nitwit. For just as we all suspected, the Republicans are so locked into the top-down "command science" that they join their Democratic colleagues in trashing the very idea of private manned space launches:

"As with all great human achievements, our commitment to space must be renewed and encouraged or we will surely be surpassed by other nations who are presently challenging our leadership in space," Democratic and Republican members of the U.S. Congress from Florida wrote to Obama last week."

Here is the new plan, as enunciated by the running-dog capitalist in chief:

Obama, in his Feb. 1 budget proposal, planned to increase NASA's overall funding to $19 billion in 2011 with an emphasis on science and less spent on space exploration.

He would cancel the Constellation program's Orion spacecraft and Ares rockets, after $9 billion and five years of tests. Constellation is aimed at returning astronauts to the moon in the 2020s to clear the way for a Mars mission.

Instead, Obama would spend $6 billion a year for five years to support commercial spacecraft development and pursue new technologies to explore the solar system in what the White House called "a more effective and affordable way."

The Florida Republicans shake in their boots, terrified that private enterprise will surely lead to massive job losses (possibly even within the state legislature). But is it now Republican dogma that public spending creates more jobs than the free market?

It's not just know-nothing congressmen in the Reptile State pushing the bright red panic button about private aerospace development. Here comes President George W. Bush's NASA administrator, "explaining" -- in the sense of "mocking the very idea" -- why we must allow government to monopolize spaceflight:

Various members of the far-flung U.S. space community have been troubled by the change, such as former NASA administrator Michael Griffin, who struggled to get more funding for Constellation from the previous administration of President George W. Bush and believes Obama should stick with it.

"There's a larger issue here," Griffin said. "Does the United States want to have a real space program? Do we actually think we can have a robust, exciting, world-leading space program by hiring private enterprise to furnish it?"

Why yes, Dr. Griffin; many of us do support exactly that weird idea: In a capitalist state -- or even whatever hemi-demi-quasi-capitalist state we currently inhabit -- it's always best to try the market first... and only haul out the big-government guns later, if a screaming emergency arises.

The bureaucratization of space exploration is one of the most disheartening aspects of contemporary society: Here we sit, verging on the sixtieth anniversary of Robert A. Heinlein's classic, "the Man Who Sold the Moon" (1951); and our "leaders" at NASA still scoff at the preposterous thought that private rocket ships, free-market space colonization, and entrepeneurial expansion to the stars can actually work... maybe even better than Michael Griffin ordering his civil servants to innovate, on schedule.

My God. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And so far, that's where it bloody well ends, too.

Cross-posted on Hot Air's rogues' gallery...

Obamacare’s Passage Rests on Pelosi’s Powers of Persuasion

→ The Weekly Standard Blog | 10 Mar 2010 | 9:30 pm MST

When legislative leaders count votes before a bill comes to the floor they call it a “whip check.”  It’s an old English phrase referring to those who kept the dogs in line during a foxhunt.

With all the barking about health care these days, Speaker Pelosi will need some pretty stout lashes to hold Democrats in the pack. But she and President Obama also possess more tools than you think to flog wavering lawmakers.

No big deal, except symbolically

→ Power Line | 10 Mar 2010 | 8:35 pm MST

The Commonwealth of Virginia's new Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, has created a stir by advising the state's public colleges and universities that they have no authority to adopt policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. He has called on these institutions to rescind such policies.

Cuccinelli, a strong social conservative, concludes that only the state legislature can extend legal protections to gay state employees and students. Virginia's legislature, the General Assemby, has repeatedly (and again just recently) declined to take this step.

Cuccinelli's position is, I think, correct as a matter of law. Indeed, though it denounces the decision, the Washington Post editorial board concedes that, for 25 years, Cuccinelli's predecessors -- Republican and Democrat -- have "come to a similar conclusion concerning cities and counties that wished to extend protections to gay and lesbian residents." If the elected representatives of local governments lack this power, I'm at a loss to understand how university bureaucrats possess it.

The Post says that "colleges and universities traditionally have been given broad leeway to set policy." But this only begs the question; it isn't really an argument.

The Post also says that colleges and universities "have been havens for inclusive policies that often go hand-in-hand with academic freedom." This invocation of buzz-words also begs the question, even as it raises a new one: if colleges and universities are "havens" of non-discrimination, do they really need formal policies to prevent discrimination against gays?

Cuccinelli isn't saying that Virginia's colleges and universities must discriminate against gays, and Gov. McDonnell has said he doesn't want them to. If a given college is enlightened enough to write up a formal anti-discrimination policy, it is enlightened enough not to permit discrimination against gays to inform its decisionmaking in the absence of such a written policy. So the issue here isn't really "legalized discrimination," as the Post's editors claim.

What practical difference (from the point of view of real gay rights, as opposed to symbols and public relations) does Cuccinelli's legal adivce carry, assuming that colleges and universities follow it? I may be missing something, but the only important difference I see is that the absence of a formal prohibition against discrimination cuts off potential litigation.

That's no great loss. Discrimination claims by gays against universities that are "havens for inclusive policies" are overwhelmingly likely to be frivolous. In any event, university administrators should not be drafting policies that may create suits over actions the legislature has refused to deem illegal.

Virginia's colleges and universities would like to keep their anti-discrimination policies in place for ideological reasons and to make their schools more attractive to top applicants and professors. But even if revoking these polcies might tangibly hurt these schools, it's up to the legislature to weigh this potential consequence.

Why Don't Christians Care?

→ Power Line | 10 Mar 2010 | 8:25 pm MST

In a number of places around the world, it is open season on Christians. We read of Christians burned out of their homes and slaughtered in Pakistan. Most recently, at least 500 Christians were murdered in Nigeria. The attackers in all cases are Muslims, inspired by the warlike message of their Prophet. AFP reports on the Nigerian attacks:

UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Washington led calls for restraint on Monday after the slaughter of more than 500 Christians in Nigeria, as survivors told how the killers chopped down their victims.

Funerals took place for victims of the three-hour orgy of violence on Sunday in three Christian villages close to the northern city of Jos, blamed on members of the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group. ...

"We have over 500 killed in three villages and the survivors are busy burying their dead," said state information commissioner Gregory Yenlong. "People were attacked with axes, daggers and cutlasses -- many of them children, the aged and pregnant women."

Do you remember the "massacre" at Jenin? Of course: Palestinians initially claimed that 500 had been killed, but it turned out that there was no massacre after all. In Nigeria, on the other hand, no one disputes that more than 500 Christians were slaughtered by Muslims. So where is the outrage? I don't know what denomination those Nigerian Christians were, but Lutherans are the most numerous Christian denomination in Africa. I'm a Lutheran, but I have never heard a single word from any church source, local or national, about the mass murder of African Christians. No one seems to care.

No doubt readers can refer us to some Christian sources--evangelical, most likely--who have tried to draw attention to the plight of Christians in Africa, the Middle East and Asia who are being exterminated. But any such effort has wholly failed to gain traction in the "mainstream" Christian community.

Why? I can't explain it. Maybe "mainstream" Christianity is dead, except as an appendage of secular liberal opinion. Maybe, as the world's largest religion, Christianity has become so diffused that New World Christians don't much relate to their co-religionists in Africa and Asia. I don't know. What I do know is that it is much more dangerous to publish a cartoon of Mohammed than to slice apart a Christian with a machete.

Only Idiots Think Obama's Doing a Great Job

→ Warning Signs | 10 Mar 2010 | 7:44 pm MST

Mickey Mouse Plays The Chicago Way

→ Maggie's Farm | 10 Mar 2010 | 7:37 pm MST

Robert Iger, CEO of Walt Disney Company since 2005, plays hard to get what he wants.

Case #1: Not Child Friendly

The New York Times reports today that under pressure from Disney The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood was evicted from the Judge Baker childrens mental health center in Boston that housed and sponsored it for a decade.  The Harvard Medical School professor who oversaw the Campaign, psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint, also co-wrote books with Bill Cosby.

The campaign had for years fought Disney’s marketing of the Baby Einstein videos — short videos filled with colors, nature pictures, music and puppets — as educational; it contended that there was no evidence that babies learned anything. Indeed, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time for children under 2.

After the campaign filed a Federal Trade Commission complaint, Disney dropped the word “educational” from its marketing. But that was not enough for campaign officials. They forwarded their research to lawyers who threatened a class-action suit, prompting Disney to offer refunds of $15.99 for up to four Baby Einstein DVDs per household.

Barely two weeks after the story of the refunds appeared, Dr. Poussaint said, he and Dr. Linn were called before the Baker center’s executive board.

Dr. Poussaint wrote the board:

“You told me that the mission of C.C.F.C. — to protect children from harmful exploitation by corporate marketers — is not in line with the Judge Baker mission. Indeed, we were told that we could no longer criticize any corporations, even if they were exploiting children.”…

“It’s really chilling, that any corporation, and particularly one marketing itself as child friendly, would lean on a children’s center,” said Dr. Lynn, a psychiatry instructor at Harvard Medical School. “And it’s heartbreaking that a children’s center would cave in.”

Case #2: Democrat Friendly Exceeds Shareholder Friendly

Disney CEO Robert Iger is known for his support and funding of Democrat politicians and causes. For example, his 2009 political contributions counted by Open Secrets include $25,000 each to the Democratic Senatorial and Congressional Campaign Committees, a $1000 to Walt Disney World’s Florida-home Republican governor and US Senate primary contender Charlie Crist, then another $14,600 to Democrat Senators.

Iger and Disney have refused to respond to why Disney refuses to sell the distribution rights or to re-air its subsidiary ABC-TV’s docudrama The Path To 9/11. The National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project, a Disney shareholder, has been speaking out at Disney shareholder meetings, including today’s, “warning Disney shareholders that CEO Robert Iger's progressive political bias puts investors at risk.”

"Iger's rejection of several offers to sell the distribution rights of the ABC-TV docudrama, The Path to 9/11, is a sign that his personal political views are affecting business decisions," said Free Enterprise Project director Dr. Tom Borelli, who has raised the issue personally with Iger at past shareholder meetings.

Big Hollywood offered more background.

A $30+ million project that aired without sponsors on two September nights in 2006, The Path to 9/11 dramatized the historical thread that connected the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Islamic attacks on American interests throughout the ‘90s, and the terrorism of that fateful morning in 2001.

Prior to its premiere, the producers at ABC were so proud of the impending project that they had high hopes of airing Path every 9/11 anniversary and showing it in schools across this country as an engaging educational tool – until an accusation of “conservative bias” (horrors!) on the part of the filmmakers quickly spun into liberal hysteria that the project was actually a “well-honed propaganda operation” on the part of a secretive, right-wing network-within-a-network….

Clinton administration alumni, fearing the miniseries would highlight their flaccid response to the growing threat of Islamic extremism and tarnish their political legacy, pulled out all the stops to suppress it. The show very nearly wasn’t aired at all – Robert Iger and Disney were pressured by the Senate Democratic leadership, led by Harry Reid – it hasn’t aired since, and today you cannot even obtain it on DVD.

And why not? Disney President and CEO Robert Iger explains without elaboration that it’s a “business decision.” Oh, well then, case closed. Not only does he refuse to re-air The Path to 9/11 or release a DVD, but he has no intention of even selling the DVD rights to another company. I’m no financial wizard, but I can recognize that, as business decisions go, willfully taking a $30+ million bath on your product when there is a vast audience hungry for it and distributors making offers, is not one of the more lucrative marketing strategies I’ve ever heard of.

Case #3: Lining Own Pockets at Others' Expense

Disney is a leading member of the US travel association’s lobby group, Discover America, that spent millions of dollars to pass its Travel Promotion Act, that was finally recently approved by the Congress and signed by President Obama.  It will charge a $10 fee to travelers to the US that will go into a fund to promote tourism to the US. I was on the trail of its misrepresentations, starting in 2007. Tim Carney, muckraker at the Washington Examiner, joined in.  Then, in February 2008, Jeff Birnbaum at the Washington Post wrote a 6,746 word expose Mickey Goes To Washington: Lobbyists for America’s richest mouse set out to persuade Congress to scare up $200 million to promote U.S. tourist destinations. In my summary post, which links to my earlier posts on this money-grab by the $1-trillion US tourism industry, I wrote:

The points I’ve been driving home are all there: The statistics Discover America ignores about the strong recovery of post-9/11 international tourism; The cynical marketing by Geoff Freeman, Discover America’s PR specialist; The “inside-beltway” lobbying that swells our federal expenditures and enriches lobbyists and Congressional staff’s future job prospects.

Exposed, the bill stalled until the Democrat Congressional sweep of 2008.

Foreign visitors will surely be thrilled by the added fee.  Disney and its travel industry cohorts certainly are at getting others to pay for its own self-promotion efforts.

Isn't that how it works when you go to Disney Land?

Does Hollywood Make You Stupid?

→ Power Line | 10 Mar 2010 | 6:48 pm MST

It seems that way. Tom Hanks is one of Hollywood's more respectable denizens, but that doesn't save him from this remarkably dim-witted exchange, featured in the current issue of Time, as dissected by John Nolte at Big Hollywood. The subject is Hanks's new HBO series on World War II in the Pacific. This is how the Time story ends:

[Hanks] doesn't see the series as simply eye-opening history. He hopes it offers Americans a chance to ponder the sacrifices of our current soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. "From the outset, we wanted to make people wonder how our troops can re-enter society in the first place," Hanks says. "How could they just pick up their lives and get on with the rest of us? Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs' that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what's going on today?"

There's no such thing as a definitive history. But what was once a passing interest for Hanks has become an obsession. He's a man on a mission to make our back pages come alive, to keep overhauling the history we know and, in the process, get us to understand not just the past but the choices we make today.

This is painfully stupid. We expect that from the current incarnation of Time as a journal of liberal opinion, but I would have hoped for better from Hanks. Nolte makes the basic point well:

Really, we wanted to annihilate the Japanese because they were different, because we saw them as "yellow, slant-eyed dogs that believed in different gods?" I thought it was due to the fact that "we viewed them" as barbaric imperialists who had attacked us first and wanted to enslave the world.

But there's no reason to speculate about America's motivations during WWII because history has proven Hanks wrong. We had every opportunity to annihilate these "different" people. Instead we chose, at great expense, to rebuild Japan and return the sovereignty of that nation over to the "yellow, slant-eyed dogs who believed in different gods." Or, as most people prefer to call them: our newly liberated allies.

And to answer Hanks's question: No -- annihilating people who are different sounds NOTHING like what's going on today.

This country spends billions and billions of dollars on weapons designed to target the enemy and save the lives of people who are "different" -- those who are not our enemy but still manage to look different, speak languages we don't and worship in ways unfamiliar to us. The irony is that as Hanks spoke those slanderous words, the American Military remains in the middle of two conflicts that have cost us thousands of precious lives and hundreds of billions of dollars all towards the noble goal of liberating 50 million "different" people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What is happening today actually bears a considerable resemblance to the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. Contrary to Hanks's thoughtless slander, before 1941 probably not a single American was interested in "annihilating [the Japanese] because they were different." As evidenced by our laxity when it came to national defense. After Pearl Harbor, however, we had no choice but to swing into action--not to annihilate those who are different, but to defeat Japan and restore the peace. The Filipinos were "different" too, of course, so did we take time out to annihilate them? Um, no.

Likewise with the current conflicts. Prior to September 11, far from setting out to annihilate those who are "different," we protected Muslims in Bosnia, tried to save Somalians from the warlords, and rescued Kuwait from Saddam Hussein. Notwithstanding endless provocations, Americans were happy to leave it at that until Islamic terrorists murdered 3,000 Americans. Once again, we had to swing into action. So, did we "annihilate" those "different" Afghans and Iraqis? No, we established democracies and tried to bring both of those countries into the modern world by, among other things, liberating their women. How can a person of normal intelligence, as Hanks no doubt is, be so blind to reality? Presumably it has to do with swimming in the perverse, liberal water of Hollywood.

Far worse is Matt Damon's upcoming Green Zone, which will open on Friday. Green Zone is history as imagined at the Daily Kos and Democratic Underground. The film is a fevered portrayal of a fictional world in which the CIA warned President Bush that Saddam had no WMDs and in which Sunni insurgents are heroic patriots who are brutally targeted by evil American death squads. Kyle Smith concludes, in the New York Post:

"Green Zone" isn't cinema. It's slander. It will go down in history as one of the most egregiously anti-American movies ever released by a major studio.

The only consolation, I suppose, is that Green Zone will lose a fortune. But that hardly matters: someday soon, it will be taken as history.

Via Repubclic.

Another Liberal Gone Mad

→ Power Line | 10 Mar 2010 | 6:19 pm MST

Is the Washington press corps despicable? I sometimes think so. But watch Patrick Kennedy lose it on the House floor, as he denounces the press for covering Congressman Eric Massa rather than the vitally important vote taking place in the House. What was that vote? A goofy antiwar resolution by Dennis Kucinich that had no chance to pass, which probably explains why no one was interested in covering it. Although who knows, during the Bush administration a few reporters might have shown up:

It's a good thing Kennedy is retiring at the end of his current term.

Via Sister Toldjah.

The Slaughter solution?

→ Power Line | 10 Mar 2010 | 6:00 pm MST

I've been dubious that Nancy Pelosi lacks the juice to muscle Obamacare through the House, but her enforcers must be running into a wall. Minority Leader John Boehner's blog introduces us to the aptly named Slaughter solution via this Congress Daily report (PDF). Boehner's blog reports:

The twisted scheme by which Democratic leaders plan to bend the rules to ram President Obama's massive health care legislation through Congress now has a name: the Slaughter Solution.

The Slaughter Solution is a plan by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the Democratic chair of the powerful House Rules Committee and a key ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), to get the health care legislation through the House without an actual vote on the Senate-passed health care bill. You see, Democratic leaders currently lack the votes needed to pass the Senate health care bill through the House. Under Slaughter's scheme, Democratic leaders will overcome this problem by simply "deeming" the Senate bill passed in the House - without an actual vote by members of the House.

Is this some kind of a joke? At NRO, Daniel Foster explains that the joke may be on us. This must be one of the cases described by Brecht in which it is time for the government to dissolve the people and elect another.

JOHN adds: What we're seeing in Washington is appalling, but there is a bright side--the craziness is proof that the Democrats don't have the votes for Obamacare in the House. They've pulled out all the stops, pushed every chip they have into the center of the table, and they still don't have the votes. Will they get them? I don't think anyone knows. Normally I would take the cynical view and say, Sure, if they twist enough arms, in the House they can ultimately do what they want. But they've done pretty much everything they can think of, and they don't have the votes yet. So what reason is there to assume that one more stratagem will put them over the top?

If the Dems do try the Slaughter solution, I think we can deem Congress to be Republican after November.

God's talk

→ Maggie's Farm | 10 Mar 2010 | 5:33 pm MST

We recently posted a link to a homey discussion about how God speaks to us. But here's Gagdad Bob:

God's speech (happily) shatters all human containers for the same reason that a three dimensional sphere shatters a piece of paper.

Happy Hour Links

→ The Weekly Standard Blog | 10 Mar 2010 | 5:30 pm MST

Former chief of staff to a House Democrat was informed of Massa's history of sexual assault in 2006.

Obama's nuanced and persuasive rhetoric:

"The time for talk is through." -- July 20, 2009.

"The time for talk is over." -- March 10, 2010.

Obama's approval rating at 43%, according to Rasmussen.

Bart Stupak gets a Democratic primary challenger over abortion.

Sean Penn on Hugo Chavez: "every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it! And accept it. And this is mainstream media, who should – truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies."

Allahpundit: Patrick Kennedy goes nuts over media’s Massa coverage.

The Nuts Attack On Roberts

→ Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion | 10 Mar 2010 | 5:00 pm MST

"First of all, anybody can criticize the Supreme Court without any qualm," he said, adding that "some people, I think, have an obligation to criticize what we do, given their office, if they think we've done something wrong."

"So I have no problems with that. On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court -- according the requirements of protocol -- has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling."

The very idea that it's terrriby [sic] wrong, uncouth, and "very troubling" for the President to criticize one of their most significant judicial decisions in a speech while in their majestic presence -- not threaten them, or have them arrested, or incite violence against them, but disagree with their conclusions and call for Congressional remedies (as Art. II, Sec. 3 of the Constitution requires) -- approaches pathological levels of vanity and entitlement.

The particular Obama/Roberts/Alito drama is an unimportant distraction, but what this reflects about the mindset of many judges, including (perhaps especially) ones on the Supreme Court and obviously the Chief Justice of that court, is definitely worth considering.

But Roberts' apparently deep sense of injury over being criticized, the evident insecurity he feels notwithstanding his awesome power and the frankly stunningly simplistic nature of his reasoning (at least when it comes to race and affirmative action) are likely not play-acting. They provide a revealing and, I would dare say, troubling window onto the soul of the man who may head our high court for the next generation.

Massa Cover-up? House to Nix Ethics Probe

→ The Weekly Standard Blog | 10 Mar 2010 | 4:46 pm MST

The Washington Post reports that the House Ethics committee will close its ethics investigation into Eric Massa:

The committee concluded that Massa's resignation put him outside the reach of any punishment the committee could dole out, and would render any findings of wrongdoing irrelevant. But the move appears likely to set up a political battle with House Republicans, who are already complaining in campaign ads that Congressional Democrats are unwilling to look too deeply into or punish the ethical transgressions of their own.

While the committee traditionally loses jurisdiction over a member when that member resigns, that's not the case when the allegations involve someone else working for Congress. For example, in 2006, Republican Mark Foley resigned on September 28, and the House Ethics committee didn't release its report until December 8.

Oh No, Not Again: Welcome to Our World

→ Most recent blog entries | 10 Mar 2010 | 4:45 pm MST

This sketch almost got a man killed. Sorry, Sharia-inspired assassins almost killed a man over this sketch.

Story -- not the picture, of course, because the MSM are chicken-dhimmis -- by the AP

STOCKHOLM — The point of a caricature depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a dog was to show that artistic freedom allows mockery of all religions, including the most sacred symbols of Islam, the Swedish artist who created it said Wednesday.

Lars Vilks — the target of an alleged murder plot involving an American woman who dubbed herself "Jihad Jane" — told The Associated Press he has no regrets about the drawing, which is considered deeply offensive by many Muslims.

Oh, please. There's a lot of things that deeply offenda lot of people, from smutty talk on the street to Rupert Murdoch moving key components of his empire to UAE Enough is enough -- isn't it?

"I'm actually not interested in offending the prophet. The point is actually to show that you can," Vilks said in an interview in Stockholm. "There is nothing so holy you can't offend it."

Certainly, that's one valid argument. There is a more particular argument to make, which is that we do not observe either Islamic  prohibitions on imagery, or Islamic prohibitions on criticizing Islam or its prophet.

Vilks made his rough sketch showing Muhammad's head on a dog's body more than a year after 12 Danish newspaper cartoons of the prophet sparked furious protests in Muslim countries in 2006.

Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.

Whatever.

Vilks submitted the drawing to an exhibit at a Swedish cultural heritage center, which turned it down, citing security concerns.

Fear of Cartoon Rage, Swedish-style.

The issue went largely unnoticed until a Swedish newspaper printed the drawing with an editorial defending the freedom of expression.

Good for them. Haven't seen that in these here United States newspapers, despite the robust protections offered by our First Amendment.

The publication led to protests from Muslim countries, and briefly revived a heated debate in the West and the Muslim world about religious sensitivities and the limits of free speech.

It also led to numerous death threats against Vilks, who was temporarily moved to a secret location after al-Qaida in Iraq put a $100,000 bounty on his head in September 2007.

The 63-year-old artist told AP he has now built his own defense system, including a "homemade" safe room and a barbed-wire sculpture that could electrocute potential intruders. He also has an ax "to chop down" anyone trying to climb through the windows of his home, in southern Sweden.

Ah, give me the medieval life.

"If something happens, I know exactly what to do," Vilks said.

He said he believes the suspects in the latest alleged plot to kill him — seven people arrested in Ireland and a Pennsylvania woman held in the U.S. — were not professionals but "rather low-tech."

He said he had learned from American media reports that Colleen R. LaRose, who called herself JihadJane in a YouTube video, had visited the area where he lives, but he didn't know whether that was correct. "I'm glad she didn't kill me," Vilks said, with a half-smile.

Nalin Pekgul, a moderate Muslim and high-ranking member of Sweden's opposition Social Democratic Party, told Swedish Radio the threats against Vilks were unacceptable but added his drawing had profoundly hurt Muslims.

"A dog is unclean. To describe Muhammad as a dog is like saying you are unclean" to Muslims, said Pekgul, a Kurdish immigrant from Turkey.

Don't tell us about unclean when kafirs (non-Muslims) along with dogs, pigs, wine, and assorted bodily yuck have a standing condition of being "najis" or unclean according to the likes of Iranian Shiite Ayatollah Sistani.

An eccentric man with disheveled gray hair and thick-lensed glasses, Vilks referred to himself as "the artist" and described his life as a movie plot.

"It's a good story. It's about the bad guys and a good guy, and they try to kill him," he said.

Swedish winters are very long.

LaRose had discussions of her alleged plans with at least one of the suspects apprehended in Ireland, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn't authorized to discuss details of the investigation.

Irish authorities said Wednesday those arrested there were two Algerians, two Libyans, a Palestinian, a Croatian and an American woman married to one of the Algerian suspects. They were not identified by name.

Swedish police have kept a close eye on threats against Vilks, but he doesn't have round-the-clock protection.

Vilks has said he was threatened shortly after an ax-wielding man on Jan. 1 broke into the home of Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who drew one of the 12 Muhammad caricatures that prompted the 2006 uproar. Westergaard locked himself in a safe room, while police shot and wounded the attacker.

At least three Swedish newspapers reprinted Vilks' drawing Wednesday, citing its news value and the defense of free speech.

That's the only way to keep free speech free.

Paul Ryan: The Roadmap Warrior

→ The Weekly Standard Blog | 10 Mar 2010 | 4:42 pm MST

Paul Ryan's Roadmap for America's Future would drastically overhaul the American welfare state in a free-market direction. The Congressional Budget Office says it would solve the entitlements crisis through a series of changes to Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. The Roadmap also includes a fundamental tax reform -- one that Ryan says, and the CBO assumes, would bring in revenues equivalent to the long-term historical average of 19-percent of GDP. Two new studies dispute that figure, however. I talked to Ryan this evening to get his response.

Holder Reportedly Failed to Disclose Gitmo Detainee Brief

→ The Weekly Standard Blog | 10 Mar 2010 | 2:45 pm MST

Bill Burck and Dana Perino break news today: Eric Holder failed to disclose that he signed onto a brief in support of Jose Padilla in a 2004 Supreme Court case:

"Holder and company made the argument that traditional law-enforcement tools, such as wiretaps, search warrants, Mirandized questioning, and the like, have served the nation’s security well and were sufficient to do the job. The government need not resort, they argued, to holding terrorists caught in the U.S. as enemy combatants, with no right to a criminal trial or to remain silent or to counsel during questioning, particularly if they are U.S. citizens."

Are you a boy, or are you a girl?

→ Maggie's Farm | 10 Mar 2010 | 2:42 pm MST

Male or female? A test to see how you think. h/t, Attack Machine. (Somebody send this to Larry Summers...)

While you take the test, here's this:

:

Track inspection cars

→ Maggie's Farm | 10 Mar 2010 | 2:04 pm MST

Back before they had these

they had these:

Pelosi Quote of the Day

→ Warning Signs | 10 Mar 2010 | 11:50 am MST

Third Parties Help Dems, Whether False or Real Flags

→ Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion | 10 Mar 2010 | 9:58 am MST

Some are accusing Jon Scott Ashjian, a new Tea Party candidate running for U.S. Senate, of being a fake. The allegation? He was put in the race by agents of Senate Majority leader Harry Reid to siphon votes from the GOP.

"No doubt about it", says Danny Tarkanian, one of the many Republican senate candidates hoping to challenge Reid in November. "Nobody in the Tea Party knows who he is. He didn't know any of the principles of the Tea Party," Tarkanian tells CNN....

Sue Lowden, the Republican front-runner in the Senate primary according to recent polls, is the former Nevada Republican Party chair and seems to be the Republicans' best hope of unseating Harry Reid in November. Or at least she did, until Ashjian got into the race. Lowden says she's been very active with Tea Party group in Nevada. "I am a Tea Party voter, absolutely." Which is why she tells us she finds it "a little strange" that Ashjian is emerging now....

The protest at the AHIP insurance company conference in DC was astroturfed

→ Hyscience | 10 Mar 2010 | 9:49 am MST

I knew it the moment I saw it on television and before I saw the signs, but it was just a gut feeling based on Obama's, the SEIU's, and HCAN's history.

The SEIU and HCAN (Health Care for America Now) bused in activists from DE, CT, MD, MN, VA, NJ, NC, NY, OH, PA, RI. In other words, the whole damned event was astroturfed.

And whose money is behind the far-Left group HCAN and the Obamacare astroturfing campaign? You guessed it - it's the same few Leftist billionaires, union bosses, and partisan community organizers pushing the socialized medicine agenda.

Too Much Fame Can Kill

→ Warning Signs | 10 Mar 2010 | 9:32 am MST

Pelosi: 'We have to pass the bill so you can see what's in it'

→ Hyscience | 10 Mar 2010 | 9:21 am MST

In another one of her jaw-dropping, logic-defying, bimbo moments, Nancy Pelosi actually declared, "We have to pass the bill so you can see what's in it":

"You've heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don't know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention--it's about diet, not diabetes. It's going to be very, very exciting.

"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.

Oh well, I guess we'll just have to chalk this one up as another one of her most laughable, reality-defying, illogical, bimbo moments - along with the comment that she's running the "most ethical and honest Congress in history."

Rewind: Massa A Dem Rock Star

→ Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion | 10 Mar 2010 | 8:00 am MST

• Crooks and Liars, Rep. Eric Massa Smacks Down Dick Cheney--Challenges Him to a Debate: "This was a thing of beauty. Ed Schultz takes a few swings at Dick Cheney himself and brings in Rep. Eric Massa who smacks down Cheney for politicizing the attempted terror attack and says he'll debate him any time, anywhere, even on Fox News if Cheney won't appear anywhere else. Just make sure you're in studio Congressman. They'll cut your mike if you're off the set."


• DownWithTyranny, Will Chickenhawk Jim DeMint Keep Ducking Eric Massa's Challenge To Debate Him?: "Eric Massa is a man who I do know well and who Blue America endorsed in 2006 and again in 2008. This year the GOP is running a rabid right multimillionaire and disgraceful hypocrite against him, a self-funding Republican caricature. Eric needs our help again and he's earned it."


• Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog, Go Eric Massa! with this comment by Matt Osborne: "Massa was great! As an African American, it really pains me to say that. Just kidding!! Seriously, he had just the right amount of disgust and sheer venom to his arguments that went straight at the hypocricy of the GOP."


• Nomination for 2010 Support at Firedoglake: "I live in NY-29 and Eric Massa is the real deal. He’s always cuts through the crap and calls it how it is. He’s also continually gone after the tea baggers on television and in a continual schedule of townhall meetings all over our district."


• David Weigel, Democrats Blame Bush for TSA System Failure: "Massa’s attack on former Vice President Dick Cheney is particularly rough (and true)."


• Blue America Welcomes Eric Massa For A Talk On Afghanistan: "Eric is fired up and full of fight, as always. He loves his job and told me he;s absolutely committed to it.... Today at 3pm PT (6pm back East) Eric will be joining us for a live blogging session at Crooks and Liars."


• Michelle Malkin catalogues some more of Massa's antics which were greeted with adoration by the left.

Rasmussen: Obama at lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded

→ Hyscience | 10 Mar 2010 | 7:58 am MST

Despite Barack Obama being in constant campaign mode and despite his non-stop speaking appearances, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that just 22% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President, while forty-one percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove - giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21. According to Rasmussen, that matches the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President.

Rasmussen found that overall, only 43% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance, and that also matches the lowest level yet recorded for this President. Fifty-six percent (56%) disapprove. In my mind, this is about what I've expected to see all along - a president who's been all suit and no substance selling his ideological agenda being ultimately rejected by a center-right nation.

Of course this is about what we'd expect out of far-Left ideologue who,
as Mike4Mike aptly notes, just three years ago was a freshman senator, elected after only one term in the Illinois House with no executive experience whatsoever and very little insider political experience - and whose only career was essentially nothing more than that of a community organizer, whose job had been to "act the outsider and stir up enough discontent to get the government to do something." In other words, he created messes that others cleaned up:

Just as Jimmy Carter had lost the right to govern by the end of his second year in office, Barack Obama seems never to have had the skills. America elected an idea, but it was a vapor, a slickly packaged but empty suit.

Related: Ed Morrissey - "It took George Bush almost six years to get to this level of job approval. Obama's managed it in 14 months. That's change no one can believe in, apparently."

Re Our Campaigner-in-Chief

→ Hyscience | 10 Mar 2010 | 7:20 am MST

Bill over at Redstate has a few pointed quips about what we've all come to realize - we have a president that's far more adept at and comfortable in campaigning than governing:

[...] ... Obama is "the campaigner-in-chief." It is What. He. Does. Governing is too messy for the President. He'd rather pass off responsibility to folks like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and let them do the heavy lifting ... and then he can throw them under the bus later when they fail (God willing).

Today the Perpetual Campaign Tour, 2010 Edition continues here in St. Louis. The President and his teleprompter will speak this afternoon at St. Charles High School, in the northwest St. Louis suburb of St. Charles, and will appear this evening at a fundraiser for Claire McCaskill's 2012 campaign (which is in itself a strange thing...what about Robin Carnahan in 2010? But, I digress). The audience, of course, will be hand-picked, by invitation only. Expect to see legions of adoring followers in attendance.

The tour began Monday, in Philadelphia, where he gave (yet another) campaign speech:

In a high-octane appearance that harked back to his "yes we can" campaign days, Mr. Obama jettisoned the professorial demeanor that has cloaked many of his public pronouncements on the issue, instead making an emotional pitch for public support as he tries to push the legislation through a final series of votes in Congress in the next several weeks

On Wednesday, Mr. Obama is to travel to St. Louis for another campaign-style rally for health care, White House officials said.

So, back to campaign mode he goes, and we must endure a day's worth of media blather where we will hear the same Obama talking points repeated time after time after time.

All I can add is for Mr. Obama to just keep on talkin' - cause his constant diarrhea of the mouth and now-proven inability to govern has already heavily contributed to Republican candidates leading Democrats by seven points in Rasmussen's latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.

Clearly, Americans have "got it," and they want no part of the snake oil Obama is selling.

Related:
Obamacare Road Show, Pt. II: Bring out the human kiddie shields
Sell Us Marcelas: Fifth-Grade Protester Has Entire Family of Liberal Activists

Alaskan Sled Chihuahua

→ Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion | 10 Mar 2010 | 6:21 am MST

Grip Gripe

→ Big Lizards | 10 Mar 2010 | 1:55 am MST

Politico reports that Squeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 100%) is losing her grip.

Not her grip on reality (not to mention sanity), however tenuous that may appear; she knows what she's doing. What lefty Independent Jonathan Allen meant is that the Speaker is losing her iron grip on the Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives:

Over the past two weeks, Pelosi has faced a series of subtle but significant challenges to her authority -- revolts from Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Blue Dog Coalition and politically vulnerable first- and second-term members.

The dynamic stems from an “every man for himself” attitude developing in the Democratic Caucus rather than a loss of respect for Pelosi, according to a senior Democratic aide. But it’s making Pelosi’s life -- and efforts to maintain Democratic unity -- harder.

Allen offers several explanations why, like Darth Vader, star systems are slipping through Pelosi's fingers: a "tough election cycle," Democratic congressmen eager to take "revenge" on the Senate for not being partisan enough, and her go-lite chastisement of Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY, 100%) and other revolting Democrats. But he misses the most obvious explanation: Nancy Pelosi is leading her caucus to certain doom in the mid-term elections.

She asks them to take suicidal votes on wildly unpopular bills, from ObamaCare, to Cap and Tax, to stimulus packages so numerous they must be numbered... and now, in an election year! She demands that Democrats, even those just starting their careers, immolate themselves upon a cross of bogus bailouts and carbon credits.

Oddly, they're somewhat reluctant to fall upon their swords just so that Pelosi will look good.

I suspect that if she were to suggest that it would be best all around if the House were to scrap the current thoroughly discredited ObamaCare bill and start all over again... well, she might find that the easiest way to "lead" is to find a parade already heading down the street -- and dart out in front, pumping your baton.

But then, of course, she wouldn't have the nearly orgasmic joy of digging deep to sacrifice myriad others for her own cause. And really, in the grand scheme of things, what could possibly be more important than Nancy Pelosi's near-petite mort?

Worst. Interview. Ever.

→ Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion | 9 Mar 2010 | 3:57 pm MST

Out-foxing Fox

→ Most recent blog entries | 9 Mar 2010 | 1:56 pm MST

Perhaps in response to major viewer push-back, Fox News ("fair and halal") pulled its video clips of the two evening slams on Geert Wilders that appeared last night, first by Glenn Beck and then by Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer. That's right: Fox pulled the videos from all Internet sight.

Well, not quite. Thanks to the invaluable Gates of Vienna, we can still watch  the Beck outburst:

Obama's already on to pushing 'climate change'

→ Hyscience | 9 Mar 2010 | 12:52 pm MST

Our far-Left, liberal-progressive, wealth-redistribution, nanny state-seeking, job-busting, health care destroying, president will be corralling key Republican and Democratic senators on Tuesday whose support is critical for passing a climate change law, in an attempt to push climate change.

And yes, as one might expect, "RINOcrat," "cap-and-tax" proponent, Senator Lindsey Graham (R - S.C.), along with far-Left Democrat John Kerry, and liberal independent Joe Lieberman are invited to the meeting.

Related: Walk Into My Parlor Said the Spider To the Fly

Oil Chic: Owning Western Media

→ Most recent blog entries | 9 Mar 2010 | 8:36 am MST

Prince Talal has pals and they all have pockets filled with Westerners.

From the AP:

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — With an economy based on pumping oil and landmarks that include one of the Mideast's grandest mosques, buttoned-down Abu Dhabi has little obvious in common with freewheeling media magnets like Hollywood or midtown Manhattan.

This week, the Arab emirate is hoping the world takes another look. The city-state, best known of late for bailing out its flashier neighbor Dubai, is bringing together some of the industry's biggest names for a summit that will temporarily shift much of the world's media and entertainment elite to a luxury hotel on the Persian Gulf. Headliners at the event starting Tuesday include News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch and Google Inc. chief Eric Schmidt.

Murdoch yesterday announced, by the way, that in addition to buying into Prince Talal's Rotana media company, News Corp. has "further extended our presence [in Dar al-Islam] by announcing a strategic partnership between Fox International Channels and Abu Dhabi’s twofour54."

He's pretty much moving in. As Murdoch explained:

"First, we will move some of our satellite channels from Hong Kong to here. Second, we will establish a production office here for one of our documentary filmmaking companies. And third, we will headquarter the Middle Eastern operations for our global online advertising network business in Abu Dhabi as well."

Back to the AP:

The idea is to entice "the best and the brightest media minds," said Edward Borgerding, a former Walt Disney Co. executive who is now CEO of the state-owned Abu Dhabi Media Co., the event's host. But the gathering is also a coming-out party for Abu Dhabi, which has seen its own star rise as nearby Dubai's fades, serving as a reflection of the emirate's growing weight in the media industry.

As in most of the Arab world, the government here has long controlled much of the domestic media, running television networks, newspapers and radio stations, including one devoted to readings from the Quran. Censors routinely black out nudity and politically sensitive topics, and block access to hundreds of Web sites. A media law passed last year stifles the press and increases self-censorship, rights groups say.

Oh, is that what "rights groups say"? Thanks for mentioning. But there's more. A quick browse through a Freedom House report reveals there's also the fact that in the UAE there are no elections, never have been. Political parties do not exist, nor are independent human rights groups allowed to operate. Criticism of Islam is a "punishable offense, while women's rights are tenuous due to the sway of Islamic law. Little surprise, then, that female genital mutiliation is still "discreetly practiced" ... and on and on.

In other words -- the perfect place for Western media $ucklings to $eek $oothing $uccor.

Increasingly, though, the United Arab Emirates capital has been using its immense petroleum wealth to extend its media reach overseas, even as it shows little sign of easing restrictions on journalists or Internet users at home.

It has set up a company to bankroll Hollywood films, built an office park to house foreign news agencies, and spent billions to invest in microchips that power the electronic gadgets that increasingly serve as platforms for media consumption.

It is also partnering with established Western brands, including National Geographic and Comedy Central, to develop Arabic-language programming, and is splashing out on big-name concerts for eager audiences at home. Recent shows featured Rihanna, Aerosmith and Beyonce.

Always entertaining to see-no-sharia!

The investments are part of a broader push by Abu Dhabi's hereditary leaders to diversify the economy away from oil and provide a broader range of jobs for locals.

They serve another purpose too — to establish Abu Dhabi, the UAE's capital and the largest of the country's seven semiautonomous city-states, as a tolerant, cultured and internationally relevant Arab society.

The al-Potemkin city-state, courtesy its Western collaborators.

"We work to promote a more progressive point of view of this region," said Mike Fairburn, director of marketing and planning at Flash Entertainment, a government-created concert and events promoter. "A big part of popular entertainment is about challenging certain perceptions."

Abu Dhabi is not alone in its quest to become a regional media player.

Neighboring Dubai built its reputation on being a carefree business haven. Despite its well-publicized economic slump, the port city continues to host regional offices for hundreds of media companies, ranging from small ad agencies to international broadcasters such as CNBC and Showtime. And Doha, the capital of nearby Qatar, is home to the best-known group of Arabic satellite TV channels, al-Jazeera.

Abu Dhabi officials, however, insist they are creating something unique. A big part of that effort revolves around a project called TwoFour54, named after the city's geographical coordinates.

The project's sand-whipped office park in a rapidly developing corner of the city has already lured a number of international news agencies, including CNN, which also maintains an office in Dubai. The broadcaster is using its Abu Dhabi site to produce a daily news show for its international channel.

TwoFour54 also includes a media training academy primarily offering short skills-based courses, as well as production facilities and a venture capital arm to invest in promising Arabic media startups.

"We see ourselves ... as providing an environment that is supportive and conducive and stimulating for creative people to want to be here," said Wayne Borg, chief operating officer of TwoFour54.

You know, art for art's sake.

Other state-backed projects are aiming further afield.

Earlier this year, Abu Dhabi's Flash Entertainment bought a 10 percent stake in the parent of Ultimate Fighting Championship, the Las Vegas-based mixed martial arts producer that makes most of its money through pay-per-view sales and video game licenses.

Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi Media set up a film production and financing arm called Imagenation that aims to pump more than $1 billion into feature films over five years.

The company produced last year's family adventure film "Shorts" by director Robert Rodriguez, and has since announced co-production deals for a number of other movies, including the upcoming political thriller "Fair Game" starring Sean Penn.

The venture is symbiotic. Hollywood gets money it needs after funding sources like investment banks and hedge funds tightened purse strings amid the global meltdown. Abu Dhabi gets international cachet.

Isn't that the one about Faust??

"If you can just get the brand out there with the name Abu Dhabi in it, it promotes Abu Dhabi as a decent, legitimate business partner," said Christopher Davidson, a professor at the University of Durham who has written extensively about the UAE.

He said one goal might be to persuade a studio to set part of a major film in the city, though he added that freedom of expression remains a concern.

"The reality is it's still a traditional political system, and there are limits," he said.

It is difficult to gauge how much of its oil wealth Abu Dhabi is willing to lavish on the media business, which must compete with the government's plans to grow other sectors, such as technology, manufacturing, energy and tourism. Few details about the government's finances are made public, and none of the executives who agreed to speak with The Associated Press would discuss their companies' financial resources.

Davidson estimates the state will spend at least $2 billion to $3 billion over five years just on physical infrastructure and seed money for the media sector. But there is always more should things really take off.

"This is small change for Abu Dhabi," he said. "They can throw such massive resources at this."

News Corp.'s Wall Street Journal (kind of amazingly) put it this way:

"Why are the world's biggest media companies coming to one of the most closed media markets?" said Jim Krane, author of 'City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism' and a former journalist based in the U.A.E. with the Associated Press. "It's because that's where the money is."

The Journal also reported:

On the eve of the summit's opening day, News Corp.'s Fox International Channels said it was moving the Middle East operations of its global online ad network to Abu Dhabi and setting up an office here for its documentary-production arm.

The partnership comes after News Corp. last month said it would spend $70 million for a 9.1% stake in Arabic media giant Rotana Group, with an option to double that stake. Rotana is owned by Saudi billionaire Alwaleed bin Talal, a large, longtime investor in News Corp.

"Abu Dhabi sits at the nexus--of East and West, of developing and developed, of our media present and our future," Mr. Murdoch said in videotaped remarks to promote the media summit last November.

Ironically, the renewed sense of interest in Middle East media comes as international media companies face rising criticism in the U.A.E. over its coverage of Dubai's debt crisis.

The Sunday Times, published in the U.K., was ordered off shelves in the U.A.E. on Nov. 29 after the paper carried a double-page graphic illustrating Dubai's ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, sinking in a sea of debt. Its sister publication, The Times, was censored in the U.A.E. on Dec. 5 for a story that described Sheik Mohammed as a "benign dictator" and criticized his management of the economy.

Question: Has the Sunday Times or The Times -- both News Corp./Prince Talal properties not incidentally -- run anything similar to this cartoon and story since? I don't know the answer -- but I can guess.

Climate Wars!

→ Warning Signs | 9 Mar 2010 | 8:03 am MST

The World Has Gone Mad

→ Big Lizards | 9 Mar 2010 | 3:08 am MST

I've been summoned for jury duty many times; I've never even gotten to voir dire.

Until now: Through some perversity of the Fates, I was actually impaneled yesterday.

A juror impaneled is like -- is like a butterfly mounted. All day, every day for the rest of the week and perhaps even Monday or Tuesday next, I'm pinned in my box, unable to do ought but squirm and squirm, and wriggle and wriggle. I'll try to blog a bit in the evenings, but...

But on top of just closing escrow on our house, having to get it rewired, repainted, erecting a couple of fences, stocking the joint with labor-saving appliances; having our main car totaled, buying a new (used) car in replacement; and atop Sachi going through a particularly stressful time at work just now; suddenly finding myself on a jury is just too-too!

It saps the very marrow of my bones. *

I shall do my civic duty; but next time, I swear to whatever God I don't yet believe in that I'm going to show up in the jury assembly room sporting my t-shirt that reads, "I'd rather be waterboarding."

I'll see you on the flip side; and don't expect the usual long-winded, endlessly weedy screeds for which Big Lizards has become justy infamous.

* I've been told being on a jury is very rewarding, and the tale-tellers were right: I'll get about $75 plus thirty-eight cents per mile... where "per mile" here means, not my actual driven mileage, but rather as the vulture flies. Cheap, Alfie.

Fox News: Best Investment Saudi Prince Talal Ever Made

→ Most recent blog entries | 8 Mar 2010 | 6:45 pm MST

It was pile-on time at Fox News tonight as Glenn Beck, Charles Krauthammer, a gal whose name I missed [update -- A.B. Stoddard] and Bill Kristol all branded Geert Wilders beyond the pale tonight.

Beck classified Geert as a fascist.

Krauthammer said Geert didn't know the difference between Islam and Islamism -- never mind that according to Krauthammer's idea of  Islamic scholarship, neither did Mohammed.

[Stoddard] said she agreed with Imam Krauthammer and added that if people like this (Geert) are elected to lead Holland it will suffer the consequences.

Kristol called Geert a demagogue.

In other words, a stomach-turning display -- or should I say halal?

Fact is, this anti-Geert pundit solidarity will only delight Newscorp stakeholder Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. That's because it is Wilders in the Netherlands who stands as the unexpectedly strong spearhead of resistance to the Islamization of Europe and the wider West. As a scion of the most powerful sharia  dictatorship in the world, Prince Talal doesn't like that. How fortunate for him  that Fox News doesn't like it, either.

What do you get when you combine a state-run business with the State Police?

→ The Annoyed White Male | 8 Mar 2010 | 4:10 pm MST

This:

The alleged offense: Although the bar owners had bought the beer legally from licensed Pennsylvania distributors and had paid all the necessary taxes, the police claimed that nobody had registered the precise names of the beers with the state Liquor Control Board - a process that requires the brewers or their importers to pay a $75 registration fee for each product they want to sell in Pennsylvania.

For those of you not buying booze in Pennsylvania, a brief history.  Since the end of Prohibition all alcohol was sold only by the state itself.  In the 80's beer was broken off and is allowed to be sold by licensed distributer, but wine and hard stuff may still only be sold by the state itself, through its wholly-state-owned chain of stores.  The state makes buttload of money in this deal, but consumers get the shaft in selection.  Prices are not so bad, but the selection is very poor.

This bar got raided for selling beer it bought completely legally from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board-licensed distributer, and half of what was confiscated was legal, the PLCB and the State Police where too incompetent to tell the difference!

"My main beef with this whole convoluted situation is that the PLCB is the sole regulator of a set of products that they do not even know the names of," she said.

I'd be pretty beefed, too.

Maida said that the couple's attorney had told them that they have until 6 p.m. tonight to compile evidence to prove that the confiscated beer is properly registered.

"The onus is on us to prove our innocence," she said.

If that's not police statism, I don't know what is.  Confiscate thousands of dollar's worth of vital inventory form a business that's done nothing illegal, then tell them they have hours to prove it.

She added: "It's McCarthy-like. [She obviously has no damned idea what that means.  I assume she's a Democrat.  AWM] They swarm in here and confiscate this product because they don't know what the product is."

The very idea that a brewery has to register names of beers to sell them in PA is beyond stupid.  As long as the taxes are paid, who cares?  Not only that, but by the time this is sorted out all the beer will probably have gone bad.  I hope to God they sue the PLCB.  I'm not a drinking man but I will go there and raise a glass if they do, win or loose.

A Health Care Horror Story about the House Bill

→ Warning Signs | 8 Mar 2010 | 3:03 pm MST

The UK Telegraph blows Obama and the American MSM away

→ The Annoyed White Male | 8 Mar 2010 | 10:52 am MST

Read this awesome blasting:

Despite the efforts of some sections of opinion to talk the place up, America is mired in unhappiness, all the worse for the height from which Obamania has fallen.

It's good news for those of us that want him to fail.

One senior black politician – a Democrat and a supporter of the President – told me of the wrath in his community that a black president appeared to be unable to solve the economic problem among his own people.

He's supposed to help his own people.  If a White politician were spoken about that way....

For a land without a welfare state, America starts to do an effective impersonation of a country with one. This massive state spending gives rise to accusations by Republicans, and people too angry even to be Republicans,[That's us.  Em. by AWM] that America is now controlled by "Leftists" and being turned into a socialist state.

Yup.  And your point is.....?

"Obama's big problem," a senior Democrat told me, "is that four times as many people watch Fox News as watch CNN." The Fox network is a remarkable cultural phenomenon which almost shocks those of us from a country where a technical rule of impartiality is applied in the broadcast media. With little rest, it pours out rage 24 hours a day:

The reason for this is it's the only place anyone can get anything negative about Obama.  The MSM is still bowing in worship.  So allow me to translate this unnamed "senior Democrat": "Obama's big problem is that people aren't feeding on the Obama-worship CNN is offering, they are actually able to choose another source for information".

Mr Obama benefited in his campaign from an idiotic level of idolatry, in which most of the media participated with an astonishing suspension of cynicism. The sound of the squealing of brakes is now audible all over the American press; but the attack is being directed not at the leader himself, but at those around him.

For now, rather than admit they did nothing to vet Obama and everything to elect him, they will try to blame his underlings.  Sooner or later the press will stop blaming the people he picked and realize the problem is him.  At that point, they'll catch up to the growing number of The People that knew it a long time ago.

Palin and Reagan: Together Again for the First Time

→ Big Lizards | 7 Mar 2010 | 11:12 pm MST

Paul Mirengoff of Power Line, who seems as conflicted as can be about the aspects and auspices of Sarah Louise Palin, ponders them deeply in a recent post, Would Reagan vote for Sarah Palin? (Answer: Yes.)

Paul quotes from Steve Hayward writing in the Washington Post (I supply the missing link here); Hayward is the chap who answered Yes to the question above... then added what Paul calls a "cautionary note":

But while the parallels between them are evident, it is far from clear that Palin appreciates Reagan's discipline and substantive grand strategy. In many of her speeches and media appearances she tends to ramble on, with none of the crispness and rhetorical force of Reagan's formulas. With the partial exception of energy, she has yet to identify a set of signature issues that can carry her particular stamp, as Reagan did in the late 1970s with his relentless attacks on detente and his championing of supply-side economics.

I rise only to note a peculiar point in defense of a lady: Sarah Palin is only... well, as a gentleman, I won't bandy a woman's age; but note that when our fortieth president was the age she is now, Ronald Reagan himself had "yet to identify a "grand strategy" or "set of signature issues that can carry [his] particular stamp."

All that we knew about Reagan's politics in 1957 was that he had been a New Deal Democrat when New-Deal Democrat Franklin Roosevelt was in power; an anti-Communist Truman-Democrat when Truman was in power; and an Eisenhower Republican when (you guessed it) Dwight D. Eisenhower ran for president.

He did not identify his "signature issues," as Hayward put it, until he was well into his 60s; heck, he didn't even deliver his electrifying introduction for Barry Goldwater until he was 53, significantly older than the Thrillah from Wasilla.

In '57, Reagan had just begun his stint hosting General Electric Theater. The job required him to travel the country giving speeches; that very activity induced Reagan to develop his own peculiar and wonderful political philosophy. (Note that he was still a private citizen at this time; he would not enter actual elective politics, as opposed to being elected union boss, until 1966, when he was 55 years old.)

Thus have I given the gracious lady my advice to tour the "lower 48" and speak, speak, speak -- and listen, listen, listen: Great wisdom can be found among the uncommon common American. (Advice sent but probably never delivered; Big Lizards is notoriously less reliable even than the Post Office -- though significantly cheaper.) If Palin follows the Reagan model, this is her time to introduce herself to America on her own terms, not as the perhaps ill-considered shadow of John S. McCain.

The VP run was premature, but I suspect Sarah Palin was as surprised by the invitation as were the rest of us. Kudos to McC for thinking outside the box; but there is a reason why nobody is outré all the time: "The box" is actually defined by what usually works!

And now is the moment for Sarah Palin to decide what she thinks "works" in America and why, what doesn't and why not, and to answer the most important question: How do we get there from here? She is not yet tardy, but she'd better hit the ground speaking.

By the way, I am pleased once again to be a harbinger of trends to come. Hayward had this to say about the Tea Parties:

Reagan typically described conservatism in populist terms rather than formal ones. In his "Time for Choosing" speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential campaign, he sounded almost exactly like Glenn Beck does today. "This is the issue of this election," Reagan warned: "Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that an intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves."

This populist undercurrent is why I am certain that Reagan would have been an enthusiastic supporter of the tea party movement. While the tea partiers confuse the media and annoy the establishments of both political parties, Reagan would have seen them as reviving the embers of what he called the "prairie fire" of populist resistance against centralized big government -- resistance that helped touch off the tax revolt of the 1970s. That movement was often dismissed as a tantrum, but when The Washington Post called California's 1978 antitax Proposition 13 "a skirmish," Reagan replied that if so, then the Chicago fire was a backyard barbecue.

Now compare it to this point made by an obscure blogger and minor crank:

A popular front is an extremely broad-based coalition of political forces that normally oppose each other. In rare moments, the stars align, and so do the groups; what results is a mass movement that can wash away the status quo like a burst dam. The movement doesn't have to include all or even a majority of the citizenry; but it is large enough to push aside any countervailing coalition -- which means whatever the front wants, it gets....

The Tea Party front is the worst nightmare of the hard-core Left -- a patriotic, small-government, capitalist popular front. While Tea Partiers are not specifically Republican, leftists realize that GOP leaders (Sarah Palin) and candidates (Scott Brown) are far better positioned to appeal to Tea Partiers than are Democrats: All Republicans must do is match their words with deeds; but Democrats would have to (a) repudiate everything they have said and voted for in the past four decades, then (b) convince Tea Partiers that this time they're sincere!

I think Hayward and I are seeing the same structure but describing it in slightly different terms, he from his Reagan scholarship and I from my "forces and fractures" methodology.

Of course, I said it first...

On Geert on Russia TV

→ Most recent blog entries | 7 Mar 2010 | 8:48 am MST

Never heard of Russia TV before I went on Friday but hey, at least they're interested in talking about the Wilders phenom -- as opposed to some fair and balanced most trusted names in news I could mention. (Don't miss host's wrap-up equating Islamic imperialism & Western imperialism -- the new moral equivalence?)

craigslist Post of the Day: IKEA Jerker

→ The Annoyed White Male | 7 Mar 2010 | 8:42 am MST

Ikea Jerker, the greatest desk Ever Made (19460)

Date: 2010-03-06, 6:33PM EST
Reply to: sale-e2r2j-1631988669@craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

You may know about the cult following of the Jerker. Well I have 2 of them. I'm keeping one, I'm moving. You get the other one.
This one has moved with me twice so it has some packing tape marks on it. It also MAY NOT have every single bolt, but then again it may. I just dont know. I am a mere mortal.
It costs NOTHING. It's free. But only if you act now. It's outside my house. Right now. Come on, stop reading this ad, get in the car and drive like someone's in labor in the back seat.
Drive safely please.

Located outside my house, 830 E Philip Dr, Phoenixville, PA, 19460.

If you doubt the majesty of this desk, don't, because here it is with enough computing power to drive a space mission running on it.
This is the very same desk which is now outside my house. (the desk on the right, the 2 tiered desk only).

I can't hold it for you because it needs to go TONIGHT and i've been moving all day and now I am going to be out for a few hours.
So I leave it at the mercy of the same Internet it has served for many years, like a loving servant desk.

• Location: 19460
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Democrat Massa Resigns - to Squeaker Pelosi's Gain

→ Big Lizards | 6 Mar 2010 | 7:11 pm MST

Alas, Squeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 100%) just picked up a vote for ObamaCare. Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY, not yet rated) has announced his resignation from the House effective Monday, due to ethics charges (sexual harassment). On November 7th, 2009, Massa was one of the 39 Democrats who voted against the House ObamaCare bill; see this roll-call vote.

There are two paths forward:

• Ultra, ultra-liberal New York Gov. David Paterson might appoint a replacement, if state law permits; Paterson would unquestionably appoint a liberal who will vote for ObamaCare, converting Massa's Nay into a Yea -- a big help to Pelosi.

• If the law does not permit, or if Paterson doesn't move quickly enough (being embroiled in his own ethics charges -- bribery), then Pelosi still gains.

  There currently are only 432 members of the House, instead of the usual 435 (two resigned and one, Jack Murtha, dropped dead); to pass the Senate version of ObamaCare in the House the Democrats need an actual majority... which is 217, because 216 is only 50%.

  But with Massa's resignation, that leaves only 431 members; and 216 is an actual majority (50.1%) of 431. Since Massa voted against ObamaCare, Pelosi needs one fewer vote from the same number of Yes-men... so she doesn't even need to convert Massa from Nay to Yea.

Either way, Speaker Pelosi has picked up one net vote since yesterday. So it goes.

However, three other House members are embroiled in their own ethics charges: Reps. Charlie Rangel (D-NY, 100%), Maxine Waters (D-CA, 100%), and Laura Richardson (D-CA, 100%); and each of this lot actually voted for the House version of ObamaCare. Thus if any of them is forced to resign in the next month or so, that would make up for Massa. (If two or three of them leave, that would put even more pressure on the Speaker, of course.)

It's up, it's down, it's a yo-yo.

Cross-posted on Hot Air's rogues' gallery...

Countdown to Spring

→ The Annoyed White Male | 6 Mar 2010 | 12:53 pm MST

• temp, 50
• sunny
• snow almost all gone
• tips of green things visible above ground

Mrs. Annoyed has declared. today we GRILL!

I might put the battery back in the two-wheeler, too.... there are others on the road today so I bet there will be many tomorrow.  I feel the need- the need for expeditious velocity!

The yard is still mush from snow melt so I can't do much clean-up yet.  Might as well have some fun!

Some people never learn

→ The Annoyed White Male | 6 Mar 2010 | 6:45 am MST

Here's a math lesson: low standards + low expectations + cronyism + unions + political correctness = inner city public schools.

Does DPS leader's writing send wrong message?

The president of the Detroit school board, Otis Mathis, is waging a legal battle to steer the academic future of 90,000 children, in the nation's lowest-achieving big city district.

He also acknowledges he has difficulty composing a coherent English sentence.

WE'VE MOVED!

→ The Other McCain | 2 Jan 2010 | 2:29 am MST

TheOtherMcCain.com

How Carlsonism Was Averted, or The Making of TheOtherMcCain.com

→ The Other McCain | 1 Jan 2010 | 9:34 pm MST

New Site for a New Year: We're Now LIVE at TheOtherMcCain.com

→ The Other McCain | 31 Dec 2009 | 10:01 pm MST

Tweet of the Year Decade Millennium: My Quest for the Ultimate Re-Tweet

→ The Other McCain | 31 Dec 2009 | 11:11 am MST

Your quest to get re-tweeted by @Alyssa_Milano is the best non-porn thing about the internet.
-- Dave Weigel

She's the ultimate celebrity Tweep, with more than 500,000 followers but, as of noon today, was only following 499 people, whereas I've got about 2,700 followers and am following nearly 1,300 people.

This illustrates an enormous status disparity and ever since October, when Alyssa re-Tweeted a Slate column by Mickey Kaus -- who has about 1,700 followers -- I've been trying to reverse-engineer the Kaus magic: "Why Does Alyssa Milano Hate Me?"

Alyssa is to Twitter what Matt Drudge is to news, and what Professor Glenn Reynolds is to blogging. (On Twitter, Drudge has 46,000 followers and Instapundit has about 6,000 followers.) People tell me that my quest is hopeless, but as Vince Lombardi said, "A quitter never wins, and a winner never quits."

In addition to Lombardi's maxim, there's also the inspiration of my role model, Pepe Le Pew:

The wonderful thing about Pepe is that he cannot conceive that anyone would not love him.

Hit the tip jar! ROLL TIDE! Re-Tweet me, Alyssa!

2009 Year in Review: January

→ The Other McCain | 31 Dec 2009 | 9:50 am MST

Just as the conservative intellectuals once projected their hopes onto Dubya, now they project their disappointments onto Sarah. But the fault is theirs, not hers.

It is a very long post, but I think it got to the nub of some very important issues that are fundamental to understanding how the GOP reached its ebb in 2008. Some other highlights and lowlights of the month:

• January 2009 saw Israel at war with Palestinians, which prompted my reflection "Sonny Corleone in Gaza."
• Natalie Dylan offered her virginity online and was offered $3.7 million.
• Of course, January marked the official onset of the Obama Nation, which was inaugurated with puddles of hope. I compared it to the experience of taking my daughter to Bush's 2001 inauguration.
• The biggest problem of the new administration was its economic agenda: Unicorns, rainbows and wasteful neo-Keynesian nonsense.
• I covered the RNC meeting that culminated in the election of Michael Steele as chairman.
• January also brought news of the Hindenburg-at-Lakehurst implosion of Culture 11, a not-unexpected disaster that could be explained in two words: David Kuo. Or perhaps, Conor Friedersdorf.