Daily Archives: December 16th, 2009

Venezuelan Marxist Hugo Chavez told the global warming junk science conference representatives that “Capitalism is the road to hell” today during his lecture in Copenhagen.

(Reuters)
The Star reported:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez painted capitalism as the enemy of the earth — not to mention the cause of AIDS, poverty and war — in a speech to the UN Summit on Climate Change that invoked Mohammed, Jesus Christ and Simon Bolivar.

“The cause of all this disastrous situation is the destructive capitalist system,” the Venezuelan socialist leader told delegates Wednesday.

“Capitalism is the road to hell.”

Chavez has never met a microphone to which he didn’t have something to say. Wednesday was no different as he stormed through two centuries of economic theory, bounced around the globe and invoked the teachings of Brazilian liberation theologist Leonardo Boff, a champion of the poor who warned of the folly of seeking happiness through material wealth.

“I would exhort the government and the people of the earth … to say that if the destructive nature of capitalism exists, let’s fight against it and make it obey us,” he said. “If capitalism resists, then we have to give battle against capitalism and open our way to save mankind.”

But, the Venezuelan leaders attacks on capitalism did not bother the leftist representatives at the summit meeting.
They gave him a rousing ovation.
Andrew Bolt reported:

President Chavez brought the house down.

When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause.

When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.

But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ – “our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell….let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.

Yuval Levin points out that the way the health care legislative process has played out makes it easy to miss the forest for the trees. The trees were the public option, Medicare expansion, and abortion language; the forest is the legislation that exists now that nearly all of the bargains have been struck.

What should we make of that forest? Levin finds that it is "really quite appalling, and should be so not only to conservatives." He argues that "in essence, what's left of the bill compels universal participation in a system that everyone agrees is a failure without reforming that system, and even exacerbates its foremost problem -- the problem of exploding costs." Levin explains:

[The] bill requires all Americans to pay large and growing premiums to our existing private insurance companies. It then prohibits those companies from charging people differently based on their health, age, and the like, which means they will just charge everyone more. The bill has some subsidies to help people who can't pay their premiums, but that just means that most Americans will be paying the insurance companies more and more for premiums both as individual health insurance customers and as taxpayers. The bill is basically a massive subsidy to the insurers -- it is not a reform of the system.

It is obvious that conservatives should oppose such legislation, and they will do so. But Levin argues that liberals should oppose it too:

For liberals, [the legislation] is not as good as the bill the Democrats originally proposed, and it is also worse than the status quo -- because it funnels huge amounts of money to the insurance companies they hate so much and doesn't really change the system. Democratic members of congress should look past the narrower debates about the public option, abortion funding, and the like, and ask themselves just what exactly is the case for voting for this bill now? What are its merits? What ends does it serve? They won't come up with much.

Levin may be correct when it comes to liberals in general, but not when it comes to liberal politicians. I doubt that any liberal Senators really hate insurance companies much. To be sure, they find it useful to demonize them, but that's something else. And even for politicians who genuinely dislike insurance companies, the opportunity to regulate (and arguably more or less run) them is irresistible.

In any event, this is the best opportunity liberals are likely to have for many years to expand the number of Americans who have health insurance and to expand the government's power over this enormous chunk of the economy. Given the primacy of these two goals, It seems quite unlikely that liberals will derail this legislation.

The best hope for derailing it now lies with center-left Senators from Red States because these members (a) may face electoral constraints and (b) may not be preoccupied with expanding government power. Blanche Lincoln certainly meets the first criterion, but probably not the second; nor is it clear that she has the force of personality to stand in the way of this train. Ben Nelson probably meets the second criterion and seems to have enough force of personality. However, Nelson also seems like a natural dealmaker, and if he can get the kind of abortion language he's been seeking, he may not feel highly constrained by his electorate.

In the end, Jim Webb may be the Senator to watch. Last month's landslide Republican win in Virginia's gubernatorial race must have made an impression on Webb. Moreover, while Webb is no conservative, neither does he appear to be an out-and-out statist. Finally, force of personality has never been a problem for Webb. In fact, he seems like a natural maverick. After three years of going along with the crowd, this is his chance to play a role for which he is well-suited, a role that could make him a hero in Virginia.

Between Nelson and Webb, there is at least some small hope of stopping this train.

Don't fall for the pretense that the international "green" movement is about anything other than anti-free enterprise and anti-American ideology. That was demonstrated once again in Copenhagen, where, after other speakers received luke-warm welcomes, Venezuelan tyrant Hugo Chavez was given an ecstatic reception:

Then President Chavez brought the house down.

When he said the process in Copenhagen was "not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn't that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship...down with imperial dictatorships" he got a rousing round of applause.

When he said there was a "silent and terrible ghost in the room" and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.

But then he wound up to his grand conclusion - 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ - "our revolution seeks to help all people...socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that's the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let's fight against capitalism and make it obey us." He won a standing ovation.

Do we want to turn our economy over to these people? I don't think so.

Fortunately, it appears that the Copenhagen green-fest is collapsing without doing any serious damage. It looks like they'll try again before long in Mexico City.

This short video, based on data from ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica, puts the 20th-century warming trend in perspective:

Climate alarmists, like liberals everywhere, rely on ignorance of the past. About the worst thing that could happen to the earth would be for the current warm spell that we are enjoying to come to an end.

Via The Corner.

“Climategate just got much, much bigger. [...] Read the rest »

Maybe Leavenworth has a TV studio Keith could use . . .

On tonight's Countdown, Olbermann vowed to break the law and go to jail if ObamaCare requires him to buy private-sector health care insurance.  Keith made his macho boast in the course of his melodramatic Special Comment this evening.

KEITH OLBERMANN: Health care reform that benefits the industry at the cost of the people is intolerable and there are no moral constructs in which it can be supported. And if still the bill, and this heinous mandate become law, there is yet further reaction required. I call on all those whose conscience urges them to fight to use the only weapon that will left to us if this bill as currently constituted becomes law.  We must not buy federally-mandated insurance, if this cheesy counterfeit of reform is all we can buy.  No single payer?  No sale. No public option? No sale. No Medicare buy-in? No sale.

I am one of the self-insured, albeit by choice. And I hereby pledge that I will not buy this perversion of health-care reform.  Pass this at your peril, senators. And sign it at yours, Mr. President. I will not buy this insurance. Brand me a law-breaker if you choose.  Fine me if you will.  Jail me if you must.

Hmm. A guy who threatens civil disobedience rather than comply with an onerous big-government mandate.  Keith Olbermann: incipient conservative?

I caught his interview last night with Hannity and thought for sure we’d posted the viral vid of him rallying a crowd of conservatives in Florida a few months ago, but nope. [...] Read the rest »

65 percent opposed it six months ago, so hey — he’s making progress. [...] Read the rest »

Read this post »

It’s nine months old and comes straight from the darkest heart of liberal Britain, a.k.a. [...] Read the rest »

In his swan song interview with President Barack Obama, which consumed more than ten minutes of World News, ABC's Charles Gibson couldn't have provided a friendlier or more empathetic platform to Obama on the “weight” of sending troops to war and how “devilishly difficult” it's become to pass a health care plan because of a few rogue Senators. Gibson, set to retire Friday, teased his last Wednesday newscast:

Welcome to World News. Tonight, we broadcast from the White House. And in the headlines, one on one. Our conversation with the President in which he says he lost sleep over his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, and makes a dire warning about health care.

That “dire warning,” which Gibson did not challenge in the interview: “If we don't pass it, here's the guarantee: the federal government will go bankrupt.”

Gibson began with Afghanistan, recalling how commanders don't “commit kids to war,” they just follow the President's orders, “and I thought, 'Holy God, what a weight that is on your shoulders.'” After Obama ruminated at length on the “gravity” of the “tough” analysis process he went through, Gibson wondered about the inner Obama: “How did you change from the beginning of that analysis and process that you went through to the end, inside you?”

Moving to health care, Gibson fretted the emerging bill doesn't have enough government intrusion: “If there's no government insurance program, if we're not even going to expand Medicare to keep insurance companies competitive, how does the cost curve bend?” He then sympathized with what Obama is up against with Joe Lieberman and a few other Senators: “Then there's the problem of getting the darn thing passed, which is proving to be devilishly difficult.” And lamented: “Do you feel like they're holding you hostage on this?”

Gibson opened, from inside the White House:

Good evening. We report from the cabinet room in the West Wing of the White House, and normally these days, around this table would be Obama, Clinton, Gates, Holder, Sebelius and the rest of the cabinet. The Oval Office is right nearby. Earlier today, I interviewed the President here, talking about the weight of a decision to send young people to war, knowing some will not return alive. And, about the difficulties of trying to corral 60 Senate votes for a health care bill.

The questions from Gibson aired on the Wednesday, December 16 World News, all followed by lengthy responses from Obama:

– Mr. President, a year ago today, you were in Chicago. You knew you were going to be President, but you weren't. What didn't you anticipate? What did you underestimate? What didn't you know?

– You surprised me a little, because I think -- and I've heard other Presidents say -- the thing that you can't anticipate is the weight of the job when it comes to you, particularly when it comes to committing young men and women to war.

– It's an enormous responsibility. And before Gulf War I, I went to Kuwait, and I talked to the commanders -- Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force -- and I asked them, what does it feel like to commit kids to war? And they all said, “We don't. The President does. It's his job. We just carry out his order.” And I thought, “Holy God, what a weight that is on your shoulders.”

– As you went through that assessment in recent weeks, is there a calculus in your mind? Do you have to go through it? What is this worth in terms of human life? Is this goal worth 500 lives, a thousand, 1,500 lives? Does that go through your head?

– How did you change from the beginning of that analysis and process that you went through to the end, inside you?

– Let me turn to health care. When we talked in the White House and throughout the early stages of health care reform discussion, you talked about the absolute need to bend the cost curve of health care, that we had to bring costs into line or we'd break the country. If there's no government insurance program, if we're not even going to expand Medicare to keep insurance companies competitive, how does the cost curve bend?

– And then there's the problem of getting the darn thing passed, which is proving to be devilishly difficult. You thought you had a compromise last week that was going to expand Medicare to younger people, and Senator Lieberman says, “Well, I'm not sure I want that,” and then all of a sudden, we hear it's out of the -- out of the bill. Do you feel as if individual Senators are holding you hostage?

– Which leaves you needing all 58 Democrats and two independents...Every one of them...Every single one....Anyone can say to you, “If I back off, you have to do what I need you to do.”...But do you feel like they're holding you hostage on this?

– But when you need every vote like this, and when Senators can do this to you -- and those are my words, not yours -- a lot of people worry that what you're going to wind up with is hash. There's even some Democrats saying now we've got a bill that's so compromised that it's not worth signing.

ABCNews.com summary of the interview, with video.

ABCNews.com's posted transcript (differs in parts from above since I corrected some errors in it)

Today 12 conservative organizations sent a letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions demanding that Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings be Fired.

** You can contact the committee yourself here.

Today this letter was delivered by our sister organization American Principles in Action to the offices of Senators on the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. This committee has oversight over the Department of Education which employs Kevin Jennings.

Here is the full text of the letter:

The protection of children is one goal that we can all agree on.

And presumably, it is the motivating mission behind the Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools.  But the innocence of our children is threatened by the appointment of Kevin Jennings as Deputy Assistant Secretary of that office.  Through his actions and statements, Mr. Jennings has shown that he cannot be trusted with this position and should be removed from it as soon as possible.

As head of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), Mr. Jennings is on record as promoting liberal sex education and homosexual themes to children as early as Kindergarten.

Now, additional information comes to light regarding Mr. Jenning’s association with GLSEN “Fistgate” Conferences, encouraging extreme sexual practices in children as young as 14.  After objections were raised to that matter, Mr. Jennings announced that GLSEN presentations and presenters would be more closely monitored.  But then, the following such conference included the handing out of “Fisting Kits” to children. The descriptions of the use of these kits are beyond imagination.  To endorse this behavior, much less promote it, is unforgivable.

Kevin Jennings must not be allowed to continue to endanger our children.

The undersigned individuals and organizations ask the Senate Education Committee, its members and every individual Senator to demand Kevin Jennings’ resignation immediately. Our children must be protected from the extreme and dangerous practices advocated by Kevin Jennings and the organizations he has represented.
Respectfully,

Andy Blom
Executive Director
American Principles in Action

Keith Wiebe
President
American Association of Christian Schools

Mal Kline
Executive Director
Accuracy in Academia

Hector Padron
Executive Vice President
Coral Ridge Ministries

Mark Wilson
Founder and President
Federal Intercessors

Nacia Blom
Executive Director
Hawaiian Values.US

Mario Lopez
President
Hispanic Leadership Fund

Colin Hanna
President
Let Freedom Ring

Matthew Staver
Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel

Lewis Uhler
President
National Tax Limitation Committee

William Greene
President
RightMarch.com

Andrea Lafferty
Executive Director
Traditional Values Coalition

More… Last week Rep. Michael Burgess introduced H. Res. 966 Calling on the President and the Secretary of Education to fire Kevin Jennings from his post as “Safe Schools Czar”.

You can contact your representative or senator here and demand that Kevin Jennings be fired.

You mean if we don’t add a trillion dollars to the deficit then the country will … go … bankrupt?

Is it Opposite Day?

President Obama told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an interview that if Congress does not pass health care legislation that will bring down costs, the federal government “will go bankrupt.”

The president laid out a dire scenario of what will happen if his health care reform effort fails.

“If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,” he said. “Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year. “

The president said that the costs of Medicare and Medicaid are on an “unsustainable” trajectory and if there is no action taken to bring them down, “the federal government will go bankrupt.”

So Medicare and Medicaid are about to go bust because the costs are making them unaffordable, yet Obama and Harry Reid wanted to lower the inclusion age for Medicare down to age 55 from age 65 and also reduce costs while claiming to not reduce the quality of care. What kind of math is this? Because it is AWESOME.

Actually, what isn’t awesome is that excise taxes, coupled with rationing limiting the availability of certain types and duration of care, is what (they hope! Fingers crossed!) will control costs.

If Obama and company are worried about cost all of a sudden, this must be why they immediately addressed tort reform in the bill, because, as the CBO said, doing so would save them $54 billion annually – but oh, NOPE, no tort reform. Surely, since the President and his fellow Democrats are so concerned about costs, they wouldn’t do anything reckless, like, say, shove through another trillion-dollar spending bill that includes a nice pay raise for federal workers.

Wrong again, they did that.

The Democratic party, respective to health care, is like a person who was sent into the store to purchase a gallon of milk and some butter for the evening’s meal and instead walked out with a “Gladiator” DVD, a can of Easy Cheese, and some Homer Simpson house slippers because HOW FUNNY ARE THEY?! Dems had a chance to really tackle that which is truly burdening our system and they dropped the ball. They went after insurance companies – businesses who are businesses because the last I checked, we lived in a capitalistic society – but protected the trial lawyers, the very people who drive up costs with oftentimes egregious lawsuits and make it more difficult for those who were truly affected by malpractice to receive justice. Sure, insurance companies aren’t without their their problems, but the lack of consistency costs the Democrats their validity.

Some people completely misunderstand the root of the problem within the context of preexisting conditions. An oldie but a goodie from Powerline:

You can’t buy insurance against something that has already happened. You can try to make someone else pay your bills, maybe, but you can’t buy insurance. The fact that that plaintiff’s building had burned down was a preexisting condition.

It’s no wonder that health insurance policies have historically excluded coverage for preexisting conditions. You can insure against the risk that you might get cancer, but if you already have cancer, it’s not a risk, it’s a certainty.

[...]

health insurance is conventionally linked to employment–the curse of our present system–creates huge distortions. If an employee changes jobs, the consequence may be a change in insurance companies. A condition that was covered under the old plan is preexisting from the standpoint of his new carrier. Unlike my plaintiff who regretted his decision not to buy insurance on his building, the employee who changes jobs is entirely blameless and didn’t set out to assume a risk.

The GOP tried to remedy this and were blocked by Democrats. From the Wall Street Journal, May, 2009:

Called the Patients’ Choice Act, it would eliminate the tax break that employers receive for providing health-insurance benefits to their workers. Instead, it would give an annual tax credit of $2,300 to each individual and $5,700 to each family that they could use to offset the cost of their health insurance. Low-income families would get extra money to buy into private insurance plans.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) said the system of employer-based coverage is becoming “a 21st century relic” as companies become less generous with benefits.

Democrats instead chose to derail their entire scheme by hanging it up on things such as elective procedures like abortion, penalties for people who don’t “chose the right” of health care (note the irony of their “pro-choice” sentiment), cutting home health care and capping treatment to make their math (sort of) work.

Not passing Obamacare won’t bankrupt America; passing it will.

Perhaps Obama should direct his scare tactics at the very people who screwed up the chance to improve the health care system: his own party.

Related reading:

$10000 marriage penalty hidden in Obama-Reid “Health” Care Bill

You mean if we don’t add a trillion dollars to the deficit then the country will … go … bankrupt?

Is it Opposite Day?

President Obama told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an interview that if Congress does not pass health care legislation that will bring down costs, the federal government “will go bankrupt.”

The president laid out a dire scenario of what will happen if his health care reform effort fails.

“If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,” he said. “Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year. “

The president said that the costs of Medicare and Medicaid are on an “unsustainable” trajectory and if there is no action taken to bring them down, “the federal government will go bankrupt.”

So Medicare and Medicaid are about to go bust because the costs are making them unaffordable, yet Obama and Harry Reid wanted to lower the inclusion age for Medicare down to age 55 from age 65 and also reduce costs while claiming to not reduce the quality of care. What kind of math is this? Because it is AWESOME.

Actually, what isn’t awesome is that excise taxes, coupled with rationing limiting the availability of certain types and duration of care, is what (they hope! Fingers crossed!) will control costs.

If Obama and company are worried about cost all of a sudden, this must be why they immediately addressed tort reform in the bill, because, as the CBO said, doing so would save them $54 billion annually – but oh, NOPE, no tort reform. Surely, since the President and his fellow Democrats are so concerned about costs, they wouldn’t do anything reckless, like, say, shove through another trillion-dollar spending bill that includes a nice pay raise for federal workers.

Wrong again, they did that.

The Democratic party, respective to health care, is like a person who was sent into the store to purchase a gallon of milk and some butter for the evening’s meal and instead walked out with a “Gladiator” DVD, a can of Easy Cheese, and some Homer Simpson house slippers because HOW FUNNY ARE THEY?! Dems had a chance to really tackle that which is truly burdening our system and they dropped the ball. They went after insurance companies – businesses who are businesses because the last I checked, we lived in a capitalistic society – but protected the trial lawyers, the very people who drive up costs with oftentimes egregious lawsuits and make it more difficult for those who were truly affected by malpractice to receive justice. Sure, insurance companies aren’t without their their problems, but the lack of consistency costs the Democrats their validity.

Some people completely misunderstand the root of the problem within the context of preexisting conditions. An oldie but a goodie from Powerline:

You can’t buy insurance against something that has already happened. You can try to make someone else pay your bills, maybe, but you can’t buy insurance. The fact that that plaintiff’s building had burned down was a preexisting condition.

It’s no wonder that health insurance policies have historically excluded coverage for preexisting conditions. You can insure against the risk that you might get cancer, but if you already have cancer, it’s not a risk, it’s a certainty.

[...]

health insurance is conventionally linked to employment–the curse of our present system–creates huge distortions. If an employee changes jobs, the consequence may be a change in insurance companies. A condition that was covered under the old plan is preexisting from the standpoint of his new carrier. Unlike my plaintiff who regretted his decision not to buy insurance on his building, the employee who changes jobs is entirely blameless and didn’t set out to assume a risk.

The GOP tried to remedy this and were blocked by Democrats. From the Wall Street Journal, May, 2009:

Called the Patients’ Choice Act, it would eliminate the tax break that employers receive for providing health-insurance benefits to their workers. Instead, it would give an annual tax credit of $2,300 to each individual and $5,700 to each family that they could use to offset the cost of their health insurance. Low-income families would get extra money to buy into private insurance plans.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) said the system of employer-based coverage is becoming “a 21st century relic” as companies become less generous with benefits.

Democrats instead chose to derail their entire scheme by hanging it up on things such as elective procedures like abortion, penalties for people who don’t “chose the right” of health care (note the irony of their “pro-choice” sentiment), cutting home health care and capping treatment to make their math (sort of) work.

Not passing Obamacare won’t bankrupt America; passing it will.

Perhaps Obama should direct his scare tactics at the very people who screwed up the chance to improve the health care system: his own party.

Related reading:

$10000 marriage penalty hidden in Obama-Reid “Health” Care Bill

Tell me again about the great Democratic realignment. [...] Read the rest »

Philip Klein is all over it. [...] Read the rest »

Via Founding Bloggers–
This is how the left honors dissent:

How dare he question the Goracle!

Related… The British media is now reporting that the entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world government policy is a total crock.

MOOS (voice-over): From the days of high fives (crowd cheers), Joe has hit a new low among liberals....From regular Joes on the Internet to progressive radio hosts.

MIKE MALLOY, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Shmuck? The sour little prune. This man turns my stomach....

MOOS: Senator Lieberman hasn’t been fed to the liberal lions yet, but he’s been fed to the cats.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE 1 (from YouTube.com): Come on, you guys. This string is Joe Lieberman. Come on, go get it. Lieberman must pay!

SENATOR JOE LIEBERMAN: I can tell you that inside myself, I have not enjoyed this period of time. I’ve done what I thought was right.

MOOS: Yeah right, say liberal blogs. The Huffington Post asked readers, what would you give Joe Lieberman for Hanukkah? And got suggestions like a muzzle or a horse’s head like in ‘The Godfather.’ The left-wing Daily Kos posted a poll asking which word describes Joe Lieberman and offering only the same word (a vulgar term for a donkey’s anus)- so much for multiple choice. On YouTube, Joe Lieberman’s eyes and other body parts were fried in hell (video of eggs frying).

It’s been a while since we checked in with editorial cartoonist Nate Beeler at the Washington Examiner, and if his entry today is any indication, it’s been too long. [...] Read the rest »

In what had to be a tough admission for him to make, Chris Matthews, on Wednesday's Hardball, claimed the 2 to 1 positive rating for the tea party movement, in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, was a sign of "The power of Fox."

However, the MSNBC host went on to write off the tea partiers, even trashing his company's own poll in the process, as he suggested the 41 percent positive to 21 percent negative rating was due to a "leading" question that portrayed the protestors as "just a group of conservatives," and not as the "screaming, crazy people" that Matthews views them to be. [audio available here]

The following exchange was aired on the December 16 edition of Hardball:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: And what about the tea party movement? This is the shock-a-roo. They have a 2 to 1 positive rating but insider information from Chuck Todd explains why, perhaps.

CHUCK TODD: Well look there's a couple of, couple of demographic-ing. You know we, we- among Fox News viewers the tea party movement is enormously popular - 75 percent of a positive feeling toward it. Just five percent among everybody else, non-Fox viewers, as far as how you get your information, the tea party movement actually has a slight net negative. Still overall, it gives you that positive 41 percent.

MATTHEWS: Well that tells you the power of Fox, in a way, doesn't it?

TODD: The power of Fox in branding this tea party movement-

MATTHEWS: Right. 

TODD: -as a populist, outside Washington. Because that's the other thing.

MATTHEWS: So it's a horse in rabbit stew. An overwhelming love of these tea parties by one group of people offsets the metza-metza view from other people.

TODD: Yes. It's a large group. It's a large group and that's why, for instance you have the Republican Party in Washington trying to figure out how to embrace some of this tea party movement. Michael Steele doing it. John Boehner...

MATTHEWS: Did you read the question though? It basically said, "Here's a group of conservatives who get together who are concerned about high taxes." Well what's wrong with that?

TODD: That's right.

MATTHEWS: It isn't a bunch of screaming, crazy people yelling, like you see at these parties.

TODD: True and the thing is what we, what we need just not...

MATTHEWS: I think the question was a leading-

TODD: But let's not focus on-

MATTHEWS: Yeah?

TODD: The fact is that issue is working. The fact is anti-Washington sentiment is growing. So which party is going to be the party of the populist. Okay?

MATTHEWS OVER VIDEO OF PROTESTORS: Yeah they didn't show these pictures when they asked the question.

A little later in the program the Politico's Jeanne Cummings also admitted to being "surprised" by the good showing in the NBC News poll by the tea party movement, and Matthews called their increasing popularity "disturbing."

MATTHEWS: Up next those tea partiers are the big winners in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. You may not like it, but they are. People seem to like these tea-bag meet-, these tea, shouldn't call them tea-bags meetings, these tea party meetings. How bad is it for the Democrats and the Republicans when the tea party people have higher approval ratings than either political party. The "Politics Fix" up next. It's kind of disturbing to hear this, but it's true, apparently. This is Hardball on MSNBC.

...

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you Jeanne. What was your reaction when you saw the NBC News poll that came out this evening that shows, here they are, 35 percent have positive feelings about the Democratic Party, which is still a majority party in this country, 28 percent have positive feelings about the Republican Party the second party, 41 percent have positive feelings about the Tea Party! What do you make of that?

JEANNE CUMMINGS, POLITICO: I gotta admit I was surprised to see that. Chris, I, it seems to me that number is big enough that you've got a big mix of perhaps independents as well. And what it almost-

MATTHEWS: A lot of Fox folks. A lot of Fox folks.

CUMMINGS: Pardon?

MATTHEWS: A lot of Fox TV people, yeah.

CUMMINGS: Absolutely. You got Republicans in there for sure. But I think it almost looks to me like a default vote. It's pretty clear if you go, I was recently at a focus group. There’s a palpable dissatisfaction with both political parties right now. So given a third option, perhaps any option, people, I think, probably went for that so they could record that dissatisfaction with both the Democrats and the Republicans.

Pictures are, they say, worth a thousand words – and sometimes this is really so.

Do you remember the photograph of Bill Clinton on the cover of Cigar Aficionado, brandishing a stogie?  If you do, my bet is that you are laughing now. At the time of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, that photograph got a lot of mileage.

Well, on the cover of this month’s Golf Digest, there is another photograph well worthy of attention.

In it, thanks to the wonders accomplished by Photoshop, Tiger Woods appears dressed as a caddy, bending over Barack Obama as the latter squats and considers a putt. In the magazine itself, Mr. Woods provides the President with golfing advice.

The juxtaposition is apt. These two men are a lot of alike. Both are Americans of African descent, but neither is an African-American as the term is ordinarily used – for neither is descended from a New World slave.

In his chosen profession, moreover, each of these men is exceedingly accomplished; and in the recent past, both have been dazzlers, commanding respect, admiration, and even adulation.

Nor do the similarities end here, for, as it turns out, neither man is what he purports to be, and neither commands admiration in the fashion that he once did.

The gap between  the image that Tiger Woods so carefully cultivated and the life he actually led is a matter perhaps best left to the tabloids.

That between the image once projected by Barack Obama and the reality with which we have had to live is another matter, worthy of attention and reflection – for, like it or not, our fate is tied up with his.

As a candidate, “No Drama Obama” presented himself as a moderate, promising that his administration would be the most transparent in history, that it would be bipartisan, and that there would be no tax hikes – except on high earners.

There were indications, to be sure, that something else might be in the offing. In her stump speech early on, Michele Obama repeatedly asserted that Americans are “cynical” and “mean” and have “broken souls” and that the lives “that most people are living” have “gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl.”

These words were not reassuring.

For his part, Mr. Obama repeatedly pledged to “transform” America; and, in his exchange with Joe the Plumber, he spoke of “spreading the wealth around.”

Moreover, it was hard to believe that a man so long comfortable with the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers and with the racist demagogue Jeremiah Wright would prove to be a middle-of-the-road president.

But, with the help of the mainstream media, Mr. Obama managed to persuade a sufficient number of Americans to overlook his suspect associations, and he proved to be a master of indirect communication, intimating one thing in coded language to his radical supporters while saying something entirely different to those not in the know.

If Obama has gone down in the polls further and faster than any first-year president in the last half-century, it is because his pose as a moderate proved to be a fraud perpetrated on the American people, and the same fact explains the precipitous decline in television viewers for CNN and the other networks that flacked – and still flack – for the Democratic Party.

Obama’s is, in fact, the least transparent and most bitterly partisan administration in American history. The so-called stimulus bill was written behind closed doors and voted into law by Congressmen who had never read it. The Republicans were not consulted when it was drawn up, and the bill itself showered with gold a great variety of constituencies associated with the Democratic Party.

The Department of Justice has in the last eleven months operated in an openly partisan fashion, and the national debt has increased to a level that will require draconian tax increases down the line.

Moreover, no sane American believes that any of the healthcare reform bills under consideration will do anything but accelerate the increase in medical costs, and they all know that it will eventuate in massive tax increases.

Barack Obama is like Tiger Woods in one crucial respect. He bamboozled us, and he has now lost our trust. Whether either man can recover the admiration he once basked in remains to be seen.

In the third part of an interview on MediaBistro.com’s Media Beat, ex-CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather shared some thoughts on various media personalities. He labeled Fox News host Glenn Beck “controversial,” while hailing MSNBC Countdown host Keith Olbermann: “Love him, as a person, as a journalist. Don’t always understand what he’s trying to do on his program, but I like Keith.”

Rather bizarrely went on to explain part of his admiration for the left-wing bomb thrower: “For one thing, he’s a Yankee fan....give him credit. That Keith Olbermann has been with the Yankees through thick and thin, through good times and bad times, and I really respect that, among other things about him.” Rather did manage to say one kind word about Beck, calling him a “talented TV personality.”

TVNewser columnist Gail Shister also asked Rather’s thoughts on his Evening News replacement Katie Couric. Rather’s assessment of her was not as enthusiastic as that of Olbermann: “Good lady, comes from a journalistic family. Has had a difficult transition but seems to be in a better place now.”

Shister asked about the newly named anchor of ABC’s World News, Diane Sawyer, whom Rather called a “Classy lady, terrific journalist, marvelously talented television performer.” On Oprah Winfrey, he proclaimed: “Life force of her own, one of a kind. She is an asset to the country. Gotta love Oprah.”

Shister concluded the interview by asking Rather about Rather. He replied: “Dan Rather, (pause) lifetime journalist who dreamed and got lucky, very lucky, with the big help and the grace of God. Far luckier than he ever thought he would be and probably far luckier than he ever deserved to be.”

In the first part of the Media Beat interview, Rather criticized internet journalists for lacking “transparency and accountability.”

Here is a full transcript of the final part of the interview, posted on MediaBistro.com on Wednesday:

GAIL SHISTER: I will mention some names and tell me the first thing that comes into your head. Okay, you ready.

DAN RATHER: If anything. I’m ready.

SHISTER: If anything. I know it’s pretty empty in there, so-

RATHER: You tell them.

SHISTER: Gear up, gear up. Glenn Beck

RATHER: (pause) Controversial.

[SHISTER GIVES FRUSTRATED LOOK, WANTING RATHER TO ELABORATE]

RATHER: You said the first thing that pops into my head.

SHISTER: Okay, what’s the second thing?

RATHER: Talented personality.

SHISTER: Okay.

RATHER: Talented TV personality.

SHISTER: Katie Couric.

RATHER: Good lady, comes from a journalistic family. Has had a difficult transition but seems to be in a better place now.

SHISTER: Keith Olbermann.

RATHER: Love him, as a person, as a journalist. Don’t always understand what he’s trying to do on his program, but I like Keith. For one thing, he’s a Yankee fan. I know Mets fans will turn crazy.

SHISTER: Mets fans, how about Phillies fans?

RATHER: Well-

SHISTER: Them’s fighting words.

RATHER: I know they’re fighting words but give him credit. That Keith Olbermann has been with the Yankees through thick and thin, through good times and bad times, and I really respect that, among other things about him.

SHISTER: Diane Sawyer.

RATHER: Classy lady, terrific journalist, marvelously talented television performer.

SHISTER: Oprah.

RATHER: Life force of her own, one of a kind. She is an asset to the country. Gotta love Oprah.

SHISTER: David Letterman.

RATHER: David Letterman, good guy, tightly wound, as many comedians are. Always on edge, I think, because it’s – you do that program five nights a week. I think he’s on edge a lot because of the pressure to be funny.
                    
SHISTER: Dan Rather.

RATHER: Dan Rather, (pause) lifetime journalist who dreamed and got lucky, very lucky, with the big help and the grace of God. Far luckier than he ever thought he would be and probably far luckier than he ever deserved to be.   

Over the weekend Redstate's Erick Erickson made an impassioned plea that Republican Senators avail themselves of every parliamentary device at their disposal to obstruct the nationalization of health care. We posted a long response from a GOP Senate source in "How is Obamacare to be stopped?"

Today Oklahoma's magnificent Senator (and Dr.) Tom Coburn has begun to follow up on Erickson's plea. Senator Coburn objected to the unanimous consent required to waive the reading of Senator Sanders's 767-page amendment supporting frankly socialized medicine. (I understand that Senator Demint is assisting Senator Coburn in maintaining the floor presence necessary to withhold unanimous consent.)

Senator Sanders is, of course, as Rush Limbaugh likes to say, the Senate's only admitted socialist. The Senate clerk is now reading Sanders's proposed amendment. Philip Klein estimates that the reading will take as long as 38 hours.

If our GOP Senate source's background information on GOP tactics was on the money, Senator Coburn's move -- pleasing as it is in itself -- is not a good sign. Our source argued that "the time for spectacle" had not yet arrived. Has it now arrived?

Redstate comments on today's proceedings here, without making any comment on what they might mean. You know you're in trouble when you have to hope that Roland Burris means what he says, or when you want Howard Dean to be able to persuade at least one Democratic Senator to stand with him on principle and oppose a horrendous piece of legislation. I fear we're in that kind of trouble.

UPDATE: Rich Lowry reports that Sanders has pulled his amendment. NRO's Robert Costa provides a more hopeful take on these proceedings here. Klein notes that the Democrats were -- hold your breath -- playing fast and loose with the rules.

It’s Chicago ‘68 redux: While the Enlightened huddle inside the convention center to figure out a way to save the world, the cops go nightstick-crazy on radical lefties outside. [...] Read the rest »

I'm not sure which is funnier about this Miami Herald story; that Adultery 101 was published in that newspaper or the fact that it was actually written by Herald staffers. It is so bizarre of a story that it should be marked down as a sign of desperation to attract readers in the midst of a calamitous circulation plunge.

So let us now join the Miami Herald staffers as they present their readers with "helpful tips" on how to commit adultery with a celeb shoutout to Tiger Woods:

So you're left scratching your head, wondering how a guy like Tiger Woods would allow himself to get caught cheating on his wife.

We're not saying we condone Tiger's actions -- the best way to not get caught cheating on a spouse or significant other is to not cheat on your spouse or significant other. But from observing celeb and non-celeb cheaters from the sidelines for years, following these basic rules would help one cover his tracks.

So the Herald staffers, after telling us that the best way not to get caught cheating is not to cheat in the first place, go on to tell us that if we must cheat, there are the ways to keep from getting caught. Take careful notes Herald readers because this information will appear in your Bluebook exam:

1. No photos. We don't care if the photos are of you, your body parts, your mistress or the hotel room in which you are sneaking around. There can simply be no photos at all - even if the other party brings out a camera in playful fun. If there is a flash, you better dash.

And, of course, no videos as well. Now on to the second adultery tip from the friendly staff of the Miami Herald:

2. Cash, not credit. You don't want to leave any kind of paper trail detailing where you have been and what you may have spent. Always use cash - for dinners, for gifts, for hotels. Besides, we bet that most pimps don't take American Express.

How about gift cards? Is that permissible? The Herald staff leaves us in the dark about this. Now on to Adultery Tip #3:

3. Get a ``booty phone.'' The best option, if you can afford it, is to use a second cellphone for calls you don't want your family or business to know about. We realize that most people can't swing that option, but at least learn to use your cellphone carefully. Always delete text messages - both sent and received - as well as voice mails and call logs. And when adding a phone number to your contacts, list it under a code name - like Driving Range or Clubhouse -- that won't look suspicious when your significant other looks at your phone.

Should we ask our phone service providers if they have a special discount on "booty phones?" Can we look up "booty phones" on eBay?

4. Set your hours. You need to have limits, regardless of how intoxicating the rush of clandestine activities. Don't communicate with your mistress after a certain time of day. No hurried visits to the bathroom to send a message. No checking on something in the garage to arrange a future visit. Treat this like a job.

You got that, folks? Cheating on your spouse is a full time occupation according to the Herald staffers.

5. Have an air-tight alibi. You better have one or your on-the-side relationship built on a house of cards will crumble like a fire hydrant under a large SUV. And don't get a friend involved -- unless you have one who you can trust won't feel bad and tip off your better half. Meetings, business lunches, four-day golf tournaments in Dubai or Las Vegas can all be perfect alibis - just extend the start and finish times of each to allow some wiggle room.

How about Joey Bishop's alibi in A Guide For the Married Man when he got caught by his wife with a woman in bed? All he did was deny, deny, DENY! And, strangely, he got away with it.

The funniest part of the article came at the end identifying the Adultery 101 authors:

-- Miami Herald Staff Report 

I found that to be an extremely funny inadvertent commentary on the sad state of the current newspaper industry. 

Earlier this month, my colleague Tim Graham wrote about "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams self-congratulatory five-year anniversary as the newscasts's anchor, followed hours later by actress Jane Krakowski of the network's "30 Rock" show heralding Williams as a "towering figure in the world of news" during the network's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting special.

Williams, who has had cameo appearances on "30 Rock" and the "Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien," doesn't seem to be stopping his forays into the network's entertainment division anytime soon.

TV Newser's Chris Ariens reported shortly before 5 p.m. EST:

Brian Williams left the real 30 Rock today to film a scene of the TV show "30 Rock."

Insiders tell us Williams was at the studios of NY1, which was supposed to be the studios of CNBC. But NY1 is on the west side of Manhattan, while the real CNBC is all the way in New Jersey. Enough said.

Man-Bear-Pig
The AP lied for Al Gore today, via Sweetness and Light.
The Associated Press reported:

Clarification: Gore misspoke on polar ice data
(AP) – 7 hours ago

COPENHAGEN — In an early version of a Dec. 14 story, Al Gore told the U.N. climate conference that new data suggested the Arctic polar ice cap may disappear in the summertime within five to seven years. Gore’s office later clarified his statement and said he meant the cap would be nearly ice-free.

Of course, this is not true.
The Goracle also told an audience in Germany last year that “the entire North Polari(ized) cap will disappear in 5 years.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d made the claim. Gore had been talking this nonsense for over a year already.

UPDATE: The British media is now reporting that the entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world government policy is a total crock.

The Fearmongerer in Chief warned today that unless the democrats pass their nationalized health care boondoggle this year the US will go bankrupt.
ABC has the video.

President Obama told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an interview that if Congress does not pass health care legislation that will bring down costs, the federal government “will go bankrupt.”

The president laid out a dire scenario of what will happen if his health care reform effort fails.

“If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,” he said. “Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year. “

Actually, the truth is that the US will go bankrupt if Obama and democrats keep tripling the national deficit every year like they did last year.

Obama increased the national debt to $12 Trillion.
And he nearly doubled the unemployment rate since Bush was in charge with his failed Stimulus Plan.

Earlier this week Obama said Republicans “need to stop trying to frighten the American people.”

Read this post »

Despite a growing sex scandal, golfer Tiger Woods has been named by members of the Associated Press as Athlete of the Decade.

According to AP Sports Enterprise Editor John Affleck:

The Tiger Woods scandal if you will, the, all of the, all of the personal turmoil that Tiger has been through in the past few weeks really had very little effect on the voting. Voting began a few days before his accident, and he had already established a lead, and he maintained that lead, and it even grew a little bit I think in the past couple of weeks. 

Imagine that. His lead GREW after the scandal hit (video embedded below the fold, h/t Story Balloon):

As the AP reported moments ago:

Woods was selected Wednesday as the Athlete of the Decade by members of The Associated Press in a vote that was more about 10 years of performance than nearly three weeks of salacious headlines. [...]

Woods received 56 of the 142 votes cast by AP member editors since last month. More than half of the ballots were returned after the Nov. 27 car accident outside his Florida home that set off sensational tales of infidelity.

Lance Armstrong, a cancer survivor who won the Tour de France six times this decade, finished second with 33 votes. He was followed by Roger Federer, who won more Grand Slam singles titles than any other man, with 25 votes.

Record-setting Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps came in fourth with 13 votes, followed by New England quarterback Tom Brady (6) and sprinter Usain Bolt (4). Five other athletes received one vote apiece.

Should his serial infidelity have impacted the results? Is the AP crazy to name a man currently involved in one of the biggest sex scandals of our time Athlete of the Decade? 

All across this nation, families and businesses are struggling to make ends meet. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs and many more worry that they will be next. But Americans are meeting these times with courage and by putting first things first, at least everywhere but the White House.

It is astonishing that in the midst of the worst recession in 26 years, this administration and Democrat leaders continue to advance job-killing proposals like the national energy tax and will carry that message to the global warming convention in Copenhagen.

Rather than making a priority of creating jobs, the president plans to attend negotiations at the United Nation’s convention on climate change in Denmark. This decision is wrong on several levels. The administration’s participation in the Copenhagen negotiations raises a number of concerns that the president should address before catching his flight.

A primary concern is the impact a global cap and tax system will have on our economy.  In June, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would mandate carbon emission reductions amounting to a national energy tax. While there is still a lot of uncertainty about how much the average American household will pay if this national energy tax becomes law, perhaps the best estimate came from President Obama himself.

In 2008, then-Senator Obama said, “Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” He went on to say that the costs will be passed “on to consumers.”

When President Obama said energy rates will “necessarily skyrocket,” I believed him. And I believe that is a prescription for economic decline. Skyrocketing electricity rates are unacceptable and it’s a high price to pay for a plan that will not even achieve its goal of reducing carbon emissions.

Various experts have detailed the near impossibility of reaching the high levels of carbon reduction that will be discussed in Copenhagen. Efforts to meet these targets will destroy any hope for an economic recovery and may lead to a deeper recession. As I told the president in the West Wing last week, in Copenhagen he must make it clear that he will not enter into any agreement that raises utility rates on working families.

Also, the president must respect the will of Congress and the American people in Copenhagen. According to comments by Todd Stern, the president’s special envoy on climate change, U.S. negotiators will “work towards a political agreement” on mandatory carbon emissions reductions.

You do not sign a treaty before you declare war. It is inappropriate for the President of the United States to enter into international negotiations or an agreement on global warming in the absence of a national consensus. The president and his administration must not enter the United States into any binding agreement in Denmark.

Finally, America should not commit to limitations on our economy while developing countries protect their growing economies against international climate caps. Why would we put American workers at a disadvantage with their foreign competitors? The president should make it clear to the world that the United States will not play Gulliver to their Lilliputian ambitions in the name of climate change.

Twelve years ago, during a year when more than three million new jobs were created, the United States Senate rejected a similar global climate agreement by an overwhelming vote of 95 to zero.  The fear was that it would inflict serious harm on a strong economy. What does it say to the American people, that during a deep recession, our president is pushing ahead with a similar global warming treaty?

Rather than being ignored by an international organization meeting halfway around the world, the American people deserve to have their voices heard in Washington. They expect their best interests to be pursued by their elected leaders, not bargained away by foreign diplomats at the United Nations. The American people have the right to debate and decide this issue here at home, without an arbitrary deadline set in Copenhagen.

Mr. President, in the name of working families and their duly elected representatives in Congress, don’t make promises in Copenhagen that the American people cannot and should not keep.

Today Sen. Tom Coburn forced the reading of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s entire 767-page amendment to provide single-payer health care. This process would have taken some twelve hours at least. The Senate rule is that once the clerk starts reading the bill, no senator can stop the reading of that bill unless every senator agrees.

Somehow, though, the chair allowed Bernie Sanders to interrupt the reading and withdraw his amendment, which, under the rules, he should not have been allowed to do without unanimous consent. The reason the parliamentarian allowed the interruption was that he was relying on a similar incident in 1982 when the chair wrongly allowed an amendment to be withdrawn. Yet, as we know, two wrongs have never made a right.

In fact, as Senator McConnell explained on the floor of the Senate later that afternoon:

But one mistake does not a precedent make. For example, there is precedent for a Senator being beaten with a cane here in the Senate. If mistakes were the rule, the caning of Senators would be in order. Fortunately for all of us, it is not,” he said, adding: “It’s now clear the majority is willing to do anything to jam through a 2000-page bill before the American people or any of us has had a chance to read it -- including changing the rules in the middle of the game.

This is a huge boon to Democrats who did not relish spending an entire day (or possibly two) reading the Sanders amendment to the American people.

The real story here, this miscarriage of justice in the Senate may just end up helping the Democrats squeeze passage of the health-care-reform bill before Christmas.

Read more here and here.

Merry Christmas to you, too!

Big Hollywood’s Adam Baldwin is asking bloggers to help spread the word about Anatolie Vartosu.

Immigration is broken, alright.
Anatolie Vartosu has over 20 years experience teaching and working with children of all ages in the fields of physical education and culture, track and field, soccer and all sports. He worked extensively in Romania for SOS, an international organization in 200+ countries devoted to improving the lives of orphans worldwide. Anatolie has a lifelong passion for increasing children’s self-esteem, confidence and capabilities for success in life. He has a prestigious Master of Sports degree from Russia and Romania and is an elite athlete who qualified for the 1996 Olympics in the marathon.

Anatolie was invited to the United States in 2003 to compete in the Clearwater, Florida Marathon. He went on to win many races in the US, including the inaugural Little Rock Arkansas marathon in May, 2003. He successfully upgraded his tourist visa to a 3-year H1B working visa, to accept a job offer teaching gymnastics and soccer at a professional sports center at the Jack Rabbit’s Professional Gymnastic Club in Greenwich, Connecticut. Due to Anatolie’s enormous popularity, professionalism and effective teaching methods, enrollment skyrocketed from 80 students to over 450.

In 2006 Anatolie applied for what should have been a routine renewal of his H1B working visa for another three-year term. While the maximum standard answer time is 180 days, he waited over 18 months—which included numerous letters of support, including several from Congressman Christopher Shays—to receive the shocking answer: denied. Reason given? “overqualified” for his job—in spite of being granted his initial H1B working visa for the exact same position 3 years previously. Anatolie immediately appealed the denial and was told he would receive an answer within a maximum of 10 months. 14 months later he received the final decision regarding his appeal: dismissed—with no explanation and no right to further appeal.

To compound matters, Anatolie’s wife Maria, who is also from Romania, joined him in America in 2003. In 2007 she opened Shiny Little Stars, a Childcare Discovery Center with a partner. A highly successful, growing asset to the local community, it PROVIDES JOBS and receives glowing testimonials from its customers—parents and their delighted 2 to 5 year olds. Maria would also be forced to abandon her business and leave the country if Anatolie’s appeal is denied, as her status is dependent on his. His 6-year campaign for permanent residency in the US is at a desperate point. If justice fails him now, he and his wife will be forced to leave America for good.

Please take one minute and sign the petition for Anatolie Vartosu.

This is the second time she's been proposed for an ambassadorship. The first didn't go so well. President Clinton nominated her to be ambassador to the Dominican Republic but, as detailed on Andrew Breitbart's Big Government, it turned out that she had "co-habited" with an agent of the Cuban intelligence service. In fact, a confidential U.S. intelligence memo alleged that she had been recruited to become a Cuban spy in her own right. The revelations caused her nomination to be quietly withdrawn ... whereupon she reportedly refused to answer questions from the FBI (saying that since she was no longer seeking an executive branch slot, she no longer needed to cooperate in a background security check). Now, despite that debacle, and heedless of the controversies stoked by Van Jones, Kevin Jennings, et al., Obama wants to press ahead with Aponte.

Maybe you don't buy my theory that the President is an Alinskyite radical, but I still think annointing him a neocon based on his Oslo performance may be a tad premature.

Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man: without liberty no happiness can be enjoyed by society. The obligation, therefore, to defend and maintain the freedom of such constitutions will appear most sacred to a Patriot King.

It’s a nice sentiment, but it's not Jefferson's, and in fact it’s worth noting that the Bolingbroke essay from which it is drawn (“The Idea of a Patriot King,” written in 1738) became, later in the eighteenth century, the great manifesto of that most un-Jeffersonian character, King George III.

The Washington Times has a good editorial today about the “ideological vendetta” being waged by the Holder Justice Department against Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona. The vendetta was prompted by Arpaio’s participation in the 287(g) program, which allows local police to help enforce our immigration laws by detaining illegal aliens. This is a program the Left wants ended, and since they have not been able to persuade Congress to get rid of the authorizing legislation, they are prodding the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to do it for them. I wrote about this investigation for National Review this past summer, pointing out the unethical and unprofessional behavior by the lead lawyer in the Civil Rights Division who is (mis)conducting this abusive investigation. It should be no surprise to anyone that there is no sign that the Inspector General or the Office of Professional Responsibility is looking into these ethical violations, and that the lawyer has not been removed from the case.

Now the Washington Times points out that Arpaio is being sued by the Civil Rights Division’s allies in the ACLU (the number-two lawyer at the division is a former ACLU lawyer) for setting up an anonymous telephone tip line for immigration violations, purportedly because it will generate “false, inaccurate and racially motivated reports.” Interestingly, the division has set up its own anonymous tip line to solicit complaints from illegal immigrants about Arpaio. It’s a good thing that this tip line will not generate any “false, inaccurate and racially motivated” calls.

This is a real sign of the desperation by the Civil Rights Division. They have been harassing Arpaio for the past year and even generated a DHS audit of him (despite having had no complaints that he was not complying with the rules of the 287(g) program), trying to scrape up enough evidence to justify a civil-rights lawsuit against him. That effort appears to have come up short -- necessitating an anonymous tip line nine months after the witch-hunt was initiated. As the Washington Times correctly points out, it seems pretty clear that this is intended to “find a crime to pin” on Arpaio.

Read this post »

This has always been the lamest, least convincing argument in his arsenal — I have yet to see a poll this year, I think, that shows people think costs will decrease under ObamaCare — but he’s been pushing it since the beginning and evidently will do so to the bitter end. [...] Read the rest »

The Politico and Roger Simon (who is in Copenhagen) depict a scene of chaos and division that the management can do little to hide. Politico hints that some politicians are beginning to sense that the heretofore unsinkable ship is down by bow and foundering and are, with stealthy tread, making for the First-Class lifeboats.

in a surprise move that captured growing uncertainty over conference — Denmark’s climate minister, Connie Hedegaard, stepped aside as president of the conference, handing the gavel to Rasmussen, as head of the host country.

Outside, Danish police — who have been accused of heavy-handedness by human rights groups — clashed with thousands of environmental activists who descended on the complex from a nearby train station and demanded entry to the Bella Center.

BBC video showed truncheon-bearing Danish police shoving the crowd backward as protesters gasped and covered their faces to avoid breathing tear gas.

Inside the building, U.N. officials revoked the credentials of about 100 accredited members of the green group Friends of the Earth for staging a series of small protests on Tuesday.

The dynamics of this crisis may be simple. A series of events, notably the Climategate revelations to which the cold snap in Britain has added psychological credence, has shifted a significant amount of public opinion to skepticism. But the real damage is being inflicted by the environmental left. They had been bought off by political promises which were barely capable of fulfillment when the tide of public opinion had not yet been turned. With the public increasingly skeptical, the environmental Left rightly sees that it has no chance of getting what it wants. Whenever the Left doesn’t get what it wants it does what comes naturally: it becomes more militant.  Roger Simon relates a telling anecdote of streets crowded by hangers-on and empty power lunches. Oops, did I say power?

Basically, it’s a combination of a trade fair for eco products that are being flogged everywhere (I’m staying in a CO2 neutral hotel – you can see it on PJTV), third world operators looking for hand-outs (a couple of African scientists admitted to one of the skeptic scientists they knew AGW was a schuck, but it was a great oppo to get some cash) and leftover, re-upped hippies doing what they do — demonstrate and carry-on….

Last night I headed out with some folks to an event that was supposed to be for ClimateSpark.org, supposedly a party/meet-and-greet with “industry” movers and shakers, some of whom reputedly knew AL GORE. (Gore’s name is thrown around here like Tom Cruise’s in Hollywood.) Unfortunately, very few showed, and yours truly high-tailed it in a matter of minutes.

And speaking of power, the curve has shifted to the “developing countries” like China who see in what Reuters calls the “flagging” talks an opportunity to be bought off in order to lend their support to a face-saving agreement. “COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – A draft climate pact unveiled on Friday revived hopes that U.N. talks might be able to pin down an international deal to fight global warming, but developing nations said they needed more cash from the rich.”

A European Union offer of 7.3 billion euros ($10.8 billion) of climate aid over the next three years was welcomed by the United Nations and the Danish hosts of the December 7-18 talks in Copenhagen.

“Things are progressing,” said Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister who presides at the negotiations.

The first four days of talks moved so slowly that European Commission delegate Karl Falkenberg joked on Friday that progress was only visible under a magnifying glass. …

China, now the world’s largest emitter, said rich nations needed to provide long-term cash if they wanted the developing world to agree long-term emissions goals.

“I doubt the sincerity of developed countries in their commitment. Why are they not talking about a commitment of providing funds through 2050? That will make them credible when they are asking for an emissions reduction by 2050,” said Vice-Foreign Minister He Yafei.

African nations said they were still considering the draft, but were also unhappy about financing.

It’s about money, money and more money.  For a conference which was ostensibly about the soft songs of nature, the cooing sound of the whales and the primitive charms of nature piping in through a paneless window it sure got down to the nitty-gritty real fast. The translation from Chinese is approximately thus: “Quit the stalling Asgaard, or whatever your name is. Show me the money. Cash on the nail. If your wallet don’t talk, then start to walk.”

Copenhagen is shaking itself to pieces.  Whatever the climate change movement may turn out to be, criminal conspiracies are typically held together by the prospect of dividing the loot.  Up until the heist is consummated, a kind of brotherhood holds the perps together. But once the loot is in hand, but more especially if the loot comes up short, then the sidelong glances begin.  Is this happening in Copenhagen? And as for the Left, why it’s about money too. The sound you hear in the streets isn’t necessarily about demonstrators bewailing the fate of the earth. It might also be the sound of environmentalists lamenting the fate of their jobs or people worrying about their carbon business. But don’t worry, they’ll get something — at the Western taxpayer’s expense. Some things need no translation.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Florida finds former state House Speaker Marco Rubio leading Democrat Kendrick Meek 49% to 35%. Governor Charlie Crist leads Meek 42% to 36%.

For Rubio, those numbers are little changes since October and August.

Crist’s edge over Meek is down from a 12-point lead in October.

The reason for the difference is that 79% of conservatives support Rubio but only 62% say Crist can count on their vote.

If Rubio can beat Meek -- and poll like this despite lack of party support -- why the heck is the GOP behind Crist?

Yes, he can.

Notice that Washington is pictured as the heart of nation, where tired, oxygen-depleted blood is replenished and returned to the hinterland. It's a perfect illustration of the worldview of the Left. The NRCC should turn this into a poster warning Americans about the consequences of another two years of Democratic dominance in Congress.

Oh, and using a Jefferson quote about liberty to promote socialism? Priceless.

Notice that Washington is pictured as the heart of nation, where tired, oxygen-depleted blood is replenished and returned to the hinterland. It's a perfect illustration of the worldview of the Left. The NRCC should turn this into a poster warning Americans about the consequences of another two years of Democratic dominance in Congress.

Oh, and using a Jefferson quote about liberty to promote socialism? Priceless.

Over at ICECAP.us Meteorologist Joe D’Aleo has posted an item on a “Russian Bombshell” highly relevant to the ClimateGate scandal. The Russian media first posted the story and now some Brits are loving it.

The long and the short of it is best summarized by the Telegraph’s James Dellingpole: “What the Russians are suggesting here, in other words, is that the entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world government policy is a crock.”

That is, we have yet further evidence that the data is being cooked to make the long-running claim of an increase in global temperatures, and now to diminish the apparent cooling of said temps. As the gang at EU referendum tout, “it is in Soviet Union that the CRU, NOAA, NASA show the greatest warming.”

Around the world temperature stations have been widely decommissioned in rural and higher elevations, and we see an over-emphasis on increasingly urbanized (and therefore warmer) stations in the curious selection process as to what temperatures should count, and how much. The latter point references the fact that the data is then adjusted, and we are also seeing an increase in adjusting urbanized (that is, artificially warm) temperature records not down, but upward.

Excerpted in pertinent part, Joe Writes:

On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.

The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. …The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.

The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations. …

IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.

The reason this cherry-picking is relevant — as is the apparent similar gamesmanship being played with other countries examined in recent days including China and New Zealand — because our NOAA compiles the global dataset and the rest work from it. So when CRU claimed that it “lost” its raw data, what they’re saying is the claim to have lost which stations they chose from NOAA’s compilation, making it impossible for those who wish to check it to discern how they got the answer they did.

If it is what it appears to be, and my dozen years working with these people and the past few weeks peeking further inside thanks to ClimateGate tell me that it is, then this is root-cause corruption.

Meanwhile, they are scrambling madly to stitch up an agreement in Copenhagen politically committing the U.S. to the long-desired wealth-transfer. The question is which moves faster, the collapse of the increasingly likely scientific fraud, or the global governance set.

All eyes are on Nelson. On the one hand, when a president just needs one vote from his own party on a key initiative, he usually gets it and Republicans are nervous about Nelson's intestinal fortitude under this kind of pressure. On the other hand, Nelson is pretty far out on the limb here and it's going to be hard for him to back down without a real win on the substance. Republicans still hold out hope that there are "lurkers," Democrats who haven't been so public but still have real problems voting for cloture on the bill. We'd probably already know about them, though. More likely is that there are moderate Democrats who are uncomfortable with the rush to move before Christmas and want to slow the process down. If so, opponents of the bill would be delighted with the delay, believing that every day the bill is out there it becomes more unpopular. Conservatives and independents already hate the bill -- if the Left can talk itself into hating the bill too, it'll be unanimous. For now, this is the most important news -- Reid hasn't revealed a bill yet and hasn't filed for cloture. Every day he doesn't is a good one for the opposition.

National Public Radio covered the "Code Red" protests against liberal health "reform" plans on Tuesday night’s All Things Considered newscast, but the tone wasn’t loaded with respect. Correspondent Andrea Seabrook, the same reporter who recently bowed before Michelle Obama on NPR as "the perfect mix of personable and formal, poise and personality," played up a dorks-with-pitchforks angle for conservative protesters.

Seabrook found a man with a papier-mache pitchfork and torch and sneered: "They're happy to tell you they're the right-wing mob, several hundred people gathered to listen to their favorite conservative lawmakers."

Several hundred? NPR’s estimate was way below a report from Politico, which estimated attendance as "several thousand." Seabrook concluded with brio that the protesters wanted to "shove the entire health care bill off a cliff." Here’s how it sounded:

MELISSA BLOCK, host: While Democrats continue their efforts today to find consensus on health care, some conservatives gathered in a park outside the capitol to protest. Anti-tax groups from the tea party movement brought in demonstrators to attempt to block the process. NPR's Andrea Seabrook reports on the vocal opposition.

ANDREA SEABROOK: Today, the Republican National Committee released a new radio ad featuring RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

STEELE: The Democrats are accusing us Republicans of trying to delay and stonewall their government takeover of health care. You know what? They're finally right.

SEABROOK: It shows that as supporters of the health care overhaul are working on the end game, so is the opposition.

Mr. STEELE (in ad): This is our last chance to stop them. Contact your senators. Make Washington listen to you.

SEABROOK: And the opposition is mobilizing.

Mr. DOUG BARKER: (Singing) Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye.

SEABROOK: This is Doug Barker of Chester, Virginia. He stands in a park across the street from the U.S. Capitol holding up two papier-mache props.

Mr. BARKER: I have a pitchfork and a torch because I'm ready to throw these guys out of office, me and all these people right here.

SEABROOK: They're happy to tell you they're the right-wing mob, several hundred people gathered to listen to their favorite conservative lawmakers like Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota.

BACHMANN: You came before and you came again. I guess they must be deaf; they can't hear you. (Applause)

SEABROOK: And Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn.

COBURN: The health care bill isn't about health care. The health care bill is about government control. The health care bill is about eliminating the liberty and freedom to choose what is best for you and your family.

The "few dozen" people scared up by Moveon.org outside the White House drew no label from Seabrook. They were only opposed to "conservative Democrats" delaying the bill:

SEABROOK: Now, down Pennsylvania Avenue, at the White House, there were demonstrators, too, a few dozen who came out to support the health care bill and protest the conservative Democrats they say are holding it up. But the protest at the Capitol was bigger and had more theater to it.

Mr. WILLIAM TEMPLE: You know, we fought the British over a three percent tea tax. We might as well bring the British back. I'll take the three percent tea tax any day now.

SEABROOK: This is not a British man but an American re-enactor dressed head to toe in Revolutionary costume.

Mr. TEMPLE: Well, I'm William Temple, and I'm from Brunswick, Georgia, from the colony down there, and we've been fighting the British and driving them out.

SEABROOK: Temple shakes his tricorner hat and points at the Capitol dome behind him.

Mr. TEMPLE: Well, it's 1776 all over again, and now, we got a House of Lords right up here. So, the 2010 elections are key for us. People are fed up. They've had enough of big government, and so you're seeing a sea change in this country like it hasn't been.

SEABROOK: So as the lawmakers inside the Capitol make a last push negotiating a bill, protesters outside are also making a last push: trying to shove the entire health care bill off a cliff. Andrea Seabrook, NPR News, The Capitol.

Overall, that was quite a few conservative voices, even if the reporter signaled her disdain for them. In a separate story, NPR reporter David Welna reported on how "a few dozen protesters organized by Moveon.org condemned Lieberman's hardball tactics." There was no liberal label here either.

PROTESTERS: Don't let Lieberman hijack health care. Don't let Lieberman hijack health care...

WELNA: Protester Donna Magee (ph) of Bethesda, Maryland, said Lieberman was acting solely on the interest of the big health insurance firms based in Connecticut.

MAGEE: I voted for him when he ran as vice president. And now he is completely turned the other way and is against all the things that we want.

Welna did mention the "liberal website Firedoglake.com" was campaigning against Mrs. Lieberman’s breast-cancer work. That's a very mild adjective for those radicals.

 “It was the correct course of action for Democrats to abandon their rush to adopt the proposed changes to the Akaka Bill at today’s hastily-scheduled markup.

“With both the Attorney General and Governor of Hawaii announcing their strong opposition to the proposed revisions to this bill, moving forward would have been irresponsible and highly alarming. 

“Regardless of the fact that the proposed rewrite was dealt a blow at today’s Committee hearing, fundamental concerns about the unconstitutionality of this legislation remain.   These questions must be squarely addressed and I intend to ask the U.S. Attorney General to directly state the views of the Department of Justice on the constitutionality of the Akaka bill.

“At the outset of the hearing, Republicans expressed their fundamental constitutional concerns with this effort to create a separate governing entity for Native Hawaiians, and served full notice to Committee Democrats that we intended to use every House rule and parliamentary tool available to us to insist our concerns be heard.  Until Representative Abercrombie stated his intentions to not push forward the proposed changes, Republicans demonstrated their dedication to using all tools available to them.

“As my colleagues continue to work on this legislation, I hope they not only address these constitutional concerns but do so in a manner that allows everyone the opportunity to thoroughly review and comment on any changes that are proposed.”

The purple people-beaters already dropped out of an event to promote the bill earlier today. [...] Read the rest »

By any reasonable measure, New York State is broke. The deficit over the next two years will be on the order of $20 billion. There is blame for this problem that can be leveled at both parties. Governor Pataki’s spending was roughly 2.5 times inflation, making Mario Cuomo appear as thrifty as a Scotsman.

The real issue is the influence of unions in the budget process. In the last election Governor Pataki won (2002), he promised several billion dollars to the Hospital Workers Union in order to secure Dennis Rivera’s support.

Financing the accumulated debt is another corrosive influence, along with a state legislature that believes you secure votes by instituting new give-away programs (e.g., the New York health initiative for small businessmen).

What New York needs is a courageous politician who will not seek reelection and will engage in serious retrenchment. What the legislature needs is a Republican-led Senate that will stand up to Sheldon Silver and the out-of-control spenders in the Assembly. (Keep in mind that when the Republicans did control the Senate, they acted just like their Democratic counterparts.)

New York may finally come to its senses when the state bond is downgraded to “junk,” which will imperil a new round of borrowing.

-- Herbert London is president of the Hudson Institute.

A sample:

Sex makes people stupid. This is why we need a little thing called “civilization” to intervene between people and sexual passion, so we don’t leave the young-uns to rely on their own genius to figure out certain enduring truths, like: A married man cannot betray you. You are not a betrayee. You are the co-betrayer; .  .  .. A married man can’t be unfaithful to you. He can only be unfaithful with you, to his wife.

Here’s civilizational lesson No. 2: Having betrayed another woman by sleeping with her husband, don’t compound the offense by going on national TV, or worse, by writing to the wife to tell her of the joys of your adulterous union.

A new kind of other woman is emerging, and it’s not a pretty sight. Worse than the whining is the new note of self-righteous aggression that is creeping into the other woman’s tone.

For the sad examples, read the column. Meanwhile, the bottom line is:

Sexual virtue is hard. That is why most civilizations through most of human history have invested serious resources in attempting to teach the next generation how they’re ideally supposed to behave. Looking at this new other woman emerging, civilization has its work cut out for it.

Phelim is the maker of Not Evil, Just Wrong.

Phelim is the maker of Not Evil, Just Wrong.

Geraghty counts this as another star in the great galaxy of broken Obama promises, dating to the convention when he vowed to take out Bin Laden and his underlings “if we have them in our sights.” [...] Read the rest »

National Defense Magazine describes the situation many of us find ourselves in. The US military is now collecting so much sensor data on the battlefield that it is literally being overwhelmed by it.  Moreover, it finds itself constipated by legacy rules and regulations which prevent the information from being provided to combatants who need it. In an article entitled “Military ‘Swimming In Sensors and Drowning in Data’”, Stew Magnuson writes:

Synthesizing all these collection disciplines and disseminating them quickly is the challenge facing the military. If intelligence is the “coin of the realm,” as Clapper and other senior leaders said at the GEO-Int conference here, then the military may soon have more cash than it can spend.

“We’re going to find ourselves in the not too distant future swimming in sensors and drowning in data,” said Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

The problem started when a sharp increase in the quantity and quality of sensors began to outpace the analysis capabilities of the Air Force. One increased according to Moore’s Law while the other increased linearly, if at all. For example, new capabilities on the MQ-9 Reaper alone will increase the video feeds in a 24 hour period from that platform from 39 to more than 3,000. Who’s going to watch that feed? The Air Force has decided that whoever it is, it ain’t gonna be people. Automated systems are the planned upgrade path.

“Okay, I have got 27 targets to look at now. Does that mean I have to put 27 guys … on the shift that day?”

Industry now has to come up with the smart technology, machine-to-machine interfaces, that can help sort through all the data. There are 332,000 airmen in the Air Force, Heithold said. And they’re “really busy.” …

Whatever the solution is to sorting through all this data, it will not be more analysts.

“The answer isn’t throwing more manpower at it because in DoD, we don’t have it … It’s easier for me to get money than it is to get manpower,” he said. “We’re going to have to use technology, smart systems that cipher through the intelligence,” he added.

An increase in intelligence capability now translates to an increase in operational capability. Today it is not bullets or missiles that kill — they do in the sense that a triggerman pulls the trigger — but intelligence is the mastermind of the whole process. Destroying something on the ground has become the easy part of the US operational cycle. Knowing what to destroy, putting the cross hairs on something — that is the hardest part. The article cited the hunt for Zarqawi as an example. “Predator unmanned aerial vehicles flew 24 hours a day, seven days a week for a total of 600 hours to pinpoint Zarqawi’s location. Once that was done, it took only six minutes for two nearby F-16s to deliver the bombs that killed him.”

Operations at the same level as the information gathering may have real time capability. But for those who must work lower down in the chain getting intelligence can be hampered by the simple inability to internally deliver it. “’No matter what anybody says, it’s pathetic,’ Maj. Gen. John M. Custer, commanding general of Fort Huachuca, Ariz., and the Army intelligence center, said of the information sharing environment.”

Part of the problem is the changing economics of information. Only ten years ago sensor data was relatively scarce and held back to create power. It was, as the National Defense Magazine article observed, the “coin of the realm”. Today the information flows are literally a thousand times greater. Information is coming in by the truckload into a system designed to deal it out by the troy ounce.

The situation facing the Air Force has some points of similarity to the crisis which is now gripping the traditional media, but also key differences. The digital revolution significantly undermined the MSM’s monopoly on news gathering but it completely destroyed its hold over the distribution process. In the case of the USAF it still retains a monopoly over the sensor data acquisition but now finds that it is largely useless unless it can destroy its own self-created monopolies over distribution. It will have to do it somehow and whether it delegates to machine systems or to people it will still have to widen its distrubtion channel somehow. The only question is which mode to choose.

The revolution in the economics of information is forcing a revaluation of many tasks in the knowledge industry which would have been considered stable only a decade ago. The only constant is the law of supply and demand. Bottlenecks in the information system will largely determine which information processing tasks are the most valuable. They must in order for resources to flow into the bottleneck and eliminate them. Since the location of those bottlenecks is dynamically changing, these must be continuously found through a market process or self-reflection. The re-alignments in the news business are bound to reflect a market process, however it may be resisted by the likes of Dan Rather and his pleas for government support. But for the USAF, the price of information processing has to be determined either through internal markets or self-reflection. One thing is for sure: the economics of information in 2009 is no longer what it was in 1999. And it is unlikely to remain stable out to 2019.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

*  Many readers pointed out that the examples in my first paragraph (mine, not Paul Johnson's) are not so much of science as of technology, and it's technology that people trust, not the underlying science.

That's a good point. Our trust in science is implicit. We drive over the bridge in confidence that it won't fall down, because we trust that the engineers who designed it worked from sound scientific principles. Even though we (those of us who are not structural engineers) don't understand the underlying principles, we trust them because we perceive a direct connection between them and the bridge; and the bridge (a) has been standing for 80 years, and (b) is of high utility to us.

[That (b) introduces an element of wishful thinking into our decision; but some component of wishful thinking is hardly ever, perhaps never, absent from human thought. In my opinion.]

The trust breaks down when there is no obvious bridge-to-principles connection, perhaps no bridge at all. We are willing to trust science when it cashes out as technology. Prior to that, our normal inclination is not to trust science. I know as much about string theory as I do about structural engineering (not much in either case), but my strong inclination is to trust the second more than the first.

For one thing, with no technology -- nothing of utility to us -- wishful thinking is not engaged. The most powerful reasons for believing in an abstract idea are, what? Evidential? Ha ha ha ha! The most powerful single reason for believing in an abstraction is that we want to. I am keenly desirous of getting to Denver before tomorrow night; I'll trust theoretical aerodynamics to take care of it.

For another thing, science has more epistemic depth than most of us can cope with. That water quenches thirst and puts out fires, I can confirm by experience. That it is composed of hydrogen molecules bonded to oxygen molecules by electromagnetic forces, I take on trust. "What the deuce is it to me?" I take it on trust because water's real useful (see above). I'd likely be skeptical about the hydrogen/oxygen business if it were detached from the thirst-quenching and fire-extinguishing. It sounds improbable on the face of it, and one can easily think up folkish objections, of the kind that creationists make against evolution. (Hydrogen's highly flammable. If there's hydrogen in water, why isn't water flammable? Etc., etc.)

When unmoored from utility, abstract ideas have to appeal to the human mind on their merits; and the human mind is so structured that the only abstract ideas it regards as having merit are those that concord with the "naïve duality" that is our default metaphysic -- "medium-sized dry goods" being acted on by human wills, or by invisible spirits possessed of human-like wills. That's as much epistemic depth as most of us can handle. Abstract ideas at odds with that schema just irritate us. And of course, an abstract idea widely held among people we dislike for personal, social, or tribal reasons, is doubly unappealing.

As a very great (though shamefully under-recognized) writer once said:

The ordinary modes of human thinking are magical, religious, social, and personal. We want our wishes to come true; we want the universe to care about us; we want the approval of those around us; we want to get even with that s.o.b who insulted us at the last tribal council. For most people, wanting to know the cold truth about the world is way, way down the list.
                    — We Are Doomed, pp.147-8

*  Physicist Russell Seitz has chid me quite vigorously for having linked to John McLaughlin's American Thinker piece on the Gerlich/Tscheuschner paper in the International Journal of Modern Physics, and to the denialist petition. Here, with his permission, is what Russell says:

Dear John;

The link you adduce as providing "reasonable doubt" as to the mechanism by which gases like CO₂ alter the radiative balance, and hence the surface temperature of the Earth connects to a defense of a work that illustrates what lurks in the scientific "penumbra" to which you refer. In some astute scientific opinion, evidence of tinkering with peer review that has scandalized many readers of the CRU files is even more in evidence in the solicited review article uncritically discussed by Mr. McLaughlin in his American Thinker piece …

You go on to shrewdly observe that "Scientists are human and subject to the same weaknesses, failings, and fixations as the rest of us … Math and science people usually don’t care much about politics. Their subjects are too difficult, demand too much in the way of mental resources, to leave anything over for thinking deeply about politics." [This is] a stricture that certainly does not apply to Mr. McLaughlin, who seems blessedly innocent of ever having perpetrated a scientific publication, which, one gathers from the search engines that keep track of the scientific pop charts over a spectrum 7,000 journals wide, is equally true of all but 37 of the "31,000 scientists who think that there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate."

That 99.88 percent of the petition’s signatories are relatively clueless is however less interesting than the fact that they outnumber the world's supply of actual atmospheric scientists by toughly an order of magnitude — not even the junketeering delights of Nice and Bali have enabled the UNEP to dragoon more than 1,500 of those rare birds into the IPCC fold. Could it be, as with the most viciously contested of faculty meetings, because the stakes are so low? Only those able, as well as willing, to read the scientific literature can answer the question for themselves, Too bad none of the regulars at NR's climate blog seems to answer to either criterion.

I am sorry if I used poor examples; but there certainly is reasonable doubt that increased CO₂ levels will do what the climate alarmists say they will do, and some of that reasonable doubt is nursed by respectable climatologists.

*  This all illustrates why wise science bloggers are reluctant to engage with the climate-change business. Even Steve Sailer, the political Right's most accomplished number-cruncher, is giving it a wide berth. Says Steve:

I know enough about statistics to realize how much effort would be required for me to develop an opinion worth expressing. Nor is it obvious that, even if I invested years of work, I would be able to add much value to the discussion.

After all, both sides in the debate over anthropogenic global warming debate are lavishly funded …

I feel the same way. Try subtracting out the following elements from the climate-change debate:

1   The attraction of apocalyptic visions to great numbers of people. To borrow a trope from G.K. Chesterton, when people stop believing in hell fire and the Tribulation, they'll believe in anything equivalent that anyone can come up with:  "Nuclear winter" … Y2K … climate-change catastrophe …

2   The mighty yearning among cognitive-elite Westerners to cringe in guilt and shame before the Third World, and to transfer over there as much of their nations' wealth as electorates will allow, in expiation for real or imagined historical crimes. The amounts transferred increase potlatch-style as Western elites compete with each other in the guilt'n'sensitivity stakes. It has been interesting to see the Copenhagen climate summit degenerate into a classic shakedown of successful populations by unsuccessful ones. Our president will feel right at home there.

3   Routine matters of cold interest (in the tenth meaning here). Was anyone surprised, for instance, to hear the sharpest remarks about the CRU scandal uttered at Copenhagen by … the Saudi delegate.

4   Instinctual resistance to (2), for both social, fiscal, and political reasons, among non-elite or conservative Westerners.

Once you've subtracted all that science-neutral matter, there isn't much left to talk about, unless you want to spend a year or so, at no likely advantage to yourself (unless someone's paying your bills), immersing yourself in a very contentious field of scientific enquiry that rests on data that can be gathered only with great difficulty, and on theories about the dynamics of a fantastically complicated planet-sized system of interacting phenomena.

The results out of that field are not sufficiently dispositive to justify colossal international programs of action, designed and executed by (and, career-wise, for) plump, unaccountable globalist bureaucrats. Without dispositive evidence, such programs should be resisted on principle by everyone who cares about individual liberty and national sovereignty.

Hell, I'd be inclined to resist them anyway. Better dead than REDD.

Actor Sam Elliott, who played the Texan aeronaut Lee Scoresby in the 2007 movie "The Golden Compass," has blamed the Catholic Church for scaring Hollywood away from creating a sequel.

"The Catholic Church happened to ‘The Golden Compass,' as far as I'm concerned," said Elliott in a Dec. 14 interview with the London Evening Standard.

Elliott claimed that the Church "lambasted" the company that produced "The Golden Compass," New Line Cinema, and "scared New Line off." Elliott was referring to the boycott organized by Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. The London Evening Standard quoted Donahue's reason for opposing the movie.

"The reason I protested was the deceitful attempt to introduce Christian children to the wonders of atheism in a backdoor fashion at Christmas time," said Donahue. "Everyone agrees the film version was not anti-Catholic, but that hardly resolves the issue. The fact is that each volume in the trilogy becomes increasingly anti-Catholic."

As the British columnist Peter Hitchens put it, Pullman's trilogy "depicts priests as evil and murderous, drunk and probably perverted, and the Church as ‘a conspiracy against happiness and kindness.'"

But can the Church truly be blamed (or cheered, depending on your point of view) for the failure of "The Golden Compass" in the box office?

Well, Donahue was more than willing to take the credit.

"I am delighted the boycott worked," Donahue told the Evening Standard. "Just as the producers have a right to make the movie, I have a right to protest."

And the box office numbers appear to agree with him. According to Boxofficemojo.com, the movie fell far short of its expected $30-40 million opening day U.S. revenues, earning only $25.8 million. In fact, the U.S. only accounted for 18.8 percent of the movie's total profit - a startlingly low number since U.S. audiences usually account for at least 30 percent of big-money movies.

On the other hand, the film, not the Church, might have created its own demise. As the Guardian's film blog gamely pointed out yesterday, the Church hasn't had that much sway in preventing movie sequels in the past.

"The Catholic church hates a lot of things," wrote blogger Stuart Heritage. "The Vatican called the Twilight sequel New Moon "a moral vacuum with a deviant message," and that's only the second in a series. Cardinal Francis Arinze started huffing about legal action when The Da Vinci Code was released, and that got a sequel in which loads of Catholics run around on fire. The Pope said that Harry Potter would "corrupt the Christian faith" and that got seven sequels ... So maybe, just maybe, ‘The Golden Compass' wasn't given any sequels because it didn't deserve any."

Of course there could be another reason entirely why the film flopped.

It's quite possible that the majority of Americans value their religious beliefs and don't want to watch a movie that displays contempt for them. A survey published by the Pew Research Center last year reported that 92 percent of Americans believe in God or a universal spirit. And box office numbers prove that Americans like movies that support rather than undermine that belief.

Two years before the "The Golden Compass" but on the same opening weekend, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" - a movie based on C.S. Lewis' religious allegory of God and redemption - hit theaters nationwide. On its first day, the movie grossed $65.5 million. It went on to earn a total of $745 million worldwide with nearly 40 percent of those profits coming from the U.S.

The trend holds if you compare "The Golden Compass" to a movie released within the same year. In 2007, a much less hyped movie called "Juno" opened two days before "The Golden Compass." "Juno" follows the nine-month journey of a pregnant high school girl who decides that instead of selfishly aborting her child, she's going to give it to a couple that has desperately tried to adopt for years.

With limited advertising to promote the movie before its release, "Juno" initially grossed only $10.6 million nationwide. By the time the movie left theaters, however, it had earned $231.4 million worldwide - 62 percent of which came from the U.S. With a production budget one-twentieth that of "The Golden Compass," that's quite a hefty return.

Update: Jane Hamsher, the left-wing blogger who launched the campaign against Hadassah Lieberman, has posted a series of videos of Progressive Caucus members swearing up and down that they won't vote for any bill that doesn't include a public option. She also runs a website called Public Option Please that recently sponsored an art contest. How creepy is the winning entry?

In a recent article published in The Atlantic Jonathan Gruber, an economist from MIT was enthused over the Senate’s healthcare bill because of its kitchen sink approach to the problem of rising healthcare costs. “I can’t think of a thing to try that they didn’t try. They really make the best effort anyone has ever made. Everything is in here….I can’t think of anything I’d do that they are not doing in the bill.” This quote is a distillation of the problem I have with the whole healthcare reform effort. It seems like a case of throw it up on a wall and see if it sticks.

From the beginning of the debate and the resultant bills in Congress there has been no thought put into the root cause of the high cost of healthcare. As usual the players who were allowed to sit at the table were the ones who had the most to lose if the status quo really changed. Special interest groups (i.e., unions, hospitals corporation, medical insurance industry, pharmaceutical industry, and the AMA) each flooded Washington with money and controlled both the argument, and the perceived solutions for the mess that has become our healthcare system. At no point were physicians on the front line who deliver patient care or patients who are victims of the health insurance maze given a voice in the process let alone a seat at the table.

The reality is that the government’s insertion into healthcare has led to the high costs that we are living with today. It began when the Medicare reimbursements to physicians were disconnected from the costs of delivering quality healthcare. For over 10 years the reimbursements for physicians has dropped every year while the cost of supplies, malpractice premiums and overhead expenses have continued to rise. This is the underlying engine for the cost shifting to both insured and self pay patients that we have seen over the years. It has become an untenable situation leading physicians to seek paid positions in hospitals, form large single and multispecialty groups, opt out of the system and move towards a concierge model or leave the practice of medicine completely. Overall, this has led to a fracture in the doctor patient relationship, and a rise in the number and clinical expansion of providers such as physician assistants and nurse practitioners in an effort to fill the gap left by the physician’s need to see an ever increasing patient load per day to keep the doors open.

In addition, the range of services that are eligible for reimbursement has narrowed so that doctors are offering Medicare patients less service. This problem will only get worse if the congressional reform bill is passed. Expanding who is eligible for Medicare, controlling what medical services will be covered, determining standards of medical care through task forces (like recent recommendations about mammograms), and expanding the powers of the HHS secretary are all examples of the government expanding its role into healthcare delivery. It is hard to imagine that the involvement of the government will lead to a different outcome than what is happening with other government run entities like the postal system, Medicare and Social Security, each of which is an example of inefficiency and is either losing money or is in the process of going bankrupt respectively.

There are six arguments in favor of reform that have been stated as fact that will actually work against true healthcare reform.

1. Medicare coverage is less restrictive than commercial insurance

In reality, Medicare has a higher denial rate compared to the top commercial insurance plans. Expanding Medicare will lead to less choice in the form of an ever decreasing panel of physicians who actually take it and less coverage for services.

2. Medicare for all will improve access to doctors

Nationwide about 25% of doctors no longer accept Medicare. In some large cities like NY that number is as high as 30%. In 2010, Medicare has announced that they will no longer pay for consultations. That means that specialists such as cardiologists, gastroenterologists, ophthalmologists will lose over 25-30% of their reimbursements. This will likely have a chilling effect on access of Medicare patients to specialists. If and when the commercial insurance companies adopt this payment system, it may also lead to less access to specialists for all insured people.

3. There is a shortage of primary care doctors

There is a shortage of physicians. Less people are choosing to go to medical school and because of that an increasing number of students who attend foreign medical schools are matching at US residency programs. It is difficult to ignore the fact that the growth in the number of medical schools in the Caribbean (from 4 in the 1970’s to approximately 60 today) and a growing relationship between these medical schools and US residency programs has likely been tied to the need to fill empty residency slots.

4. Health care costs are driven by specialists who perform procedures

Healthcare costs are driven by many factors, but one of the major problems is the emphasis on treating chronic disease. Another factor are the administrative costs of insurance companies which account for approximately 23 cents of every healthcare dollar is spent. The treatment of chronic disease will be difficult to contain. For example, it is estimated that the cost of treating diabetes will be three times higher and increase to 336 billion by 2035.

5. Rising healthcare costs can be disconnected from Tort reform

The practice of defensive medicine is a powerful driving force in rising healthcare costs. It must be included to achieve real reform and bring down costs.

6. Medical technology is a cause of high healthcare costs

Taxing medical devices could have a chilling effect on innovation and access to state of the art medical devices (e.g., the hardware for knee/hip replacements) that make our healthcare system unique.

As it stands now, the healthcare reform effort by Congress will not achieve its stated goals. 30 million more people will carry insurance by mandate. However, it is not likely that they will get what they pay for. There will be a decrease in: 1) easy access to physicians; 2) access to recommended services/testing, and 3) access to state of the art medical devices. By contrast the insurance industry will get a boost in customers without having to take on increased risk from those people age 55-65 that choose to enter the expanded Medicare program instead of purchasing private insurance.

The rules of the game have not really changed. Insurance companies will still be able to deny payment AFTER the procedure has been pre-certified, they can still play games with computer claim software to underpay physicians for services rendered, they can still arbitrarily pay claims late, they can collude with each other since they are exempt from anti-trust laws, and they can raise premiums and shift the burden of costs to patients at will with deductibles and co-insurance fees. The only difference now is that they just get a bigger pool of insured from which to collect premiums.

Congressional Democrats are starting to voice their anger at President Obama over the way health care legislation has been compromised, blaming him for not fighting harder.

"The president keeps listening to Rahm Emanuel," said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). "No public option, no extending Medicare to 55, no nothing, an excise tax, God!" he exclaimed about the Senate health care bill to Roll Call. "The insurance lobby is taking over."

Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wis.), told Politico of Senate delays, "It's ridiculous, and the Obama administration is sitting on the sidelines. That's nonsense."*

While many House Democrats have expressed anger with the Senate for the watered-down bill, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) argued that it was really Obama who let centrists take control. "Snowe? Stupak? Lieberman? Who left these people in charge?" he said. "It's time for the president to get his hands dirty. Some of us have compromised our compromised compromise. We need the president to stand up for the values our party shares. We must stop letting the tail wag the dog of this debate."

There’s a milblog protest today supporting Army Master Sgt. [...] Read the rest »

New York Times bias often came with a smile in the early part of 2009, with the paper falling hard for Obama's "historic" presidency and limitless intellect. But by late summer that smile had curdled into a snarl, as Times reporters seethed at“angry,” “bitter,” and, above all, “white” tea party protesters who challenged the president on his attempted takeover of health care and his massive spending proposals.

Times Watch welcomes first-time judge Scott Johnson to join Thomas Lifson and Don Luskin in choosing the most biased quotes as their "favorite" from the Times in 2009.

Scott Johnson of the Powerline blog went beyond the call of duty and may qualify for hazard pay, picking favorites in each category. But he found this quote from Thomas Friedman's September 9 column in praise of Communist China the worst of all:

Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today. One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages.

Johnson writes: “Given the esteem in which he is held by “right” (as in left) thinkers, Tom Friedman deserves special recognition for this quote. It sheds light on Friedman, the Times, and Times readers.”

Thomas Lifson, editor and publisher of American Thinker, picked this September 13 quote from columnist Maureen Dowd:

Surrounded by middle-aged white guys -- a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men's club -- Joe Wilson yelled "You lie!" at a president who didn't. But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!

Lifson commented: “Maureen Dowd’s imputing of racism to Rep. Joe Wilson, in her infamous 'You lie, boy!' fantasy is not merely repulsive, it reveals a mind alarmingly detached from reality. The sheer meanness and casual flinging of a scurrilous charge plumb a moral low.”

Don Luskin, chief investment officer of Trend Macrolytics LLC and publisher of The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid, picked the paper's double standards on unions, which are vital institutions -- for other businesses. For the New York Times itself? Not so much:

The argument against unions -- that they unduly burden employers with unreasonable demands -- is one that corporate America makes in good times and bad....The real issue is whether enhanced unionizing would worsen the recession, and there is no evidence that it would. There is a strong argument that the slack labor market of a recession actually makes unions all the more important. -- Editorial from Dec. 29, 2008.

vs.

The New York Times News Service will lay off at least 25 editorial employees next year and will move the editing of the service to a Florida newspaper owned by The New York Times Company....The plan for the news service calls for The Gainesville Sun, whose newsroom is not unionized and has lower salaries, to take over editing and page design. -- Richard Perez-Pena, Nov. 13, 2009.

Luskin said this double standard “expresses the fundamental hypocrisy of the Times as an elite institution that tries to establish its institutional legitimacy by attacking elite institutions.”

For all the worst quotes from 2009, visit Times Watch.

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Because of his monumental influence on the world’s most important economy, Bernanke has been named TIME magazine’s 2009 Person of the Year.

TIME Managing Editor Richard Stengel called the Federal Reserve “the most powerful, least understood government force shaping our lives” as he revealed his magazine’s choice live on TODAY Wednesday morning.

However, when MSNBC asked its readers they chose Steve Jobs:

Interestingly, more than 16,000 TODAYshow.com readers voted on their picks for Person of the Year and made decidedly different decisions. Readers’ top choice was Steve Jobs, who garnered 44 percent of the vote; the second pick was President Obama, who got 20 percent. Bernanke received backing from 3.2 percent of readers who participated.

Read more here.

For a list of previous preson of the year, go here.

How can anyone be mad at them just because thet crossed over some arbitrary border? They were only doing things that regularly invited guests didn't want to do, like hang out with Vice President Biden. How can the White House punish these poor, oppressed, undocumented visitors?

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But if she does get the nod, she'd be stupid to turn it down. It's not just that the job is obviously better than what she has now; in addition, J-Nap needs to get while the gettin' is good. DHS head is a job surrounded by landmines in the best of times; but when the left wing and the Hispanic chauvinist groups start to go ballistic next year over the failure of The One to deliver an amnesty, the White House is going to need a fall guy. And J-Nap has that target painted on her back as long as she stays at DHS and is the administration's point man on immigration. The sooner she declares victory and changes jobs, the less mud will stick to her when the irate open-borders tranzis look for someone to blame.