TSUNAMI

The Chilean earthquake has triggered a tsunami watch in Hawaii. We are on the west side of Maui near Lahaina, ending a two week vacation as we head home Monday, and are watching the reports from all over Hawaii. The first waves, if they come, will hit the Big Island in about 5 minutes, at 11:05 AM. Will be able to watch it on TV! Updates coming later.

Hugh Hewitt and Mark Steyn on Obamacare Summit

A little more biased, but realistic, look at the Obamacare Summit by two of my favorite pundits.

A Rare Non-Ideological Look at Obamacare Summit

IBD avoids the inuendo of how "great" our President ran the summit, and explains some facts that the idealogues refuse to address.

Remember, they are looking for POWER - and are not the least bit concerned with healthcare!

The Dems are embarrassing themselves, and are too blinded by their "mandate" from the last election and their elitist bent to see that fact!

UNDERSTANDING OBAMA

James Taranto in Best of the Web Today views Obama through a blog discussion between Jonathan Chait and John Podhoretz on the Obamacare summit - "The Great Condescender".

An interesting read.

For Krugman Fans: some insight!

"The New Yorker's profile of former Enron adviser Paul Krugman has some interesting nuggets, none more so than the revelation that Krugman's wife, Robin Wells, has significant input into his column:


When he has a draft, he gives it to Wells to edit. Early on, she edited a lot--she had, they felt, a better sense than he did of how to communicate economics to the layperson. (She is also an economist—they met when she was a postdoc at M.I.T. and he was teaching there.) But he's much better at that now, and these days she focusses on making him less dry, less abstract, angrier. Recently, he gave her a draft of an article he'd done for Rolling Stone. He had written, "As Obama tries to deal with the crisis, he will get no help from Republican leaders," and after this she inserted the sentence "Worse yet, he'll get obstruction and lies." . . .
On the rare occasion when they disagree about something, she will be the one urging him to be more outraged or recalcitrant.


If you've ever thought there's something unmanly about Krugman's rage, now you know the reason why. The anger isn't even his; it comes from his bitter half."





H/T: WSJ Best of the Web Today

On Bipartisanship!

Jesse Helms view (not always my favorite, but accurate on this subject):


"Republicans should remember the words of Senator Jesse Helms: "Compromise, hell! If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?""


Hope our Republicans remember this!

H/T: Laura Ingraham

Our Friend to the North Issues a Warning we should heed!

David Warren explains the problem we and the world are facing with untethered debt expansion, led by BHO.

An interesting 2 paragraph summary:


"For our governments have created vast bureaucracies, employing immense numbers whose livelihoods depend entirely (whether they realize it or not) upon the capacity of profit-earning people to pay constantly increasing taxes.

It should have been grasped, decades ago, that the constant transfer of resources from the productive to the unproductive must eventually tip the ship. And when it does, real people go over the side, who get angry when they are thrown in the water. There are consequences to that anger."


A great analysis that should be read and understood. Get Ready!

"Blinded by Science"

George Will comments on our global warming theocrats!

"Another Liberal Crackup"

The WSJ summarizes the problem with BHO and his supporters: SLOW LEARNERS!

An interesting short read of the liberal attempts at moving left and the 4th failure in the last 50 years.

Bayh, Bayh Obama!

Evan Bayh gets out before the November disaster!

You are watching the self destruction of a stubborn ideologue.

Lack of Intellect, Plethora of Ideology

James Taranto in Fridays WSJ Best of the Web Today nails the machinations behind the KSM trial location and procedures. I hope all note how embarrassing this is for BHO!

His most important point:

"Similarly, it is obvious that Obama grossly underestimated the political risks of holding civilian trials (or of delegating the decision to Holder, who is far more an ideologue than a politician)."


My only question: Why doesn't he include BHO in this description of Holder?

For the NYT readers....

If you read their article on the IPCC and credibility problems yesterday, this post from Walter Russell Mead will tell you why you must not feel you are getting the full story from them. If you believe that you are, you are doing yourself a great disservice!

Hard to believe they can be this corrupt on such an important story!

So, Mr. President, the Republicans have no ideas?

Newt Gingrich and John C. Goodman summarize the ideas that have been offered over the last year - and without discussion, refused by the Dems - to counter the misleading statements from the administration and the Dems.

Let's hope the discussion BHO is setting up with the Republicans will change their ways.

All supporters of Obamacare - or as I prefer, HealthFare - should review these ideas and see if they make sense. Don't listen to your leaders, review them yourself!

Tort Reform, anyone?

An interesting analysis of John Brennan's controversial Op-Ed

At NRO there is an analysis of the faults with John Brennan's analysis of the adminstrations handling of the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

This guy seems to have a lot of respect among the DC insiders. Who knows why?

Education and the Fallacy of "Fairness"

Thomas Sowell gets it exactly right exposing an attempt in a Berkeley high school to trade off science education for social work - part of the "redistribution" mentality!

Key quote:

"Redistribution of material resources has a very poor track record when it comes to actually helping those who are lagging, whether in education, in the economy or elsewhere. What they need are the attitudes, priorities and behavior which produce the outcomes desired."

Republican's Lucid Map Health Care Legislation and Solvency

BHO and his cohorts can refuse to recognize Republican ideas and refuse to negotiate these ideas instead of "backrooming" their "inpenetrable labyrinth of healthcare legislation", but it will be the Dem's doom if they continue.

Read George Will's "Charting Our Way to Solvency" to see what I mean. A summary of the best Republican ideas with a little speculation on what 2012 will bring to the Republicans. A really important read for those listening only to the propaganda from the Dems!

A set of ideas on fixing healthcare, social security, and the tax system that the Dems would be wise to discuss.

Global Warming lack of Credibility

In "Credibility is What's Really Melting" Mark Steyn clearly, and with humor, explains the "science" credibility gap. An important read for all you "believers".

The heart of the problem:

“Climate change” is not a story of climate change, which has been a fact of life throughout our planet’s history. It is a far more contemporary story about the corruption of science and “peer review” by hucksters, opportunists and global-government control-freaks. I can see what’s in it for Dr. Pachauri and professor Hasnain, and even for the lowly Environmental Correspondent enjoying a cozy sinecure at a time of newspaper cutbacks in everything from foreign bureaus to arts coverage.

But it’s hard to see what’s in it for Dan Gajewski of Ottawa [writer of a critical email to Mark Steyn] and the millions of kindred spirits who’ve signed on to this racket and are determined to stick with it. Don’t be the last off a collapsing bandwagon. The scientific “consensus” is melting way faster than the glaciers.

Zane Grey

I am starting to read the novels of Zane Grey - one of our great western writers. His best known story - "Riders of the Purple Sage" - was made into a TV movie several years ago and is a quite good book.

He was a very good writer! These paragraphs caught my eye - and mind - this morning. This is from "Under the Tonto Rim", the story of a young lady who has volunteered to teach and bring a set of backwoods people into the modern world. He is describing a summer morning in the woods where she is staying:


"It was midsummer. The mornings were pleasant, the days hot and still, the evenings sultry and purple, with massed clouds in the west.

The July rains had left the ridges and open patches and the edges of the clearings colorful and fragrant with flowers. Corn and cane and beans were green and wavy in the fields. A steady line of bees flew by the cabin porch, to and fro from hives to woods. And a drowsy murmuring hum made music down by the shady stream.

At sunrise the home of the Denmeades seemed to be a rendezvous for the frisky chipmunk and chattering red squirrel, for squalling blue jay and whistling hawk and cawing crow, and for the few wild singing birds of the locality. At noon the woods were locked in hot, drowsy stillness; the pine needles did not quiver; heat veils rose smokily from the glades. At evening a melancholy pervaded the wilderness."


Great writing! I read that and I am in the woods!

To My Secularist Friends - Try Some Introspection!

Michael Barone, in a discussion of the global warming fanatics corrupting science, has the most insightful explanation of secularism that I have ever seen. Are the elements he points out as "religious like" being used by you to fill the void left by dropping "religion" from your life? (By "religion" I do not necessarily mean organized, just belief in a power greater than us!).


"The secular religion of global warming has all the elements of a religious faith: original sin (we are polluting the planet), ritual (separate your waste for recycling), redemption (renounce economic growth) and the sale of indulgences (carbon offsets). We are told that we must have faith (all argument must end, as Al Gore likes to say) and must persecute heretics (global warming skeptics are like Holocaust deniers, we are told)."


Think about it!

Justice Thomas explains Citizens United

Justice Thomas explains the logic (and wisdom) of the majority in the Citizens United v Federal Election Commission. It amazes me that BHO - a constitutional law professor - and four justices on the Supreme Court cannot follow this.j (The answer of course is they believe the Constitution is meaningless. Is there another explanation?)



Here is the heart of his explanation:


"Justice Thomas said the First Amendment’s protections applied regardless of how people chose to assemble to participate in the political process.

“If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you’d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association,” he said. “If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you’d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association.”

“But what if you put yourself in a corporate form?” Justice Thomas asked, suggesting that the answer must be the same.

Asked about his attitude toward the two decisions overruled in Citizens United, he said, “If it’s wrong, the ultimate precedent is the Constitution.”

He also points out that the reason for government regulation of corporate involvement in Politics has a dark side. Here is his comment:

"He added that the history of Congressional regulation of corporate involvement in politics had a dark side, pointing to the Tillman Act, which banned corporate contributions to federal candidates in 1907.

“Go back and read why Tillman introduced that legislation,” Justice Thomas said, referring to Senator Benjamin Tillman. “Tillman was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them.”

It is thus a mistake, the justice said, to applaud the regulation of corporate speech as “some sort of beatific action.”

It is good that this article appeared in the NYT today. Sometimes they do the right thing!