The best headline I've seen today:

GORE HEARING ON WARMING MAY BE PUT ON ICE (headline on drudge)

Al Gore is scheduled before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday morning to once again testify on the 'urgent need' to combat global warming. But Mother Nature seems ready to freeze the proceedings.

A 'Winter Storm Watch' has been posted for the nation's capitol and there is a potential for significant snow... sleet... or ice accumulations. "I can't imagine the Democrats would want to showcase Mr. Gore and his new findings on global warming as a winter storm rages outside," a Republican lawmaker emailed the DRUDGE REPORT. "And if the ice really piles up, it will not be safe to travel."

A spokesman for Sen. John Kerry, who chairs the committee, was not immediately available to comment on contingency plans. Global warming advocates have suggested this year's wild winter spells are proof of climate change.

Couldn't have happened to a better con artist! Unfortunately, this article indicates that the hearing will still happen, just later. Maybe they can wait until the hottest summer day? This is simply ridiculousness of the highest order.

On a related note, I would point out that the 'advocates' (whoever they are): "..have suggested this year's wild winter spells are proof of climate change." Note the climate change, versus global warming (hasn't the climate ALWAYS changed?). The changing of the narrative maybe? Wasn't it not long ago that the AP said that the cooling trend is proof of global warming? Why yes. Yes they did! From that article:

Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

Need I say more?

Stimulus Nazi: I didn't REALLY mean NO SOUP FOR YOU!!!

I wrote about the idiotic comments that Obama economic advisor Robert Reich made in stating that white males should be excluded from stimulus money (see my posts here and here). HotAit has more on the story:

Barack Obama’s economic advisor tried to rebut criticisms made over Robert Reich’s remarks almost three weeks ago to Congress over how to structure the stimulus package, but in fact rebuts nothing and defends none of his remarks. Reich accuses Michelle, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh of taking his remarks out of context, but fails entirely to provide context — and can only lamely link to Media Matters to rescue him...

We have two problems here. First, Reich did indeed talk about excluding white males from access by advising Congress to create “criteria” for their exclusion in favor of … well, everyone else. It’s rather absurd to argue otherwise, when Reich explicitly called for action to limit their access to these jobs. Reich takes the rather cowardly way out by not explaining the meaning of his televised remarks to Congress, instead airily referring to “context” when Reich has made clear that he wants government to treat infrastructure spending as a welfare program rather than a construction project. In fact, Reich was the one who specified “white male construction workers” as one group to avoid hiring. What is that, if not
exclusion?

The second problem is the actual advice to treat the stimulus as a welfare program. When we build bridges and roads, we need to ensure that we do work of the highest quality. Many of the jobs created in these areas won’t have skill requirements, but many of them will — and we should hire the best people available to ensure the highest quality work. When we travel over these bridges and roads, we want to assume they’re safe and well built. If one of them collapses from substandard work, the families of the dead won’t be comforted to know that politically correct hiring prevailed over skill and experience.

We’re supposed to be working towards a color-blind society. People like Reich are an anchor on progress, dead weight that should be discarded, especially now.

Major OUCH!

Update: Coach fired for un-apologizing after 100-0 win

An update on a story I blogged about a few days ago. HotAir comments on the non-apology apology:

Would Jesus be chucking threes in the fourth quarter up 85 points? The coach asks himself and answers … yes:

The Apology. In response to the statement posted on The Covenant School Website, I respectfully disagree with the apology, especially the notion that the Covenant School girls basketball team should feel “embarrassed” or “ashamed”. We played the game as it was meant to be played and would not intentionally run up the score on any opponent. Although a wide-margin victory is never evidence of compassion, my girls played with honor and integrity and showed respect to Dallas Academy. We honor God, ourselves, and our families when we step on the court to compete. I do no wish to forfeit the game. What kind of example does it set for our children? Do we really want to punish Covenant School girls? Does forfeiting really help Dallas Academy girls? We experienced a blowout almost 4 years ago and it was painful, but it made us who we are today. I believe in the lessons that sports teach us. Competition builds character, and teaches us to value selflessness, hard work, and perseverance. As a coach, I have instilled in my girls these values. So if I lose my job over these statements, I will walk away with my integrity.

His girls played with “honor” by straining to hit 100 points against a team that was outmatched from the opening tip? Winning 60-2 would have also “built character,” champ.

Ouch! Note to coaches: if you happen to be up on anyone 59-0 at halftime, be a sport and foul the other team often, letting them have at least a few points. On offense, practice your passing and let the shot clock expire every time. THAT would have shown a humble attitude. Had that happened, no one would have ever heard of this team or this story, and coach would have kept his job.

Scientists: OBESITY BUG YOU CAN CATCH!!!

A somewhat interesting headline I saw today. From the article:

"OBESITY can be “caught” as easily as a common cold from other people’s coughs, sneezes and dirty hands, scientists will claim today. Researchers believe that an airborne “adenovirus” germ could be causing the fat plague that is blighting Britain and other countries..."

“...When it goes to fat tissue it replicates, making more copies of itself and in the process increases the number of new fat cells, which may explain why people get fat when they are infected with this virus.” (HT:drudge)

Here's my question: would the fat cells multiply in the absence of extra calories? It's the calorie overage that would still fill these fat cells with triglycerides. No overage, no filling, the end result being extra small, flat fat cells. Thus, the root cause is still not the virus, but rather the consumption of too many calories. The virus, in essence, cannot break the conservation of energy principle. That's not environmental, that's personal!

When fat cells fill up all their stores with triglycerides from bad diets (bad meaning too many calories for what you need), they tend to split anyway because you are essentially maxing out their storage capacity. Once new fat cells are made, they are permanent, but that's no excuse to fill them up. You see, 'deflated' fat can hardly be seen (they're tiny!). For example, see any before/after pictures of bodybuilders or figure/fitness competitors. Here is an example (transformation of the week on bodybuilding.com) I pulled off of the web:

In the before picture, she was fat (275 lbs). In the after picture, she is very lean (147 lbs) with hardly any visible fat under the skin (women keep more fat then men as they need more 'essential' fat for reproductive purposes). The difference in the number of fat cells before and after? ZERO! The cells are just 'flat;' i.e. - not filled with triglycerides. Best way to do that - reduce the number of calories you eat and/or increase energy expenditure!

Thus, take a dose of suck-up pills and get off your duff! (and can we please stop treating this as a 'virus' already while pounding down whoppers and fries?)

More on Obama's attack on Rush

This from HotAir: Obama’s Folly. An excerpt:

George Bush never attacked Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, or other voices of the rabid Left by name. If he ever went on the attack against the left-wing media, he kept the attack general and broad, rather than specific. Bush may not have been the most media-savvy of our modern presidents — in fact, he may have been the worst at it since Nixon — but he knew enough about his office to understand that part of its strength would keep him somewhat above the partisan-pundit fray. Obama hasn’t figured that much out yet.

Ouch!

Ignoring life

(via powerline): Nothing to see here.

My conservative cousin filed this report on the massive right-to-life demonstration in Washington DC that portions of the MSM, including the New York Times, managed to miss.

On Thursday, I went to visit [my sister] at her new house in West Virginia. I changed trains in DC and had about 1/1/2 hours to kill. I walked outside Union Station and found myself in the middle of a massive right-to-life demonstration. The area around the Capitol was jammed with about a half million people. I saw crowds of Catholic clergy and lay people. But, not a TV camera or journalist with a notepad in sight.

I called [my wife] and told her to look in Friday's New York Times and bet her there would be no mention of this event. Sure enough the Times didn't consider this worthy of any coverage whatsoever. (Like your spouse my wife insists on buying the local liberal paper force of habit, she says.) Compare this with the coverage afforded when a comparable number of people descended on Washington to hear Louis Farrakhan's message of hate. Oh well, I was glad to see that none of these demonstrators were buying any of the Obama souvenirs hawked at many of the stands inside the station.

Stimulating ACORN

Yeah - THAT ACORN. Are Congressional Democrats really going to borrow money from our children and grandchildren to give handouts to ACORN in the name of economic “stimulus?” Apparently, yes. yes they are! (HT:CG)

Black Pastor Warns Obama about Abortion

At March, Black Pastor Warns Obama not to Preside over “Genocide” of American Blacks.

The most striking portion of Robinson’s speech came as he begged Obama not to preside over the genocide of African Americans. “We need change Mr. President because every day about 4000 babies die by abortion. Every day Mr. President, people with your ethnic background any my ethnic background die in astounding numbers. Abortion is the number one killer of African Americans in this country.”

“We make up about 12% of the population and about 34% of all abortions are black babies. In the last 36 years over 17 million African American babies have died by abortion alone. We need to change this picture. We need to stop this slaughter of the innocent preborn.

“Please Mr. President, be that agent of change that can commute the sentence of over 1400 African American children and over 3000 children from other ethnic groups sentenced to die every day in this country by abortion.”

“We need change and we need it now.”

Good speech meets deaf ears. The numbers are true. In addition, the arguments for abortion were the same exact arguments used against black slaves. They're not *really* people. not like US. Etc... (HT:CG)

Pelosi: BIRTH CONTROL WILL HELP ECONOMY!!!

this from the dimmest bulb in the U.S. House. Story headlines on Drudge.

Pelosi, the mother of 5 children and 6 grandchildren, who once said, "Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom," seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury. (emphasis mine)

I simply have nothing to add. Good grief! Hope and change!!!

Meanwhile, In Japan: Go home and get you schwervon! More babies please!

Big Government Bush

Over at The Volokh Conspiracy:
Nick Gillespie offers a highly critical assessment of the Bush presidency in yesterday's WSJ. As Gillespie shows, Bush was a "big government" conservative, and even conservatives who supported the Bush Administration's foreign policy and counter-terror measures should be disappointed with other aspects of his legacy.

If increases in government spending matter, then Mr. Bush is worse than any president in recent history. During his first four years in office -- a period during which his party controlled Congress -- he added a whopping $345 billion (in constant dollars) to the federal budget. The only other presidential term that comes close? Mr. Bush's second term. As of November 2008, he had added at least an additional $287 billion on top of that (and the months since then will add significantly to the bill). To put that in perspective, consider that the spendthrift LBJ added a mere $223 billion in total additional outlays in his one full term.

If spending under Mr. Bush was a disaster, regulation was even worse. The number of pages in the Federal Registry is a rough proxy for the swollen expanse of the regulatory state. In 2001, some 64,438 pages of regulations were added to it. In 2007, more than 78,000 new pages were added. Worse still, argues the Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy, Mr. Bush is the unparalleled master of "economically significant regulations" that cost the economy more than $100 million a year. Since 2001, he jacked that number by more than 70%. Since June 2008 alone, he introduced more than 100 economically significant regulations. . . .

Mr. Bush's legacy is thus a bizarro version of Ronald Reagan's. Reagan entered office declaring that government was not the solution to our problems, it was the problem. Ironically, he demonstrated that government could do some important things right -- he helped tame inflation and masterfully drew the Cold War to a nonviolent triumph for the Free World. By contrast, Mr. Bush has massively expanded the government along with the sense that government is incompetent.

That is no small accomplishment -- and its pernicious effects will last long after Mr. Bush has moved back to Texas.

My biggest disappointments with Bush were: #1 spending, #2 illegal immigration. And #1 was far up there on my disappointment scale, especially once the Medicare expansion took place. Sigh...

Obama flips Michigan the bird!

No joke. This from the freep today: The One, in his infinite wisdom, has deemed it necessary to sign another executive order. This time, it targets the automotive industry (you know, the one that is currently thriving?) by allowing each of the 50 states in the union to set emission standards. From the article:

The New York Times reported Sunday evening on its Web site that Obama would clear the way for individual states to exceed national fuel economy and emissions standards. Detroit and foreign automakers have waged a lengthy legal fight against California's rules, which set new limits on vehicle emissions to fight global warming. (emphasis mine)

Global warming? That old chestnut? You mean the same global warming that hasn't causes an iota of temperature rise since 1998? The one that has caused the most arctic ice cover since 1979? The same global warming that has caused the oceans to cool since 2003? The global warming of 'hockey stick' fame? The one forced on us by those horrible CO2 emissions? The one setting low temperature records all over the place this winter? THAT global warming? Well that's just great! What does the auto industry have to say?

Such rules would lead to fuel economy targets that automakers and dealers warn would create a patchwork of state laws, drive up costs and limit sales.

Sounds about right to me. So let me get this straight: states should have the right to regulate the naturally-occurring, and vital compound to all surface vegetation known as CO2, but they should have zero say in the murder of countless unborn? FOCA? Hello? Isn't this the same guy that just signed an executive order forcing my hard-earned tax dollars into the bloody hands of the abortion industry abroad? Why yes. Yes he is.

So it appears that Obama's priorities, tracked by his signing of executive orders, is this:

#1: Help the plight of the terrorists over in Gitmo (the ones who, once released, lead efforts of terror once again). Check!
#2: Abortion for everyone. With taxpayer dollars. Just have to be overseas. (But that's OK, FOCA is coming to a death dealer near you) Check!
#3: Screw the auto industry really bad by letting states make up silly fuel standards based on a non-existent ecological crisis of biblical proportion? Check!

I'm just waiting for #4 to come out soon. Take away kids lollipops? Atomic wedgies for all adults over 21?

So I'm just wondering, how are any of his executive orders supposed to help anyone here in Michigan or nationwide? Do any of these things help the economy? No. Just the opposite. Do they make us safer? No. Just the opposite. This is all red meat for the tinfoil hat-wearing, kool-aid drinking loony fringe left. So much for the era of post-partisanship.

Just remember, the UAW wanted this guy. A guy that despises the auto industry. Sure they'll get more bailout money to keep the racket going a bit longer without any fix to the systemic problems facing the auto industry. But that, along with this exectuive order, may well be the final nail in their own coffin. Can anyone say "thank you sir, may I have another?"

Football withdrawal

Hands shaking. Jittery. A loss of color. That's how I feel today, a perfectly nice, but crisp Sunday afternoon. Why all the effects? Likely because every single week at this time, since late summer, I have been firmly planted on the couch watching whatever football was offered through the local stations. Hey - NFL football is NFL football. Even here, in the land of the 0-16 Detroit Lions. In any case, for those that dwell on football nostalgia, they used to play the Superbowl the week after the NFC and AFC championship games. In that light, today would be the silver anniversary of the 1984 Superbowl ad that has become iconic. Caroline McCarthy over at CNET has a roundup of the ad here. Here's the ad in full:

Now I have to admit that I was not the football fan in my youth that I am now, and hardly remember the drubbing that the Redskins were given by the Raiders (yeah - THOSE Raiders from the long gone glory days). Nor do I remember the ad as a mac ad. Just the whole 'big brother' imagery, which has been used by others in the distant, and more recent, past. For instance, this Obama ad ran before the Democratic primary (and was pulled shortly thereafter):

Dissent = Treason?:

A few days ago, I had a post titled "Is Dissent Still Patrriotic?" Today, the Anchoress has more on that subject:

No, wait, dissent is still the very highest, ultimate form of patriotism. No, really. It is. And asking questions is good. Except when it’s not. Then it’s “obstruction.” It’s complicated. Back when Bush was president, it was okay (and good, and healthy for democracy) if you said the president was a terrorist, and a nazi-fascist, who should be assassinated. Now, if you just hope the president fails at promoting socialist policies, well…that’s arguably treasonist, baby, “arguably treasonist.” Got that? Wanna fantasize about assasination, actively work to expose sensitive policies in wartime and incessantly talk down the economy for one president? That’s alllllll good! Hope the other one fails? Treason. Evil treeeaasson!

Funny how fast a tune can change, eh?

California passes the tipping point

Betsy Newmark had this interesting roundup on California's self-imposed financial crisis:

Shannon Love writes at Chicago Boyz that California has reached the point of no
return:

"Instead of state employees working for the people, the people now work for the state employees. As far as the state government is concerned, people in the private sector work merely so that they can be taxed for the benefit of the tax consumers. They’ve entered a condition not unlike like that of pre-industrial serfs.

Of course no one is being whipped, but in effect an ordinary citizen of California cannot get their desires for reduced state spending implemented due to the disproportionate power of the State’s employees and allied interest. It appears now that the government unions will not accept any solution to California’s budget crisis except increased taxes in a declining economy. Ordinary citizens have no choice but to either emigrate or just lie there and take it. "

If you're an ordinary California taxpayer, you might want to think about that emigration possibility. This is the San Diego Union Tribune editorial that prompted her conclusion that they'd passed the tipping point.

"Controller John Chiang, a Democrat who aspires to be governor, is refusing to enforce Schwarzenegger's order that state workers take two unpaid furlough days a month beginning Feb. 1 to ensure the government has enough money to continue to perform its basic functions.

Why? Chiang says it is illegal. To the contrary, established case law gives government bodies considerable leeway during emergencies. The unions challenging the furlough plan are going to need to establish that such an emergency doesn't exist. Good luck with that.

But questions about Chiang's intercession go far beyond the flimsiness of his assertion that the furlough plan is illegal. Even if it were, when did voters pass a constitutional amendment giving the controller power to veto the governor's decisions?

The answer, of course, is that they never did and never would. Voters know there can be only one governor at a time.

Considered in this context, Chiang's actions border on a bureaucratic coup d'état. It looks even more like a coup when you consider that Chiang is about to unilaterally implement his own plan to deal with the cash-flow crunch. When it was announced last week, most of the attention focused on his intention to withhold $1.9 billion in state tax refunds. More attention should have focused on Chiang's move to withhold $188 million in assistance to more than 1 million aged, blind and disabled Californians – money they rely on for food, rent and utility bills.

They are not going to be inconvenienced by Chiang's decision. Their lives will be grossly disrupted. But the controller doesn't care. He's taken care of his top priority: protecting public employees. He knows the unions always will remember this massive favor. "

Adds Betsy: "As more and more taxpayers with opportunities elsewhere move out, how will the state survive with the only ones left being just those "tax consumers?" " I think this relates also to government job growth in the face of private job shedding, which is a nationwide phenomenon, but which is grossly exaggerated in California. California is a case-in-point of what happens when you have a near democrat-hegemony. It already happens in big urban cities (Detroit, anyone?).

Obama’s Evangelicals: The Liberals’ New Useful Idiots

Saw this over at townhall by Doug Giles:

If it’s change you wanted, “Christian,” it’s change you’re about to get, as in more unborn babies are going to get offed, more Brad and Chad, and if things go Obama’s way, chunks of Scripture will officially get tagged as hate speech, your church will have to hire RuPaul or face punishment, and our military will have to make room for Chippendale dancers on the base partly because of you, the Obama evangelical, who voted for such a change.

Ouch! Although there is a growing movement of the "evangelical left" that wouldn't blink an eye to this.

Kroger system redeems coupons from cell phones

I saw this headline over at the Detroit News this morning. My shopping preferences came to mind. I tend to do more shopping at Costco and Sam's Club than anywhere else. I do so for the cost. Sam's Club is the place I go for meat (I eat at least a pound of lean beef and two pounds of chicken breast daily). Chicken breast for $1.88/lb. 90% lean beef for $2.88/lb. I go to Costco for about everything else. Including my broccoli, which they sell for $4.55 for a 3-lb bag of florets (I eat almost a pound each day). One thing I've noticed about the broc is that sometimes I will see the bags ready to expire the very next day. At $4.55. I always wondered what they did with it once it expired, so I asked a stockboy one day. His answer: "we throw it away." Throw it away! My question, which I didn't ask the stockboy, was why not mark it down dramatically before it expires, so that Costco at least get part of something, rather than all of nothing? Which leads me to Kroger.

Probably in the last 6 months or so, something changed in the store. Almost overnight, there were 'clearance items;' items close to expiration that were marked down dramatically. Gallon milk to expire in a few days? $0.99. 32oz yogurt ready to go bad? $0.50. My kids tend to go through a gallon or so of milk daily, so I have found myself going to Kroger whenever I pass by, just to see if there are any clearance items around. This has to be a win-win for Kroger. They get something for food that they would have had to throw away, plus more visits from this customer making it more likely that I would pick up other goods as well. I thought this to be innovative. So it's nice to see Kroger trying to keep up with technology and offering the e-coupon option now. Could better days be ahead for Kroger? With such innovation, I would think so.

Mitch Albom: The worst lies of all? The ones you expect

I saw this article on the freep this morning. Mitch's thesis? "I think we've become a country that believes that. We accept business lies. We almost expect them. " Ironic, but not surprising, that Mitch blames the business community for lying, while he, at the same time, works for the Detroit Free Press which itself spews liberal lies on a daily basis. Of course, Mitch doesn't see his own hypocrisy in this. Must be nice to lie within the liberal cocoon/echo chamber and sprain your elbow patting yourself on the back in self-congratulation for the lies of business that you are complicit in. I've mentioned Mitch's liberal bias before (here and here are two examples) in both his columns and his talk radio program. If Mitch wants to see the worst lies of all, he should stick to reading the pages of the Free Press, which has long abandoned objective journalism (reporting the news) to their most recent objective: forming public opinion. Mitch is correct about one thing - I've accepted long ago that the Free Press lies. And I expect it.

Harry Reid: Tax System Is Voluntary

I can't believe that this is real, but it sure looks to be (via moonbattery):

The hockey stick hoax

This was a classic from a few years ago - a graph purported to prove that anthropogenic global warming was indeed real. This was a centerpiece of Gore's fear-mongering. The researchers that made it refused to disclose their data, even though the study was funded with taxpayer money. In the end, it was proven to be a hoax (Did I mention it was funded by taxpayer money?). This should have been the nail in the coffin for the alarmists. Unfortunately, the controversy went right down the memory hole (surprise, surprise...). In any case, Powerline had a few things to say about it today. Here's the famous graph above climate data in Europe over the same time period (via moonbattery). See any differences? Yeah - me neither. Adds powerline: "The "hockey stick" graph had the virtue, from the alarmists' perspective, of "getting rid of" the Medieval Warm Period, which had always been acknowledged as the predecessor to the Little Ice Age and our own era, in which temperatures have recovered from the Little Ice Age..."

More:

More recent scientific work has thoroughly debunked the Mann "hockey stick" analysis. It has been shown to rest on "collation errors, unjustified truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, incorrect principal component calculations, geographical mislocations and other serious defects," as well as
"incorrect mathematics." There are indications, at least, that some of the errors on the part of Mann and his collaborators were deliberate--an instance of the corruption of science by politics and perverse financial incentives that underlies the entire global warming movement.

Andrew Bostom provides an excellent short summary of the significance of the hockey stick and its debunking by more rigorous scientists, which is readily understandable by the lay reader.

If you really want to worry about the climate, consider the fact
that we are due for another ice age.

UPDATE: Then there's this bar graph showing 2009 priorities (HT:moonbattery):

My guess is that BHO better be careful with this. It's a hot potato ready to burn him.

More on the stimulus Nazi

Remember the Robert Reich story I blogged about a few days ago? Michelle Malkin was on FoxNews to discuss the controversy:

(HT:HA)