Speaking Of Which...

clipped from pajamasmedia.com FROM CORNELL LAW PROF. WILLIAM JACOBSON, A CHALLENGE TO OBAMA: Request Special Counsel As To Foreign Contributions. “That the Obama campaign received foreign donations as a result of this scheme may be the only thing agreed-upon by both Pamela Geller and Charles Johnson. Indeed, Obama for America has admitted receiving foreign contributions. The fact that the Federal Election Commission is not investigating the allegations necessitates a special counsel.”

The Obamarang

clipped from pajamasmedia.com VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Obamarang. “All politicians fudge on their promises. But this president manages to transcend the normal political exaggeration and dissimulation. Whereas past executives shaded the truth, Barack Obama trumps that: on almost every key issue, what Obama says he will do, and what he says is true, is a clear guide to what he will not do, and what is not true. It is as if ‘truth’ is a mere problem of lesser mortals.” And when he criticizes foreign money in American campaigns, it means he got foreign contributions to his campaign.

Without Comment

clipped from pajamasmedia.com HEADLINE OF THE WEEK:

Scum

clipped from www.moonbattery.com From AP: Senate Democrats needed all the 60 votes at their disposal Thursday to muscle through legislation allowing the government to go $1.9 trillion deeper in debt. Democratic leaders were able to prevail on the politically volatile 60-39 vote only because Republican Sen.-elect Scott Brown of Massachusetts has yet to be seated. Republicans had insisted on a 60-vote, super-majority threshhold to pass the measure. … The massive increase in the debt limit would allow majority Democrats to avoid another vote until after the midterm elections this fall. New estimates released by the Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday show that the U.S. this year could run a deficit matching last year's record $1.4 trillion shortfall. … The current $12.4 trillion debt ceiling is expected to be reached in mid-February. These numbers are too huge to be comprehended — much less sustained. The scum controlling the federal government is quite literally destroying our country.

Frozen Over

clipped from www.moonbattery.com The MSM and the Obama Apologists would have you believe that the "Spending Freeze" Obama announced (and which was rightly snickered at in the SOTU) was at least a baby-step in the direction of fiscal responsibility and lean government. What they don't tell you is that the "freeze," even if enacted, represents a massive increase in spending from the Bush years. Department of Energy: $27 Billion under Bush, $65 billion under the Obama "freeze". Environmental Protection Agency: $7.8 billion budget under Bush, $17.7 billion under the Obama "freeze". Department of Education: $46.2 billion under Bush. $127.8 billion under the Obama freeze. Obama is only planning on "freezing" budgets at levels he has already bloated out. And, by the way, only about 11% of Federal spending is affected. By the way, the Democrat-run Senate has already rejected the idea of any spending freeze.

Fear The Boom And Bust

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Quite possibly the first rap video you will ever watch in rapt attention. And also quite possibly the last.

But you'll have something to talk about tomorrow now won't you?

I'm Sure They'll Come Again Next Year

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Nothing Runs Like A Deere

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Sincerely, Elly

clipped from iowahawk.typepad.com It's not just me saying this. Every day I talk to dozens of other typical __Iowahawk_  citizens at __name of mall__ and __other local public point of interest__. We see the difference that the policies of __elected Democratic official__  are making in our everyday lives. We are the real voice of __Iowahawk__, and __he/she_  has our complete support. Unfortunately __Iowahawk Blog__ would rather act as a corporate media echo chamber for the so-called "__name of local teabagger group__," who are nothing but a transparent front group for __local GOP campaign donor___. Despite what __Iowahawk Blog__ says, the common people of __Iowahawk_ are completely behind __elected Democratic official__. _He/she__ will prevail against the naysayers, just as surely as the __area sports team__ will defeat the __despised rivals__. Sincerely, Ellie Light

Not So Crazy After All These Years

clipped from www.bloomberg.com Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The idea of secret banking cabals that control the country and global economy are a given among conspiracy theorists who stockpile ammo, bottled water and peanut butter. After this week’s congressional hearing into the bailout of American International Group Inc., you have to wonder if those folks are crazy after all. Later, when it became clear information would be disclosed, New York Fed legal group staffer James Bergin e-mailed colleagues saying: “I have to think this train is probably going to leave the station soon and we need to focus our efforts on explaining the story as best we can. There were too many people involved in the deals -- too many counterparties, too many lawyers and advisors, too many people from AIG -- to keep a determined Congress from the information.” Think of the enormity of that statement. A staffer at a body with little public accountability and that exists to serve bankers is lamenting the inability to keep Congress in the dark.

In Which It Is Revealed What They Do A Bad Job Of

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Six Words

clipped from pajamasmedia.com OBAMA’S SPENDING FREEZE IN SIX WORDS: Big Mac, large fries, Diet Coke.

O Do We Deserve It

clipped from pajamasmedia.com From the Cato Liveblog: “The assertions about the Depression we would have had are outrageous. Their forecasts of the stimulus’s impact have been horrible, so how can they have any credibility on this kind of issue? ” I think it’s full speed ahead, here, credibility be damned. Plus this: “Bastiat is spinning in his grave.” The “stimulus” didn’t produce any jobs, but if we pass a new stimulus and call it a “jobs bill,” it will! More from Cato: “Wonderful, more government-directed investment. That worked really well with Fannie and Freddie.” Plus this prediction: “He’ll pivot from a new $100 billion jobs bill to cutting the deficit.” Ann Althouse: “Small businesses are good. (Come on, talk to them.) Big business sucks though. We want to help small business grow… so it can become big business and then we can hate it.” Seems pretty much like a recycled campaign speech to me. From Dan Mitchell at Cato: “We’ve all done something very naughty if this is the government we deserve.”

If It Stops Moving, Subsidize It

clipped from www.moonbattery.com Here's how the great Ronaldus Maximus summed up Big Government's view of the economy: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. Thanks to the relentless growth of the bureaucratic cancer that is choking the life out of our country, ever more of the economy has stopped moving, thereby earning subsidies — i.e., money stolen from you to be doled out by our corrupt rulers to whomever deserves it least. Since Reagan's modest efforts to rein them in, federal subsidies have nearly doubled, reaching the 2,000 mark a few days ago. Cato@Liberty comments: There is a federal subsidy program for every year that has passed since Emperor Augustus held sway in Rome. We've gone from bread and circuses to food stamps, the National Endowment for the Arts, and 1,999 other hand-out programs from the imperial city on the Potomac. I wonder if the Roman governing class rushed headlong into decline and ruin deliberately, the way ours seems to be doing.

How Ridiculous

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Plus this: Poll shows Scott Brown could top Obama in prez run. That’s ridiculous. A guy who’s barely even been elected to the Senate, going to the White House in just a couple of years without accumulating any real experience at the national level? Spare me the absurd speculation. Couldn’t happen.

Dukakis Redux

clipped from online.wsj.com The memo urges Democratic candidates to force their opponents to answer a series of questions: "Do you believe that Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen? . . ." If a Republican candidate says no to any of the questions, the memo says Democrats should "make their primary opponent or conservative activists know it. This will cause them to take heat from their primary opponents and could likely provoke a flip-flop, as it already has several times with Mark Kirk in Illinois." If you want to read the rest of the questions, click through to the link atop this item. We truncated the list because the first item is absolutely jaw-dropping. Are we given to understand that the Democrats intend to run for office by raising questions about Barack Obama's eligibility to be president? That has got to be the most brilliant campaign strategy since Michael Dukakis and Max Cleland raised questions about their own patriotism.

On steroids methinks.

Norman Borlaug R.I.P.

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You Will Be Equal

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Him

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Rep. Marion Berry, an Arkansas Democrat, has decided not to seek re-election. Berry told ABC News that he fears a repeat of the 1994 midterm elections. According to Berry, the White House does not share this concern: "They just don't seem to give it any credibility at all," Berry said. "They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, 'Well, the big difference here and in '94 was you've got me.'" UPDATE: Berry's anecdote reminds me of something a friend told me about Obama. This friend met Obama when they were both summer associates at the same law firm. Years later, as Obama's campaign for president was picking up momentum, he gave me his impressions from that summer. Since my friend is not inclined to say harsh things about others, I expected him to give a favorable account of Obama too. Instead, he described Obama as "the most arrogant person I've ever met."

Peerless

clipped from wattsupwiththat.com Here’s the latest development, courtesy of Dr Richard North – and it’s a cracker. It seems that, not content with having lied to us about shrinking glaciers, increasing hurricanes, and rising sea levels, the IPCC’s latest assessment report also told us a complete load of porkies about the danger posed by climate change to the Amazon rainforest. This is to be found in Chapter 13 of the Working Group II report, the same part of the IPCC fourth assessment report in which the “Glaciergate” claims are made. There, is the startling claim that: At first sight, the reference looks kosher enough but, following it through, one sees: The link given is no longer active, but the report is on the IUCN website here. Furthermore, the IUCN along with WWF is another advocacy group and the report is not peer-reviewed. It gets even better. The two expert authors of the WWF report so casually cited by the IPCC as part of its, ahem, “robust” “peer-reviewed” process weren’t even Amazon specialists.

Reset Button

clipped from www.politico.com Russia Today, the slickly produced, often comical Russian government propaganda arm is up with an ad campaign in Britain that sticks a thumb in Obama's eye, merging his image with that of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. British airports have reportedly refused to post the billboard.

Stimulating Unemployment

clipped from www.american.com Using data from the administration’s website Recovery.gov and from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this accompanying chart shows the monthly increase in the number of unemployed workers and the shrinkage of the civilian labor force in tandem with the administration’s stimulus spending. In other words, it shows how not only that many workers have lost their jobs since the administration started spending stimulus funds, but also that many more workers have exited the labor market. The civilian labor force shrinks when individuals who were looking for work or were employed decide that their labor market prospects are not good enough to keep looking for a job or to stay employed. Two things are sure. First, if it weren’t for workers’ mass exit from the labor force (600,000 workers exited in December alone), the unemployment numbers would look even worse that they already do. Second, government spending cannot create jobs.

Change Update

clipped from pajamasmedia.com CHANGE: December home sales down nearly 17 percent: Home sales plunge nearly 17 percent in December after tax credit deadline extended. “Sales of previously occupied homes took the largest monthly drop in more than 40 years last month, sinking more dramatically than expected after lawmakers gave buyers additional time to use a tax credit.” More dramatically than expected, eh? UPDATE: Bill Gates Says Recovery Will Take Years: “Although there have been signs of economic improvement in recent months, as well as a collective sense of optimism in the IT industry that spending could rebound this year, there’s little concrete evidence to indicate that this is anything more than wishful thinking. And if unemployment remains high, the dreaded ‘S’ word — stagflation — could begin to creep into discussions about the economy. Gates said even when the economy does improve the government will have to institute systemic changes in order for any real rebound to take root.

RIght Again

clipped from www.redstate.com Do you remember how many conservatives spent months trying to figure out why the leadership of the American Medical Association signed the nation’s doctors up in support of Obamacare? Many conservatives argued that the AMA was being shortsighted - that Congressional Democrats would ultimately betray the AMA We said that Democrats would use the AMA endorsement and then turn against the group when they had the chance. Well, we were right: ‘Doc Fix’ Could Be Left Stranded as Health Care Overhaul Founders Those who follow the long-running doctor payment saga say the poisoned atmosphere surrounding health care spending makes it difficult to see how Congress will agree to the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to make a permanent change in the payment formula. The Senate has rejected attempts to pay for the 10-year cost without offsets.

Nope

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That's Why There Are Tea Parties

clipped from pajamasmedia.com FROM HOPE AND CHANGE TO THIS, IN THE ECONOMIST: Stop! The size and power of the state is growing, and discontent is on the rise. America’s most vibrant political force at the moment is the anti-tax tea-party movement. The Economist will return to these areas in coming months. All raise different issues; and different countries may need to deal with them in different ways. But one large general point links them: a great battle about the state is brewing. And, as in another influential revolution, the first shot may have been heard in Massachusetts. Read the whole thing. And I love the illustration . . . . UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch writes: “I think deep down inside the rest of us are beginning to understand how that little fella in the illustration that’s about to get eaten feels. Heretofore it’s been the journalist’s job to level the playing field for him. Now he has to do it himself. That’s why there are tea parties.”

Laughing Stock

clipped from www.ft.com Japanese car companies, which overtook US ones in the early 21st century, leading to the bankruptcy of General Motors and Chrysler last year, used a method of industrial innovation called kaizen, usually translated as “continuous improvement”. Meanwhile, Detroit perfected the technique of occasional improvement. As the Big Three – GM, Ford and Chrysler – slid deeper into trouble over decades of complacency, union obstructionism and mismanagement, they would occasionally stage a temporary recovery, with some new car or initiative prompting books and magazine articles about a Detroit revival. This all proved to be illusory, with Detroit’s detour from making cars (ground that it had in effect ceded to foreign rivals by the mid-1990s) to producing “light truck” sports utility vehicles as the biggest deception of the lot. These were just upward blips on a long, steady descent from technological dominance to global laughing stock.

Ouch (For You Part 2)

clipped from althouse.blogspot.com "Why would you hand the keys to the car back to the same guys whose policies drove the economy into the ditch and then walked away from the scene of the accident?" That's Chris Van Hollen, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, meaning to help Coakley win Teddy Kennedy's seat, and running right off the road into a ditch called Chappaquiddick.

False Prophet

clipped from gatewaypundit.firstthings.com Obama spoke to 6th Graders in Falls Church, Virginia on Tuesday January 19, 2010. He brought his TelePrompter.

COTD: The Story O The Three Envelopes

clipped from pajamasmedia.com 99. Don51: The story of the three envelopes.

I had heard this one before but forgot how relevant it is to Obama.

The story:

When a newly hired exec bumps into his fired predecessor on the way out of the office, the individual is offered three envelopes. The predecessor advises that each consecutively number envelope is numbered and only to be opened in sequence when the proverbial crap hits the fan and nothing else is working. The new manager smiles, takes the envelopes but quickly puts them in a drawer and forgets them. That’s until months later things are still not running well and senior management is looking for scalps. Then the envelopes are remembered. The manager dutifully finds and opens envelope marked ‘1′. It contains a simple note saying – ‘Blame everything on me”. Not having any other real ideas, the manager does exactly that which buys him a reprieve from the powers to be. Things are still wonky, but the new manager barely keeps the office afloat. Many months later, things still haven’t significantly improved and senior management once again is looking to make someone walk the plank. The stressed manager remembers the envelopes and rips open the one marked ‘2′. It reads “Reorganize”. So a plan to reorganized is formulated and given to senior management. That buys our manager several more months to try to deal with the crisis at hand. Of course the problems being intrinsic to the organization, they only fester. Senior management now summons the manager to a meeting which anyone could understand may well be his last. So the manager digs to find envelope numbered ‘3′ to open, only to read the advice “Prepare three envelopes”.

Pleased To Be Both

clipped from network.nationalpost.com Scott Brown’s win was the real report card on Barack Obama’s one-year presidency. He may have given himself, in an interview with Dame Oprah of Afternoon Fluff, a B+. Voters of Massachusetts were more clear-eyed and rigorous. They went, let us say, with a “gentleman’s D.” How did this happen? Obama was a chandelier presence in a world of political moles. Obama is a parochial politician. He emerged from the small pool of the university environment and Chicago politics -- the former, I think, more significant than the latter. Take his jibes at Scott Brown’s pickup, which he delivered repeatedly in Boston two days before the vote. Only the thickest of tin ears could imagine that slurs and putdowns about driving a pickup have any appeal beyond arugula snobs trading nose-in-the-air witticisms about rednecks. With a persona that oscillates between professor and hipster, he patronizes -- he’s either smarter or cooler than anyone else in the room, and, worse, looks very pleased to be both.

The Gang That Couldn't Hire Straight

clipped from ace.mu.nu Three different White House officials gave out three different numbers for jobs "saved or created" on three different morning shows today. Fools: Valerie Jarrett had the most conservative count, saying “the Recovery Act saved thousands and thousands of jobs,” while David Axelrod gave the bill the most credit, saying it has “created more than – or saved more than 2 million jobs.” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs came in between them, saying the plan had “saved or created 1.5 million jobs.” Five dollars says that President Obama uses a fourth number in the State of the Union speech.

Great

clipped from pajamasmedia.com BRUCE SCHNEIER: U.S. Enables Chinese Hacking Of Google. “In order to comply with government search warrants on user data, Google created a backdoor access system into Gmail accounts. This feature is what the Chinese hackers exploited to gain access. Google’s system isn’t unique. Democratic governments around the world — in Sweden, Canada and the UK, for example — are rushing to pass laws giving their police new powers of Internet surveillance, in many cases requiring communications system providers to redesign products and services they sell.” Great.

More Climate Corruption

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk I can report a further dramatic twist to what has inevitably been dubbed "Glaciergate" – the international row surrounding the revelation that the latest report on global warming by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contained a wildly alarmist, unfounded claim about the melting of Himalayan glaciers. What has now come to light, however, is that the scientist from whom this claim originated, Dr Syed Hasnain, has for the past two years been working as a senior employee of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the Delhi-based company of which Dr Pachauri is director-general. Furthermore, the claim – now disowned by Dr Pachauri as chairman of the IPCC – has helped TERI to win a substantial share of a $500,000 grant from one of America's leading charities, along with a share in a three million euro research study funded by the EU.

Wind Wakes

clipped from www.popsci.com Turbine Contrails: Clouds form in the wake of the front row of wind turbines at the Horns Rev offshore wind farm near Denmark.  Aeolus Clouds stream in the wake of wind turbines arrayed at the Horns Rev offshore wind farm in this stunning photo. But David MacKay, a physicist at the University of Cambridge in the UK, sees the image as illustrating the common problem of back-row wind turbines losing power relative to the front row. Downstream wind turbines may lose 20 percent or even 30 percent of their power compared to their fellows in front, according to a study on wake effects at Horns Rev that MacKay highlights on his blog. The paper also emphasizes that different wind directions make it practically impossible to gauge an overall "steady state" for large wind farms, unless researchers can sample wind speeds and directions at multiple points throughout the array.

Without Comment

clipped from www.ncdc.noaa.gov