Saturday, January 08, 2011

Glenn Reynolds rounds up the absurd reaction by the left to the murder of Representative Giffords, blaming tea party activists before we knew anything about the shooter, blaming the use of cross hairs on a map from Sarah Palin's group. The press should follow Howard Kurtz' lead and be the voice of sanity in this thing, but that's like asking the left to behave sanely. They're like peas in a pod.

Matt Lewis has more. And here's one of the more absurd whines: Fox News cuts away from a Giffords vigil when Palin's name is brought up, as though Sarah Palin was relevant. The narrative never dies. Sigh.

Don Surber:
Getting a tax break from Congress is like buying an indulgence in 12th century Rome, the original pay-to-play for sinners.
I've felt like this for a long time. Read the whole thing.

How about that Marshawn Lynch!

At least he wasn't a loner.

Acquaintances call Jared Lee Loughner "obviously very disturbed."
A former classmate of Loughner at Pima Community College said he was “obviously very disturbed.”

“He disrupted class frequently with nonsensical outbursts,” said Lynda Sorenson, who took a math class with Loughner last summer at Pima Community College’s Northwest campus.
Loughner's YouTube posts mentioned his frustrations with math.

You'd think the teacher would have asked someone to check this kid out, but most of us still don't imagine weird people as being capable of things like this.

The corrupting power of Washington, D. C.

Honest, it's just until the economy improves.

Mike Vick has served his time. He's on probation and has been given a chance to repent and overcome his sins. The Scripture says "I the lord will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men." So, while I didn't feel like he owed me an apology, he did have to accept his punishment. So when he says he's changed, I give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that he really has. Beyond that, his fate is between him and Christ.

Friday, January 07, 2011

Serenity . . .

is watching Firefly reruns on the Ovation channel. It should have died hereafter.

Happy. Happy. Joy. Joy.

Piers Corbyn tweets: "WeatherAction NEW USA Forecast 12-31 Jan released. BIGGER SNOW deluges than standard forecasts think Coming 12-14 Jan."

That's gutsy.

Thursday, January 06, 2011

The resistance on the left to merely reading the Constitution is really quite striking. It's the most clear admission there could be that they know their programs are contrary to it. It lays out a scheme for limited government that has been evaded by creative progressives with sophistry and blather, because the left couldn't get its agenda through the amendment process. Maybe they don't want us to be reminded that it provides for amendments other than by Supreme Court edict. Today, however, we're clever enough to couch every issue in terms of some kind of discrimination or denial of rights, even when overruling laws passed through the political process result in increasing the power of the federal government, particularly the courts. The Justices have been rather dim in recognizing that by increasing their own power, they've moved contrary to the whole purpose of the Constitution. It would be anathema to the NYTimes for them they to understand that.

I just noticed that the Times' headline is "The United States Consti ...tion." What was the point of that? I suppose it was meant to remind us that the Constitution wasn't perfect and has been amended, but as I note above, the original document provides for that, and my first reaction was that they were suggesting that the word was really "Constipation." Whether intended or not, that term has more to do with the Gray Lady's rigid and crabby reaction to the 2010 elections.

UPDATE: Similar thoughts from Powerline.

Why our best officers are leaving the military
Why are so many of the most talented officers now abandoning military life for the private sector? An exclusive survey of West Point graduates shows that it’s not just money. Increasingly, the military is creating a command structure that rewards conformism and ignores merit. As a result, it’s losing its vaunted ability to cultivate entrepreneurs in uniform.
Even with the war in Afghanistan, the services are still probably suffering from peacetime army syndrome. I wonder how long this has been going on.

Pat Toomey is advocating reinstituting spending caps. I think that it might be necessary for us to understand that our fiscal problems are real.

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

A Chinese stealth fighter prototype.

Gerry Rafferty has died.

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Sugar Bowl

With two minutes left in the first half, OSU is whipping up on Arkansas, 28 to 7. Maybe their drought in bowl games is over.

I don't think Eric Holder really understands our legal system

First, he was promising a conviction in the trials of terrorists in New York. Now he's trying to prejudice the public about hisdismissal of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case. Has he ever had an ethics class?

Calling Mr. Calchas

I was reading the Iliad yesterday, and noticed the name of Calchas, a famed augur, or interpreter of signs and omens, especially from reading birds' entrails and flight patterns. So when this story came up in the news, it just seemed obvious.

To be a modern augur, however, you probably have to rely on computer models.

Eddie Haskell in the Senate

Chuck Schumer's casuistry:
"Will Eric Cantor urge every Republican who is going to be for repeal to not take government health care themselves and to drop their existing health care?" he asked.
Translation: If we don't have Obamacare, nobody should get health care. Schumer, he of the perfect SAT scores, is too smart to believe that bit of sophistry. Since he's not stupid, the only remaining explanation is that he's dishonest.

Some Senate Democrats seek to abolish filibuster It sounds like they know their time is limited. This is their way of overruling the elections of 2010.

Others are looking ahead and seeing a bleak future without it.

The ACLU’s untold Stalinist heritage

Has our luck run out?

We elected Obama, didn't we?

Monday, January 03, 2011

Get ready

The hip joke for the next 5 years will be Brett Favre is still retired.

The President's Carbon Footprint

It's good to have a 747.
Last year Obama flew in Air Force One 172 times, almost every other day.

White House officials have been telling reporters in recent days that the Democrat doesn't intend to hang around the White House quite so much in 2011.
This wouldn't bother me too much, except that, thanks to the absurd environmental policies, gas is headed to $5.00 a gallon and we're not willing to develop our own resources. We have tar sands, oil shale and oil fields that have been put off limits by Congress.

When he's so lavish with America's resources for his own convenience, he has no business lecturing the rest of us about global warming, or pushing any environmental agenda.

It's time we served notice to all the beautiful people from SF to DC to NY that the days of the gravy train are over. Washington's culture reminds me a lot of the French aristocrats leading up to the Revolution. I'm more than ready to make it a ghost town.

Green Is The New Red (as in Communism)

The latest evidence.

Sunday, January 02, 2011

Corbyn and Bastardi respond to a query about what supercomputers they use.

Happy New Year!

New Laws Govern Guns, Web, Banks and some more parts of Obamacare go into effect.