More on the Tea Party challenge to Ron Paul

Here's more on the trouble Ron Paul (speaking of conservatism's extremist fringe) is having with the Tea Party Movement, which- as previously reported here- wants him defeated in the Republican primary.

HT: Politico

Conservatives planning move against lunatic fringe

Conservatism became a respectable political movement back when William F. Buckley led a (excuse the expression) reaction against the John Birch Society and other extremist elements back in the 'Sixties and Seventies.

Apparently "establishment" conservatives are planning to do much the same thing with regard to the "birthers" and the rest of conservatism's contemporary lunatic fringe.

Good. About time! Maybe now the "progressives" will do the same thing.

Oh, wait. That would leave them without a movement, wouldn't it?

Kyrie, eleison!

Pray for the people of Chile, Hawaii, and the Pacific.

HT: Drudge

Publisher to challenge Culver in Dem primary

Newspaper publisher Jonathan Narcisse has announced that he will challenge unpopular incumbent Governor Chet Culver in the Iowa Democratic primary.

Not surprising, politicians having strong survival instincts, that somebody was found to run against Culver. Whethr Narcisse can beat him in a primary remains to be seen. So does whether Narcisse would do much better than Culver against Terry Branstad in November. I have my doubts.

But can you imagine Iowa having an African American governor?

HT: The Beanwalker

I wonder whether we'll give it to the Chinese

A new rocket technology could cut the time it would take a manned mission to get to Mars to 39 days. NASA is working on developing it.

It's a shame we lack the political will to use it.

Huet's days as a Blackhawk seem numbered

Cristobal Huet lost his role as the Blackhawks' starting goalie to rookie Antti Niemi before the Olympic break. Rumors have been flying ever since that the Hawks- a solid Stanley Cup threat whose only real weakness is a lack of experience in goal- might be about to make a deal.

One possibility has Huet going back to the Montreal Canadians for young Jaraslav Halek, a future star who unfortunately lacks the playoff experience the Hawks are looking for. But I'm not sure that I can think of anybody who has had such depth in the crease as Halek and Niemi would give the Blackhawks since they themselves briefly had Eddie Belfour and Dominic Hasek back in the 'Nineties. Huet- not a French Canadian, but a French Frenchman, actually born in France- would nonetheless fit in well in a city where Gallic names come naturally.

The Dallas Stars are reportedly trying to move Marty Turco. Don't go there, Mr. Bowman.

The really intriguing rumor has the Hawks acquiring Florida's Tomas Vokun for Huet and other considerations. That would be a solid upgrade, perhaps enough to make the Hawks the favorites to win the Cup. And if, say, Keith Versteeg was included in the deal, it might even be possible to put something together which would not only put the Hawks in a better position to win their first Stanley Cup since 1961, but solve the salary cap crisis that otherwise would force them to get rid of several talented young players next season pretty much any way they can.

The Vokun rumor is the most persistent, and the one I hope is true. In any event, it seems likely that Huet's days as a Hawk are not only numbered, but numbered in single digits. The trade deadline is Wednesday. The deal could be announced as early as Monday.

Yup- U.S. vs. Canada for the gold

Canada 3, Slovakia 2.

I was following the game on the live blog over at the Vancouver Canucks' site. Looks like Slovakia gave them all they could handle, and had Canada pretty much on the ropes there at the end. Roberto Luongo in goal bailed them out.

Canada and the United States playing for the gold is absolutely great for hockey. Whatever happened Sunday night- or today- I still see Canada as the favorite. I'm hoping, of course, for a U.S. victory, but if we have to lose, I'm glad it will be to the Canadians.

If there are no Irish Catholics at an African American Baptist church, does that mean it's racist? Apparently Olbermann thinks so!

This is fun in itself, simply for the point it makes about Keith Olbermann's hypocrisy. But for an additional hoot, try following his logic in the included rant on how the Tea Party folks must be racists because there aren't enough African Americans among them.

I do think Keith's conscience needs to hire a spell checker, though...

If conservatives are cavemen, liberals must be monkeys!

An atheist liberal psychologist, writing in the Social Psychology Quarterly, claims that the more intelligent you are, the more likely to are to be a liberal and an atheist. He even has data to back this idea up.

The problem, of course, is that his hypothesis doesn't make good evolutionary sense.

Five year old saves Dad's life

Way to fight unemployment, Mr. President

23.000 Floridians stand to lose their jobs when the space shuttle is retired.

Had Constellation gone forward, there would very likely have been a net gain in jobs.

HT: Drudge

From my experience...

Yeah. Pretty much.

Uh....

I knew that alcoholism was a major problem in Russia, but this is ridiculous.

HT: Drudge

On to the gold!

U.S. 6, Finland 1.

Assuming that Canada beats Slovakia, it'll be a rematch of Sunday's game for the gold. It should be quite a game.

One thing's for sure: the Canadians will be motivated!

ADDENDUM: Two goals today for Kaner!

Huckabee does himself no 2012 favors with IFPC speech

In 2008, businessman Bob Vanderplaats was one of Mike Huckabee's major supporters here in Iowa. Now Vanderplaats is running for governor- and Huckabee is repaying that loyalty, having endorsed Vanderplaats for the job and campaigning for him here.

Huck's recent visit to the state that ignited his 2008 presidential bid has, however, raised two problems for his hopes for a repeat victory in the 2012 Iowa Caucuses. First, Vanderplaats is probably going to lose the primary to former Gov. Terry Branstad, who will almost certainly go on to defeat unpopular incumbent Democratic Gov. Chet Culver in November (the polls currently show Branstad leading Culver by anywhere from 16 to 20 points; Vanderplaats also leads Culver, though his lead is within most polls' margin of error).

Even more serious than alienating the man who will probably be Iowa's Republican governor in 2012, however, is the damage Huckabee probably did himself by speaking at a fundraiser for the Iowa Family Policy Center, which has publicly stated that while it will support Vanderplaats if he should upset Branstad in the Republican primary, it will not support Branstad if he wins. Huckabee thus has damaged himself not only with Branstad, but with the state party whose ticket Branstad will almost certainly lead this November.

Huckabee retains a strong cadre of support here in Iowa. But the kind of Republicans most motivated to turn out in the cold of a January night to kick off the search for Barack Obama's opponent are apt to remember Huckabee's support of a group that sat on its hands rather than support the party's nominee for governor two years earlier. Loyalty to Vanderplaats for his support of Huckabee's 2012 candidacy Branstad supporters like yours truly can understand, and even admire; raising money for a group has already stated that it will not support its almost certain nominee for governor is another matter.

HT: The Beanwalker

And speaking of extremists...

Is there any reasonable person on Earth who doesn't see that MSNBC makes Fox News look... well, fair and balanced by comparison?

Is there any reasonable person on Earth who doesn't see that MSNBC makes most Islamic suicide bombers look fair and balanced by comparison?

Where do they get these whack jobs?

The most extreme members of Congress- Right and Left. And the most moderate.

Who are the ten most liberal members of each House? The ten most conservative? The ten in the middle? How about state delegations?

The scoop is here, folks.

HT: Drudge

Americans: Our government is a threat to our freedom

A new CNN poll shows that, by a 56-44% margin, the American people believe that the government has become so large and powerful that it constitutes a threat to their freedom.

One wonders whether Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid et al are listening.

HT: Drudge

Meanwhile, in a seperate poll by Fox News and Opinion Research on a related subject, the American people say that they would rather have a smaller government providing fewer services than a larger government providing more.

By a similar but slightly larger margin, however, Democrats feel the opposite.

Ah, that sneaky global warming!

As Americans, Canadians and Europeans shiver their way through unprecedented cold, Australian climatologists have revealed to us just how insidious global warming really is.

Satellite data, it seems, has revealed that while we were shivering, what we were experiencing was actually the hottest January on record.

As Harry Caray would say, "Who'da thunk it?"

HT: Drudge

Canadian women do golden things with the biscuit and the basket

Goalie Shannon Szabados stood on her head, and the Canadian women beat the Americans 2-0 tonight for their third straight hockey gold medal.

Hopefully we'll see the same matchup for the men. Of course, despite my fondness for Canada, I'll be rooting for a different outcome.

Daily Kos poll good news for Illinois Democrats

There's a new Daily Kos poll out on the Senate and gubernatorial races in Illinois- both thought to be up for grabs in that deep blue state- that is good news for the nationally-besieged Democratic party, and bad news for Republicans Mark Kirk, Kirk Dillard and Bill Brady.

In the race for President Obama's old Senate seat, Democratic State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias leads Congressman Kirk 43-36. Meanwhile, Democratic Governor Pat Quinn(who succeeded to the office upon the impeachment and conviction of his predecessor, Rod Blagojevich), leads in his race for election in his own right over State Senator Dillard by 46-35, and over State Senator Brady by 47-32. The Republican primary race was so close that the winner is not yet known for certain; on election night, Brady led Dillard by a mere 400 votes.

Yes, the far Left blog Daily Kos is responsible for the poll -and yes, none of these leads are unsurmountable. But at a moment when Illinois' once-proud GOP has been basking in the prospect of recapturing the Governor's Mansion in Springfield for the first time since the days of Big Jim Thompson, and re-claiming of the seat Mr. Obama took over from Republican Peter Fitzgerald a mere four years ago, to see this election cycle turning into uphill climb has to be discouraging.

Still, there remains strong reason for hope at least for Kirk. The polls have been all over the place in the Senate race, though less so in the race for governor.

The Swiss have holes in their heads, as well as in their cheese

The mindlessly anti- Muslim mood which has infected many in the West recently manifested itself in an incredible display of religious bigotry by- of all people- the Swiss.

Switzerland voted to ban the construction of new minarets in the country. The function of these towers, customarily attached to mosques, is to call the faithful to prayer. The logic behind the ban, which was adopted in a national referendum, was simple: discourage Islam.

Citizens of a nation such as ours, which takes it for granted that people have a right even to religious beliefs with which we may disagree and that the State ought he not to take sides among the various religions practiced by a country's people, under ordinary circumstances would disapprove of the kind of religious bigotry displayed by the Swiss. But in the wake of 9/11, even Americans are forgetting their own values and making Islam an exception to the rule that the religious beliefs of others ought to be tolerated even if we disagree with them.

Now, it seems, Col. Khadaffy of Libya (remember him?) is calling for a jihad against the Swiss because of their anti-Islamic law. Now, jihad is not a practice I approve of, and I do not for a moment defend Khadaffy's desire to wage holy war against Switzerland. But this much should be said: just like the Danish newspapers who were uncivil enough to commit sacrilege in the eyes of Shi'ite' Muslims a few years ago by publishing cartoons depicting Mohammed- insulting Shi'ite religious sensibilities just to show that they could- the Swiss have brought whatever admittedly indefensible consequences may come from their bigotry (if, in fact, there turn out to be any) upon themselves, and are entitled to only limited sympathy.

In the Swiss case, as was the case in the Danish one, we won't have to approve of the consequences in order to also disapprove of the bigotry which occasioned it.

HT: Drudge

Americans fear 'Chinese century'

The American people are well aware that we stand at a moment at which our nation may well yield its preeminent place in world affairs to China.

I detect a note of resignation in the statements quoted in the story linked to above. Resignation is the last thing we need- or can afford. The notions that history is on the side of collectivism and totalitarianism, and that America's hour has passed, are both simply unsupportable.

The forces which bring about our fear of China's continued rise and America's continued decline are very real. They constitute a greater threat to everything we hold dear than we faced in World War II or the Cold War. This needs to be America's finest hour- and the hour in which we refuse to accept taking second place on the world stage to a country ruled by the most evil regime this planet has ever known.

HT: Drudge

U.S. vs. Canada for the hockey gold medal?

If the U.S. can get past Finland and Canada past Slovakia, we may have a rematch of last weekend's match between the two North American countries- for the gold medal.

Which would rock.

Der Speigel hits the nail of Chinese arrogance right on the head

Every once in a while Leftist German publication Der Speigel sees an issue with a clarity which its sometimes distorted view of the United States, its aspirations, its values, and its works ill-prepares us for. A good example is its look at the arrogance of what I would argue is the greatest economic and military threat the West has ever faced- far greater than that posed by either Hitler or the Soviet Union in the past, and even by Islamic radicalism today: an increasingly wealthy, powerful, influential, unspeakably repressive, and very cocky China.

Rush Limbaugh....

...is nuts.

J.D. Hayworth may be an ideological true believer, but he's not worthy to carry John McCain's briefcase.

McCain may not fit all the litmus tests Rush would confront him with. But he's something worth having around in American politics: a genuine conservative in the British sense, who is about tradition, honor, and country first, and ideology second.

"What's going on" is a subject far larger than the current standards of Right-wing orthodoxy. Among the things that are "going on" in America right now is a crying need for people just like John McCain, who can transcend ideology and seek common ground with those outside the conservative fold. Only with the help of John McCain and his ilk can the polarization which may well be the greatest single long-term threat to our democracy be blunted, and Americans begin once more to think less in terms of red or blue than of red, white and blue.

John McCain is an American first, and an ideologue second. That's a distinction Rush Limbaugh is unable to make- which is what makes him somewhat less than the most enlightened guide for the Republicans of Arizona in selecting their nominee for the U.S. Senate. Or, that matter, for the rest of us.

Great gobs of gushing geysers, Batman!

Looks like Enceladus has a lot more of those geysers than we thought!

Get real, Sen. Inhofe!

Public officials can be both dumb and stubborn.
This morning I was thinking, for some reason, of the Florida Supreme Court's bizarre decision in the Bush v. Gore case- the one in which it decided, among other things: 1) that the legal test for the intent of the voter, for which Florida law provided a very specific test (at least two corners of the chad had to be punched out), the intent of the voter- was actually... well, the intent of the voter, with no particular test employed; and 2) which authorized a process notoriously both less reliable and more susceptible to fraud and manipulation- the manual recount- as the remedy for questions of about the integrity of an automated count supervised by the very people who had done the first count, and would also do the second. These were intelligent men and women, trained in the law and demonstrably more capable than the average bear of logical thought. Yet their bias in the case was so pervasive- and doubtless so unconscious- that they collectively managed to render one of the most logically cockeyed  judicial decisions in American history at the very moment when the people of both Florida and of the nation as a whole most needed lucidity from them.

Scientists can suffer from the same syndrome. Regardless of how one stands on the global warming issue, it is clear from the so-called Climategate scandal that orthodoxy played at least as great a role as science in the "overwhelming consensus" which Al Gore and others have touted among them about catastrophic climate change. Moreover the "peer review" which the proponents of catastrophic global warming so loudly complain that dissenting studies lack seems clearly at this stage to be as much about ensuring that new studies don't let the side down as they are about making sure that they represent good science.
In fact, the politicization of science- like the ongoing politicization of the courts, and in fact of just about every area of our common life- is one of the greatest threats our democracy has ever faced. We need unbiased justice, unbiased science, and the unbiased dissemination of facts in the journalistic realm. That human nature probably prevents any of us from ever being totally unbiased does not change the fact that never before in our history has the border between fact and opinion been as permeable. And it is not clear that any democracy can long survive such a state of affairs.
Or, perhaps, any society at all. Lacking as we do much of a common ground on the nature of objective reality- indeed, the prevalent philosophical orientation of the age, whose poisoning of the scientific mind I strongly suspect as one of the chief culprits in the ongoing undermining even of science inself as a credible describer of objective reality- is Post-modernism, the denial that such a thing as objective truth even exists.
But it isn't merely the Left which is infected by this nonsense. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Ok), one of the loudest critics of climatic alarmism, has gone of the deep end and called for a criminal investigation of Al Gore and the climate alarmists on a charge of conspiracy.
That is silly. It is the kind of paranoid thinking in which the extremes on both the Right and the Left have always excelled. To be mistaken- and even to be hysterically mistaken- about something, and to engage in concert with others who agree with one to advance that mistaken viewpoint while under the mutual delusion that it represents objective truth (or what passes for it in this day and age) is not yet conspiracy. Conspiracy involves a conscious awareness that one's own position is fraudulent, and a conscious desire to deceive.
I do not doubt that there are many on both the Left and the Right who have been so taken in by Post-modernism that they are guilty of just such intentional deception,"truth" being re-defined by the philosophy, as Nietzsche, one of its leading proponents, famously argued, as nothing more or less than the will to power. But to be mistaken is not a crime. And neither is being stubborn. To criminalize even what has been shown to be a massive attempt to suppress certain subjectively disliked viewpoints and to advance subjectively favored ones is simply to take one more step down the road to subjectivizing everything.
One eliminates the distinction between being a fanatic and being a fraud at the peril or both our freedom and our capacity for living together in the same society. They are two different things. And I can think of no more corrosively cynical assumption, nor one more subversive of our ability to function as members of a common society, than to assume that there is no such thing as an honestly self-deceived fanatic.

HT: Drudge

South African scientist: We could eliminate AIDS within 40 years

According to Dr. Brian Williams of the South African Center for Epidemiological Modeling and Analysis, checking everyone for AIDS vigorously administering anti-retroviral treatment (ART) tho those found to be infected with HIV could eliminate the disease within 40 years.

If you wondered about those "Birther" fruitcakes...

Ron Paul and his anti-Semitic legions aside, here's a brief account of the facts concerning another chronic embarrassment to conservatives: the lunatic fringe group known as "birthers," who are the the Right's equivalent to the "Truther" nut jobs who claim that George W. Bush was responsible for 9/11.

Key to their dementia is their inability to grasp the simple concept that another term for the "Certificate of Live Birth" issued by the State of Hawaii for one "Barack Hussein Obama II" is a "birth certificate." Yes, Virginia. The President has indeed produced his birth certificate. And it proves that he was born in Hawaii.

There is another birth certificate out there that purports to prove that he was born in Kenya. That one, by contrast, has been proven to be a forgery.

USA! USA!

USA 5, Canada 3!

I'm proud of our guys, but I take no pleasure in Canada losing. This has got to be a really tough loss to take. In fact, I doubt that many Americans realize just how tough.

While the U.S. has won its pool, and gets a bye in the first elimination round, Canada is not out of the tournament. The Canadians simply have to win the rest of their games. I would not be surprised to see these two teams play each other again. Nor would I be surprised if Canada still ended up winning the gold. Talent-wise, they're a better team than ours, and they will certainly be motivated in any re-match. The US has to hope that there isn't one.

Assists for Jonathan Toews of the Blackhawks on two of the Canadian goals.

And once again, the NBC management- authors of the Conan O'Brien-Jay Leno fiasco- end up with egg all over their faces for the incredibly dumb decision to bump this game from their network and relegate it to MSNBC.

Oh, deer!

One of the joys of my stay in the Washington, D.C. area a few years ago was working the night shift at a site which allowed me such access to the fauna of Northern Virginia.

The Independence Center of Northrop-Grumman/TASC in Chantilly is on the edge of the metropolitan area. Manassas and the Bull Run battle sites are nearby. So is the Annex to the National Air and Space Museum, and Dulles Airport a short distance beyond that. But museums and airports aside,the area is not exactly what you'd call urban. And sitting in my chair in the lobby of the glass building, it was quite common for foxes, deer, and other critters usually somewhat shy of humans to come so close that I could almost touch them, without their ever knowing that I was there.

One night I was surrounded by a family of no less than seven deer- a buck with nice, big antlers, a couple of does, and four fawns. At one point they congregated right in front of me, no more than ten or fifteen yards away, on a slight rise in front of the building. It was quite an experience for a city kid like me, even though I've gotten a great deal more used to deer being around than I was when I lived in the middle of Chicago.

The deer here in Des Moines are losing all fear of humans. I live on the edge of town; in fact, the street I live on is Des Moines' northern city limit, and I'm on the other side. Not infrequently I'll see deer on my neighbor's lawns, especially when I walk home from church late at night.

Other critters are getting more and more common, as well. When I was growing up back in Chicago, we had to sneak into an area owned by the railroad in back of the local park when we wanted to hunt for snakes. But twice last autumn garter snakes literally crossed my path as I was walking down an urban sidewalk. I used to remember the moment I had to stop when turning onto Main Street in Kellogg, where I lived during my last call, to let a large bull snake cross the road as summing up what life in tiny Kellogg was all about. But it's getting more and more common to have such encounters even in Des Moines, a city of nearly a quarter million.

Last night, as I walked up 11th Street on the way home, a doe came into view. It looked for all the world as if she was going to walk right up to the door of my building. She crossed the lawn instead, and paused to lick my mailbox. I stood there at the corner she had walked by moments before and watched her. She seemed perfectly OK with my being there. As long as I didn't make a move in her direction, she was intent to ignore me and slake her thirst on the ice that had accumulated on the mail box.

Even after living for quite a while now in circumstances in which such encounters are relatively common, they still give me a thrill. Deer are beautiful creatures- and beautiful wild creatures. It still seems to me a strange and fragile thing that I should have the privilege of watching one from so close a distance. And while I'm not sure it's finally a good thing for either the deer or the people in the area, I continue to be amazed when I- an inveterate city kid- encounter such a beautiful, wild creature literally on my own front lawn.

BHO tanking in... Iowa?

When more people disapprove than approve of a Democratic president here in Iowa, his re-election is anything but a foregone conclusion.

HT: Race42012

Heaven help us!

Ron Paul won the 2012 Republican presidential straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend, defeating Mitt Romney by nine points.

This is an excellent argument for not taking anything that happens at the conference seriously. It is also an excellent argument for not taking at least 31% of the people who are attending the conference seriously.

If there were a snowball's chance in Tartarus of Paul actually being elected president, that would constitute a threat to our national security beside which al Quaeda would look like the American Legion.

Rep. Paul may or may not be a native of Planet Earth. Most of his supporters clearly are not. But even if he meets constitutional requirement that our Chief Executive be a native-born American (which would seem to imply also being a native-born Terran), neither Paul nor his supporters live on the same planet with the rest of us.

Alexander Haig, soldier and diplomat

Here's a eulogy of Gen. Alexander Haig, Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State, from the Washington Times.

No clams this Sunday. Invoking instead.

Today- the First Sunday in Lent- is called Invocavit on the traditional Lutheran calendar, from the introit for the day, taken from Psalm 91:15. Since "v" can look like a "b" in some Old English scripts (the kind that often get used in bulletins and even lectionaries) it is sometimes misspelled "Invocabit."

Or not. I believe "v" and "b" in Latin also bear something of the same relationship as "v" and "w" bear in German and many Slavic languages. If it's spelled one way, it's probably pronounced the other. This, too, can account for the variation in spellings. I hope if Dr. Eric Phillips, who has helped me on previous occasions with my Latin, reads this entry, he'll set me straight once again.

In any case, "Invocabit" struck me as amusing when I was growing up, since it conjured up clearly inappropriate images of the pastor looking at his watch before making the Sign of the Cross and speaking the Triune Name at the beginning of the Divine Service, and thinking,"Well, it's 10:45. Time to Invocabit!"

I was an odd child.

Actually, the equivalent word from the Vulgate (where it is Psalm 90:15) is Clamabit. The name Invocavit survived, however, because it was the word used in the Old Latin Psalter, and habits are hard to break.

Clamabit, I would think, would be a Sunday on which it would be appropriate for the pastor to either seek his dinner digging around on a sandy beach, or at least preach a comparatively short sermon.

Sorry, flock at Saint Mary; I finished mine about an hour ago, and no such luck.

ADDENDUM: A Facebook friend named Ken B. Demented, informs me that, more or less as I suspected, it's spelled one way (invocavit), while pronounced the other ("invocabit"). So would Clamavit be the proper spelling of "Clamabit?"

ADDENDUM II: Dr. Phillips got back to me. It seems that only in Medieval Spanish Latin is there confusion between "v" and "b," due to the tendency of Spanish, rather than Latin, to confuse them. Invocabit and clamabit are future tense, whereas invocavit and clamavit are perfect tense. The confusion arises from the peculiarities of yet another language- namely, the original Hebrew of the Psalm. Hebrew lacks a future tense.

Dr. Philips gives a fuller explanation in the comments on this post. So I guess now the mystery is solved: everybody is right. Sort of.

Speaks for itself

And what it says isn't pretty...

The sky's not falling, and you're not stupid if you aren't hiding under a table

Here's a sensible and thoughtful piece by Steve Huntley of the Chicago Sun-Times on the climate catastroophists' ongoing collapse of credibility

Which of these ladies is more in need of major medication?

I have to admit that I liked Janeane in 24, though. Cast against type as an FBI agent- one of the good guys.

They should make a movie about this

The Tea Party crowd has singled out cartoonish congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul for primary defeat.

They should make a horror movie about this.The Tea Party Meets Ron Paul. Just the title sends chills down my spine.

But I am rooting for the Tea Party in this particular matchup.

Those who gnome say Russia's Medvedev is short

And apparently sensitive about it, too.

The mess in Washington isn't Bush's fault.

It's Obama's.

Deep down, his supporters inside and outside the media realize this- and are busy making excuses for him.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Bush 'Miss Me Yet?' merchandise selling like hotcakes

Online business is booming.

By contrast, The Obama Store at Washington's Union Station has closed- an event U.S. News and World Report suggests may be "the most tangible sign yet that the honeymoon is over."

Y'think?

HT: Drudge

No foolin'!

A new study has revealed- gasp!- that "Cook County is a dark pool of political corruption."

Not only that, but the sky is up, the ground is down, the Cubs are not the luckiest of baseball teams, and the Pope has some vaguely religious inclinations.

He is also rumored to be Catholic.

HT: Drudge

Incredible.

Here is a picture of the Dalai Lama being hustled out the back door of the White House- past the Obama's garbage. The bullies in Bejing, you see regard the very act of President Obama meeting with him as interference in China's internal affairs.

Reporters were kept away from the event. Could this administration's foreign policy be any more craven?

HT: Drudge

Waxing nostalgic

Remember when we didn't care if tyrants objected to our president receiving a man who represents freedom to the people of an enslaved country?

Huckabee looks solid for 2012 in NC

Any way you look at the new PPP poll in North Carolina, the preferences of the state's voters at this early stage of the 2012 Republican presidential sweepstakes can be summed up in two words: Mike Huckabee.

HT: Race42012

BHO meets with the Dalai Lama this time. Secretly.

Well, at least this time President Obama didn't exactly snub the Dalai Lama, the way he did last time the Tibetan Buddhist leader was in Washington.

Instead, he simply refused to meet with him in public.

Predictably, the Democratic Campaign Pamphlet of Record- the New York Times- presented this as an act of courage on BHO's part. And for a president whose foreign policy is as craven as President Obama's, I guess it is.

China, of course, occupies Tibet, and the exiled Buddhist leader is a nationalist symbol there. That being the case, any acknowledgment of the Dalai Lama at all upsets the tyrants in Bejing, poor dears. And we can't have that, can we?

After all, if the President of the United States were to publicly embrace the leader of a nation occupied by bloodthirsty foreigners, he might give the impression that Americans were in favor of freedom, or something.

HT: Drudge

President Obama attacks gridlock

Which would be like Al Capone attacking organized crime.

Apparently only Democrats get to be partisan.

HT: Drudge

NRSC Ad

It's Ash Wednesday

Remember that you are dust.

Majority says Obama doesn't deserve a second term

In a new CNN poll, 52% say that President Obama doesn't deserve a second term.

While I'd caution against making too much of this- Reagan's numbers weren't that great at this point in his first term, and he won re-election in a landslide- this is one more sign that BHO is a great deal more vulnerable than anybody could have imagined in the orgy of media sycophancy which surrounded his election and inauguration.

One thing seems certain: if he couldn't get his agenda through with the current Congress, he's unlikely to make much more progress with the next one. That being the case, it will be hard for him to make a case that he should be re-elected in 2012 even to his ideological soul-mates on the Left, who are already showing signs of strong dissatisfaction.

HT: Drudge

Trade rumor

Huet, Versteeg and Corey Crawford to St. Louis for Tkachuk, Kariya, and Conklin?

It would solve the Hawks' salary cap problems, let Patrick Sharp play center, and give the Hawks a goalie with playoff experience and whose numbers are better than either Huet's or Niemi's.

Interesting. Time will tell.

Plumbing the depths of Obama's space folly

Here's an excellent column by Charles Krauthammer in which he points out that in abandoning the Constellation spacecraft/booster system, President Obama has not only given Russia a monopoly in manned space flight (until the Chinese join them in dominating a field we once led, but now have abandoned), but- Administration rhetoric to the contrary- has effectively cut the ground out from under any attempt by NASA to put together a viable program to send humans to Mars in the future.

The job of taking over manned space flight, as Krauthammer points out,is simply beyond the capabilities of the private sector. But the public sector in Russia, China and India will undoubtedly do quite well in taking their nations far beyond us in space, thanks to the stunning short-sightedness of the current administration.

Fifty years ago, John F. Kennedy challenged us to go to the moon, "not because (it was) easy, but because (it was) hard." Barack Obama has now made going to Mars impossible. Where Kennedy dreamed and called us to meet the challenges of the future, Obama, in Krauthammer's cogent terms, has closed the New Frontier John Kennedy opened to us.

Tragically, he has done so at the very moment when employment and even the deficit might be effectively addressed by repeating the highly successful experience of the Apollo program not only in creating jobs (and whole new industries!), but of returning to the economy exponentially more than the government spent on it. And who knows how much additional tax revenue a crash program to go to Mars might have generated as a result? It is by no means impossible that such a program might in the long term positively, rather than negatively, impacted even the deficit.

But we'll never know, because Barack Obama has surrendered John Kennedy's dream.

A white flag against a background of stars

Charles Krauthammer- as usual- hits the nail on the head, this time as regards President Obama's decision to effectively withdraw the United States from manned spaceflight and grant the Russians a monopoly in space- that is, until the Chinese and the Indians join them.

Notable quotes: "Of course, the administration presents the abdication as a great leap forward: Launching humans will be turned over to the private sector, while NASA's efforts will be directed toward landing on Mars.

"This is nonsense. It would be swell for private companies to take over launching astronauts. But they cannot do it. It's too expensive. It's too experimental. And the safety standards for getting people up and down reliably are just unreachably high.

"Sure, decades from now there will be a robust private space-travel industry. But that is a long time. In the interim, space will be owned by Russia and then China. The president waxes seriously nationalist at the thought of China or India surpassing us in speculative 'clean energy.' Yet he is quite prepared to gratuitously give up our spectacular lead in human space exploration."

Krauthammer goes on to point out that the challenges to be overcome before NASA will be able to send astronauts to Mars are even farther beyond the abilities of the private sector, and that Obama's decision means that the public sector will not be even trying to solve them.

At least in this country.

"Fifty years ago," he concludes,"Kennedy opened the New Frontier. Obama has just shut it."

No way

With the possible exception of Ronald Reagan- who merits no more than a mention- none of the people mentioned in this Presidents' Day poll deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Abraham Lincoln.

Well, maybe FDR and LBJ and Harry Truman and Teddy Roosevelt and George Washington and Tom Jefferson also deserve a mention. But no more than that. And to even mention John Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter or George W. Bush as one's all-time favorite president would bespeak very low standards indeed.

We, the People make fools of ourselves in a Presidents' Day poll

Any way you look at it, this poll is bad news. That anybody- much less the percentages of the American people indicated- prefer Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama, or even Ronald Reagan to our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, is a joke.

Clinton was no more than a reasonably competent jerk. Jack Kennedy was a flashy mediocrity who accomplished nothing- and as big a jerk as Clinton. Obama shows every indication of being a failure as president. Of the alternatives mentioned in the poll, only Washington and Reagan and FDR and maybe Truman and Jefferson are fit to be even mentioned in the same breath as Lincoln. And even they don't really come close.

Apparently we are a people remarkable either for our historical ignorance, or for our bad taste in presidents.

Hays Stowe lives?

I've always had a high opinion of former Sen. Birch Bayh, the father of Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) During the elder Bayh's career in the Senate, he was known as a man of genuine integrity- so much so that when producer David Levinson was looking for real-life senators upon which to model Hal Holbrook's idealistic, honest Sen. Hays Stowe for the old TV series The Bold Ones, he was one of a handful of senators upon whom the character was based. Interestingly, in the series Sen. Stowe was himself the son of a senator from an unnamed Midwestern state

While I disagree with him on certain issues, the current Sen. Bayh- who was briefly rumored as President Obama's running mate in 2008, and surely would have been a better choice than Joe Biden- has always struck me as cut from the same cloth. Today he made a very Hays Stowe-like move. In fact, it was the very move Stowe made in the pilot for the series, A Clear and Present Danger (not to be confused with the movie based on the Tom Clancy book).

In the movie, young Stowe- a Justice Department lawyer expected to succeed his father (E.G. Marshall) in the Senate- announces that he won't run after all in order to call attention to a life-threatening ecological catastrophe about to strike a city in the state. An old college professor of his has predicted it, but nobody will believe him. Naturally, the catastrophe occurs on schedule. Stowe's father uses his influence to get the factories whose pollution is responsible closed until weather conditions change and the danger passes (apparently a matter of a few days; the catastrophe occurred because of a unique set of freakish meteorological conditions). Both vindicated and newly impressed with the degree to which power can be used in the cause of good, young Stowe reverses field, runs for his father's seat after all, and wins.

Today the younger Sen. Bayh announced that he would not seek re-election in protest over the ideologically-driven gridlock in Congress. His seat has instantly gone from a likely Democratic hold to a likely GOP pickup (former Sen. Dan Coats is seeking to win it back). But even more significantly, Bayh- already seen in some quarters as presidential timber- has positioned himself as an outsider, an opponent of the petty partisanship which has put Congress in such a bad odor with the American people.

There was a bumper sticker back in the 'Seventies which read, "HAYS STOWE FOR PRESIDENT." Don't be surprised to see bumper stickers boosting Evan Bayh for the same job- one his father sought in 1976, losing the nomination to Jimmy Carter- a few years down the line.

He says he has trouble keeping track of that stuff

The scientist at the heart of the Climategate scandal has lost the data behind the infamous- and thoroughly discredited- "hockey stick" graph of global warming (above)- and has admitted that there has in fact been no global warming since 1995!

Professor Phil Jones, the former director of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, also admits there are serious doubts as to whether the pattern of warming claimed by climate alarmists is unprecedented after all.

Meanwhile, the data supporting anthropogenic global warming continues to shrink as study after study turns out to record local anomalies rather than global trends.

HT: Drudge, Real Clear Politics

Isn't that sweet?

Some men gave their wives flowers for Valentine's Day. But a farmer in Minnesota made his wife a half-mile wide heart- out of manure.

Some people are just romantic by nature.

Others aren't.

Here is a picture of his masterpiece.

At last! An Ode to Woad- on YouTube!

Ancient Celtic warriors used to go into battle naked, painted from head to foot with a blue herbal substance called woad. This, for my fellow ethnic Celts, as a whimsical look at our heritage:



The words (to the tune of Men of Harlech):

1. What's the use of wearing braces,
Spats and hats and boots with laces,
Vests and pants you buy in places
Down on Brompton Road?

What's the use of shirts of cotton,
Studs that always get forgotten?
These affairs are simply rotten;
Better far is woad.

Woad's the stuff to show men,
Woad to scare your foemen!
Boil it to a brilliant hue
And rub it on your back and your abdomen!

Ancient Briton ne'er did hit on
Anything as good as woad to fit on
Neck or knees or where you sit on.
Tailors, you be blowed!!

2. Romans came across the channel
All dressed up in tin and flannel
Half a pint of woad per man'll
Dress us more than these!

Saxons you can waste your stitches
Building beds for bugs in britches!
We have woad to clothe us, which is
Not a nest for fleas!

Romans, keep your armors,
Saxons, your pajamers!
Hairy coats were made for goats
Gorillas, yaks, retriever dogs and llamas!

March up Snowdon with your woad on,
Never mind if you get rained or blowed on!
Never want a button sewed on;
Go it, Ancient B's!!*

*Alternate final line: "W-O-A-D!"

Love, Barack

Time for Chet Culver to start job hunting?

According to a new TIR/Concordia Group poll, Bob Vanderplaats would beat Iowa Gov. Chet Culver... and former Gov. Terry Brandstad would absolutely cream him.

Moreover, about two thirds of Iowans say that Culver doesn't deserve another term.

With the popular Sen. Chuck Grassley heading the ticket and Culver facing what will be to say the least an uphill battle for re-election (especially if his opponent is the popular Branstad, as I strongly expect), it looks like a Republican year in what has in recent years tended to be a Democratic state.

St. Valentine, Martyr

We don't know whether St. Valentine's Day celebrates St. Valentine, or another saint of the same name.That is to say, there are several saints named "Valentine" bouncing around in church history. Valentine the Presbyter, whose feast day we celebrate on February 14 in the West (his feast day in the East is July 6), is so poorly attested that he hasn't been officially on the Roman Catholic calendar since 1969.

The legend, though, is that when the warlike Emperor Claudius II forbade marriage among the young men of Rome due to his difficulty in attracting new recruits, Valentine defied him and continued to perform weddings. Marriage, after all, is a divine institution, and society's most basic, as well as a necessary remedy to sexual concupiscence. He simply could not in good conscience honor the imperial edict.

Valentine was arrested and imprisoned. According to the legend, his jailer had a daughter who was intelligent, but blind. Her name was Julia, and her father asked whether Valentine- an educated man- would be willing to tutor her. Valentine agreed. He acquainted her with literature by telling her stories, and taught her arithmetic. Most importantly, though, he taught her about Jesus. She became a Christian. Valentine prayed that if it be God's will her sight be restored to her. Miraculously, it was.

Supposedly Emperor Claudius was impressed with Valentine, took a liking to him, and would have spared his life if it were not for political pressure from opponents of the Church. Valentine was severely beaten, and then beheaded. According to the legend, as he was led to his execution on February 14, 270 (or thereabouts), he gave his jailer a note for Julia, in which he thanked her for her friendship, and urged her to stay close to God and maintain her allegiance to Christ. He signed it, "Your Valentine." Thus, according to legend, was Valentine's Day born, and the tradition of giving each other messages signed the same way.

Despite doubts as to whether he ever actually lived, a skull alleged to be that of Valentine is on display at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome. But St. Anthony's Church in Madrid also claims to have Valentine's skull on display. Luther's comment about the bones of eighteen apostles being on display in Germany alone despite Christ's only having had twelve of them comes to mind. And cynics may make what they will about St. Valentine's relics so prominently featuring a death's head!

In any event, tomorrow is not only St. Valentine's Day but Quinquagesima in congregations which retain the historic one-year lectionary. Its Gospel lesson, Luke 18:31-43, tells how Jesus gave sight to another blind person, and the Epistle is 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Paul's famous "love passage." Both texts are appropriate to the day of St. Valentine's martyrdom, whether or not it actually ever happened.

HT: Manila Bulletin, Wikipedia

Go away. You aren't real.

Why do we continue to take cartoon characters like Ron Paul and his supporters seriously?

Perhaps the Obama adminstration should try blaming Herbert Hoover for the economy

Blaming Bush just isn't working like it used to.

HT: Real Clear Politics

This is bad even for the MSM

For members of the MSM to be in denial about its own behavior is pretty much the normal state of affairs. But sometimes the denial is so outrageous that it's hard to tell from the outside whether it's denial, or just outright lying.

Of course the media hate Sarah Palin. Their snarkiness where she is concerned couldn't possibly be more... well, snarky. Nor could their denial of that fact be more transparently dishonest, whether consciously or not.

"Cool Runnings," only for real

One of the more interesting figures in the Vancouver Olympics is skier Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong of... Ghana?

The East is red- with blood. Beware.

There are those who maintain that the increasing military power and profile of the most bloodthirsty regime in human history- that of China, which has murdered over one hundred million of its own people, and makes Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany both look bush league in comparison- are benign, and nothing in particular to worry about.

Baloney.

HT: Real Clear World

It's the cover-up that's the real problem in Climategate, too

The break-in wasn't the part of Watergate that brought down Richard Nixon. It was the cover-up.

The same pattern seems to be holding for Climategate, as the Left and the media pretend that nothing of consequence has happened.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Does Left-of-Center mean one and out for BHO?

Peggy Noonan on the seeming willingness of a president who equates centrism with being like George W. Bush to be a one-term president.

HT: Real Clear Politics

And while we're on the subject...

What was that complaint they made about Dubyah?

The Old Gaffer strikes again

According to Vice-President Biden, the surge in Iraq- which President Obama strenuously opposed- was one of President Obama's greatest achievements.

Thank you for explaining that to us, Mr. Vice-President. Otherwise nobody would have realized it.

Nobody on this planet, anyway.

BTW, Joe... what planet are you from?



Meanwhile, watch White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs try to justify Biden's remarks... bearing in mind that every single "accomplishment" he attributes to Barack Obama actually was accomplished by George W. Bush:




HT: Drudge

Benne on the ELCA trainwreck

ELCA theologian Robert Benne on how last summer's travesty in Minneapolis came about.

HT: The Old Adam Lives!

The flip side of the "tolerance" issue

It is only reasonable that gay people should have the legal right to live their lives as they choose.

It is not reasonable that government should dictate what our children think about that choice over the objections of their parents.

If the First Amendment has been removed from the Constitution, I haven't heard about it.

What the Iowa Supreme Court didn't consider

And what the Democrats in the Iowa Legislature won't allow the voters of our state to consider.

The barbarians in Tehran don't like Gmail. Good for Gmail!

The Islamofascists in Tehran have permanently suspended Gmail.

One more reason to use the best webmail out there.

HT: Drudge

Congrats to Google

First Google finally stands up to the thugs in Bejing, and now the Islamofascists in Tehran have permanently suspended Gmail.

Looks like the Google folks really have decided not to be evil.

HT: Drudge

Politically correct zaniness in the Southland

Atlanta is calling its newest subway extension "the Yellow Line."

Asian-American activists regard this as a racial slur.

Hmm.

Maybe America's best days aren't behind us- or China's ahead of us- after all.

HT: All in Faber

Maybe the U.S. decline and Chinese rise aren't inevitable after all

Amid all the pessimism from both the Right and the Left (and this blog has been a part of it) concerning the relative economic and political futures of the United States and China, it's good to come across a cogent argument that neither our continued decline from preeminence nor China's ascent to it is either inevitable- or necessarily even likely.

HT: Real Clear Markets

Two chuckles for the price of one

It seems that there's a billboard outside Wyoming, Minnesota bearing a likeness of former President George W. Bush and the caption, "Miss me yet?"

This story gives me a chuckle. So does the awkward attempt of this entry on the NPR blog to find an explanation for the billboard- however implausible- that would make the people responsible intend to criticize Bush rather than President Obama

ADDENDUM: Perhaps the phenomenon isn't quite as random as the NPR folks would like to think.

A headline guaranteed to get the article read

I did a double take this morning while reading the Des Moines Register- not, as usual, while scanning the editorial page, but while perusing the news section.

One of the articles on the second page was headed, 'CHINCHILLA EXPECTED TO WIN PRESIDENCY.' I instantly smelled a rat. At first, I assumed that I'd misread the headline. But no. It read the same the second time as the first.

Then I assumed that it reported some frat boy joke somewhere, though I couldn't imagine why a student government election  deserved such prominent coverage. When I actually read the article, however, I learned that Laura Chinchilla was leading in her race to become Costa Rica's first female president- a race she eventually won.

Never assume.

ABOVE: Not the president-elect of Costa Rica.