I got an email from a financially sophisticated friend, who tells me there is very bad news from Obama's budget for the oil business. Which ought to come as no surprise.

The current expensing of intangible drilling costs, which have been a benefit to the industry as long ago as I can remember, will no longer be currently expensed. IDC costs generally represent 80 to 90% of drilling costs, hence capitalizing these costs will be a heavy burden on the drilling segment of the industry.

You can see that this is going affect the development decisions of companies planning exploration. Those most affected will be companies already substantially in debt. Think Chesapeake.

But that is not all. It looks like the depletion allowance, presently at 15%, is going to be cut. Additionally, the budget calls for oil and gas producers to become ineligible for the 6% credit on manufacturing activities.

The overall effect will be to slow profit progress for the E&P companies that fit these tax changes the most. Watch the changes in stock prices for the companies. Exxon dropped ten percent on Friday.

If this passes, and it could considering the class warriors running the show now, it will make us more dependent on foreign energy, and since His O'liness has, in every single encounter with the big, cold world outside, rolled over and showed America's soft underside, we will be especially vulnerable.

Charles Gibson, in one of the debates, stated that every time capital-gains tax rates were cut, the government took in more revenue. Why raise them? Obama was wrong-footed; he wants punitive tax rates, for the punitive bit.

And oil companies are evil, of course, because gas has been high at the pump. Although adjusted for inflation, gas is currently about 2/3 the price it was in 1983. Still, the view is widely held that Big Oil is evil.

Big Pharma is evil too--expect an assault on medicine, not for any reason other than to be mean. From this we can expect that medical research will decline in the world into stagnation. Canada, in its socialistic way, has decreed that health is too important to make money off of. And so it is impossible to patent a drug. Considering that it takes about a billion dollars to bring a drug to market, no company in its right mind would dream of doing the research, spend the money to get it past the regulators, to have it instantly be copied by any generic drug company.

Health is very important. It is so important that it is essential that someone make money out of it because that is the only way that we can insure that it will be done well. But that will not do to the regulatory fascists, who will not go with a market solution but are instead absorbed with the bureaucratic/sexual/nannying thrill of hectoring, enforcement and fines.

America is hostage to a bunch of left-wingers who are more concerned with whipping people that they do not like than with the good of the country. Their stated aims are, of course, fairness, but their real aims are beating up on anything which displeases them and damn the consequences.

In this they presented the perfect bill of fare to smug, self-satisfied, lazy people who voted for a man who merely looked good. They did judge the book by its cover. Perhaps one day they will find that the inside of the book is ill-written, confused, retributive, and spiteful. Obama is the best cleaned-up class warrior that I have ever seen.

I wonder if, in a few decades, his tee-shirts will outsell Che's.

There is a columnist, Mark Morford, who writes for the SFGate, home of the San Francisco Chronicle. He is, as you might guess, a fervent admirer of His O'liness. His February 27 column is here.

Let me give you a few of his insights and a tour of one of the looniest of the soi disant respectable moonbat caves.

The good news is, the Obamafied bliss is still out there, still swirling, still waiting to be supped like a fine digestif. At any given moment you can, if you so choose, pause in whatever it is you're suffering from and hear that voice and see his visage or perhaps merely hear some pundit say the words "President Obama" out loud, and you can still enjoy that delicious chill, that little jolt that says, "Oh my God, did we really do it? Is that lucid, impeccably centered man really the leader of the free world?"

You can even take it a tiny step further. You can, as I recently did, glance up at the screen during Obama's congressional address and see not only a young, composed, African American president speaking to the populace in more thoughtful, articulate language than we've heard in a decade, but also note that he happens to be surrounded by a female Speaker of the House and a female Secretary of State and a smart, funny VP who, refreshingly, is not a sneering warmongering torture fanatic who enjoys sucking the blood from live baby sharks.

I suppose that the VP he means is Dick Cheyne. If he ate sharks we would not worry about Chuck Schumer.

You'll think that I do nothing but steal others' art work, and I deny that charge in this day and age. After all, what's the work of a few hours to an artist when on Capitol Hill it's a trillion here, a trillion there.

(Click for a full-sized view in a pop-up window.)

And besides. Posting others' work is a lot easier than thinking, which makes my head hurt.

Thanks, Walsingham, for that nice analysis of the idiocy of the Che rage. I'd have put these comments in a comment to your post, for that's where they belong, but either the system doesn't give commenters full HTML or I'm not smart enough to use it.

A friend came up with

But this is the one that I like the most:

And to all the semisophisticated and lazy children who have had easy lives, here's the place you can go for all your Che memorabilia: Che-Mart.

From Steven March:

These T-shirts send a message, which effectively boils down to this: I have vague left-wing sympathies but don't read history. I am educated enough to want nonconformity but not intelligent enough to avoid conformity. I believe in supporting the wretched of the earth but happily purchase products from multinational corporations.

Bingo.

This is Jimi--my first cousin twice removed, adopted by his grandmother in Virginia.

He is a criminal. He took a swiss-army knife to school to show the children. No history of violence or aggression. The school took a few days to decide on his punishment, and he went from advanced classes---to suspension for 365 days.

No doubt this school district has classes for unwed 14-year-old mothers, and if it follows a lot of schools' curriculum, American history is a politically correct toxic soup of how we have oppressed people instead of how we have become such a fine nation.

When I was growing up in Culo de Pecos, all the boys carried knives; to be fair the coaches would a couple of times a year shake down some of them from a culture which used them for knife fights, but that action, which would today be considered horribly racist, was based on the fact that they did indeed pull them on each other. And only on each other.

The boys with pickups often had a headache rack with guns in the back.

Girls didn't get pregnant.

The worst crime was chewing gum in class. The next worse was holding hands in the hall. Boys and girls I mean.

We left our doors open during vacation.

We left money on the kitchen counter for the milkman to take after he put the day's milk in our fridge while we were at work.

I know, a Leave It to Beaver childhood. And none the worse for it.

UPDATE: this arch criminal, to be played in a movie by Jack Nicholson, also pointed a carrot at someone and said, "Bang!" although the bang point is my extrapolation of his criminality. For that he got in-school suspension. All power to the Virginia educationists for taking rapid action to curtail incipient serial killers.

(1) IN GENERAL- It shall be unlawful for any person other than a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector to possess a qualifying firearm on or after the applicable date, unless that person has been issued a firearm license

Here it is, as introduced, in its entirety.

I have gotten an email warning of this more than any other email, including ones from Nigerians telling me that if I surrender my banking details and send them some money I'll be very rich.

I rather hope that something happens with this, and that it picks up sponsors like a gut wagon picks up flies, or a bail-out picks up greedy and improvident people. But I repeat myself.

It would be very instructive for the House, under the leadership of Miss Pelosi, and the Senate, under Mr. Reid, to decide that guns are in fact entirely too dangerous for people because guns kill people. Guns kill children. Guns kill people. Did you know that gun can rise of its own volition, take aim, and fire? Is this politically correctness, to anthropomorphize firearms? As usual, their stated aims have nothing to do with their real purpose, which is to degrade Americans into abject servility in the names of fairness, compassion, and safety. Yes, Virginia, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Or stated good intentions for I would put nothing past this sorry lot.

Barack Obama Snake Oil

The 69,456,897 sheeple who voted for Obama cannot be wrong.

His O'liness raised $532,946,511 for his campaign, which is $7.39 per vote bought--the highest amount of any candidate.

And what a bargain. That was less than you'd pay to see a movie in a theater, and when the movie ended, you wouldn't find that your entire future was mortgaged and the preaching, if any, would end when you left the the theater.

And if you wanted to, you could walk out.

From this story on "Chicago Tea Party" Rick Santelli and his comment on the mortgage bailouts:

This may have been Santelli's most important economic point: "You know, they're pretty much of the notion that you can't buy your way into prosperity, and if the multiplier that all of these Washington economists are selling us is over... that we never have to worry about the economy again. The government should spend a trillion dollars an hour because we'll get 1.5 trillion back." [Emphasis added]

I guess that the "Multiplier Effect" still works locally....somehow....because, um,......because.... because the local 4(a) and 4(b) boards aren't the government. Technically.

Or something.

A U.S. soldier on active duty in Iraq has called President Obama an "impostor" in a statement in which he affirmed plans to join as plaintiff in a challenge to Obama's eligibility to be commander in chief.

Somehow I just don't think that this guy will have the "courageous/hero/speaker-of-truth-to-power" status conferred upon him by the Left and the MSM that these guys always seemed to get under the last administration.

Because we have Hope. And Change. So Gitmo, aggressive interrogations, and renditions are now O-Righteous!

It's like Jimmy Stewart turning over his bank's money to Uncle Billy for safekeeping in It's a Wonderful Life.

I thought that he was Mr. Foreign Policy...

Here is an opportunity to star in your own future post...I will pull up comments and post them as a separate item this week. The topic is something I have been pondering over the past week.

I am looking for the 2 best answers to the folllowing question:

What effect would the Dow Jones Industrial Average being at 5000 and NYMEX WTI oil price at $25 have on your life?

Think about your personal economics, your business's economics and, due to the ongoing nature of this blog, the city's and the state's economics as well.

Is it self-obsession? Is it being spoiled by the freedom that we have? Or is it pig-ignorance? It's all of them.

This was a march by Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, which in the first paragraph of its website gives us

As queers, we are part of an international movement for human rights that encompasses the movement for Palestinian liberation, and all other liberation movements. We are also part of the growing international movement seeking active ways to express our solidarity with the people of Palestine.

Ah. What short memories. It was just six years ago, in Lawrence v Texas, that all gay Americans got the right to have sex. And now they're marching in support of people who want to kill them.

These moonbat homosexuals forget that they (and I) are utterly dependent on the rights and privileges of a free, liberal (in the original sense) society, which may not approve of their lifestyle, even in say Topeka, Kansas, but who will defend their right, even in Topeka, Kansas, to live.

I saw a documentary on Fred Phelps--the Kansans did not approve of homosexuality but tolerated it, and that's the operative word. They shot fingers at Phelps' coreligionists because of their intolerance. I could live in Kansas more easily than San Francisco because there tolerance is properly understood as leaving people alone. In San Francisco if you deviate from the party line you will be vilified.

I recall entering a hotel on different floors from someone I was involved with, and that was in the 80s but this was to avoid funny stares and pursed lips. In 2009, in Muslim countries, gays are imprisoned and in some cases put to death. And it is this religion that these fools are marching in support of.

As I've gone on, I cannot believe my luck. To be openly gay in a small town in West Texas and to have no ill effects. Even the so-called hateful Baptists aren't hateful. Some of them may have rigid religious beliefs but they do not extend to having a wall fall on me, and I'm convinced that were some towel-headed jihadists try to kill me, they'd be out there with guns, for another of their tenets is the right to bear arms. And good for them.

(h/t Hot Air)
John Yang of NBC News filed the following report on Friday:

Energy Secretary Steven Chu may be a Nobel laureate Ph.D. in physics, but his first forays into energy policy suggest he's a neophyte when it comes to the ways of Washington.

At a forum with reporters on Thursday, the head of the department that has traditionally taken the lead on global oil-market policy, was asked what message the Obama administration had for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries at its meeting next month.

"I'm not the administration," the Cabinet secretary replied. "I will be speaking and learning more about this in order to figure out what the U.S. position should be and what the president's position is."

Chu, who is still without a deputy, said he feels "like I've been dumped into the deep end of the pool" on oil policy.

The day before, reporters asked him about OPEC output levels after a speech to a group of utility regulators. He responded that the issue was "not in my domain."

Study finds that Gitmo meets Geneva Convention rules.

Barack Obama must be something. He accomplishes in less than a month something that George W. Bushitlerburtontorturerconstitutionshredder didn't manage in 6 years.

No, he didn't change anything to do with Gitmo. Or renditions. Or aggressive interrogation. He just changed the political party holding the White House.

Now it is all rainbows, magic unicorns, and America loved again throughout the world.

Suckers much?

This is the smile of the day during a week of bad-to-really-bad news.

"The Democratic National Committee has not yet paid us," Peter Scales, a spokesman for the city's Office of Budget and Management, said Thursday after questions from the Chicago Sun-Times.

And the unpaid bill is apparently in dispute between the DNC and the Obama Campaign. Hope AND Change, kiddies.

One of the many iPhone apps that you can get is a "Tip Calculator". In fact, there are at least 15 different tip calculators available for the iPhone.

All for a device that already has a calculator built in.

I'll leave to others the discussion about how people who need tip calculators to figure tips are the same people who need Macs to do computing.

The sign read, "Abort Obama, not the unborn."

The police department realized that the officer overstepped and they even returned the sign. But the guy did win a 30 minute interview and a walk-through of his house from the Secret Service.

Now.......what is it that is missing from this story?

Anyone?

Then you are a Chump. And just think, any extra money that you have can go to bail out all those people who all bought houses that they couldn't afford.

It is hard for me to follow the ins and outs of the budget wrangling; to keep from popping an artery I have to maintain a detachment which is difficult when I know that these people are holding a gun to my head to pay off their constituencies. Political footpads, one and all. But at least a legitimate footpad, the mugger with a gun-ready project, on saying, "Your money or your life," doesn't end the robbery with a seemingly high-minded sneer that for you to mind the robbery is to be mean-spirited. A tinge of Maoist self-confession?

One newscaster, of that increasingly rare breed that doesn't make me wish for a soft brick which, when thrown at the television doesn't wreck it but merely switches it off, asked Senator Jim Talent why His O'liness seemed a bit shocked when a half a forest was dumped on his desk for signature. I know it was half a forest because Representative Jerry Lewis, who is everything that his homonym is not, made a big deal of schlepping it around for all to see its leviathan size.

Senator Talent believes that Mr. Obama was blindsided because he never attended to Senate business for he was running for President from the first day in office. He missed, as you recall, an astonishing number of votes.

Now I see Obama as a man of huge ego who wants at least as much as Mr. Clinton to sit in the White House, and did not much think beyond that: he wanted to open the Christmas present but never thought about learning to use it. Ordering and receiving a copy of Photoshop does not make you a graphic artist.

No doubt the new stimulus bill will provide counseling for people stuck on an escalator. These people ought to be given at least six months off work for post-traumatic stress syndrome.

A Somali Muslim, or ex-Muslim, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, wrote Infidel, her own story. She grew up in Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Kenya, and was subjected by her grandmother to female genital mutilation. Married off by her father to a Canadian Somali whom she had no interest in, she was sent to Germany to be called for. She fled to Holland, and became a refugee.

She learned the notoriously difficult Dutch language, studied, reveling in Western thought, and the idea of thinking for herself, and was finally elected to the Dutch parliament. She made the film Submission with Theo van Gogh which oddly enough in Arabic means "Islam," and for his troubles he was murdered. The murderer used two knives: one to off him and the other to stick his manifesto in the body. Ah, those manifestos. The monsters wouldn't exist without explaining their madness, would they? Makes you miss the ordinary footpad.

Ms. Ali is now in asylum in America, a fellow with the American Heritage Foundation, for the Dutch government tired of protecting her from the rage of Muslims.

Geert Wilders is a member of the Dutch Parliament. In 2008 he released a movie called Fitna, which is an Arabic term used to describe "test of faith in times of trial." I have also heard it described as "obligation."

The Dutch--once traders, artists, brave people--peed their pants in terror. The police cordoned off the Parliament building for a few blocks to make it more difficult for Muslims to exercise their fitna for the islam of people who don't want it. And the shopkeepers in that area sent Wilders a bill for lost earnings. Just who is now the nation of shopkeepers?

The Dutch government then sent emissaries to various Middle Eastern countries muttering, slyly, that because they had this thing called freedom of speech they couldn't control Mr. Wilders but not to worry. He's a nut, they sniggered, and don't you worry: we'll be glad to expose our soft bellies to you anytime, anyplace. Just don't say mean things about us and we'll hand you the knife you use to gut us.

At the rate they're peeing their pants I'd advise buying stock in Fruit of the Loom.

From Don Surber:

Michelle Obama said: "You're getting $600. What can you do with that? Not to be ungrateful or anything. But maybe it pays down a bill, but it doesn't pay down every bill every month."

1. Oh wait. She was talking about President Bush's $600 stimulus last year, and not her husband's $600 stimulus this year.

Actually, it is much worse than that. The Bush $600 was an actual check sent to taxpayers. The Obama proposal is a $600 ($13 per week!) tax credit. Which means that you will receive this year's $600 sometime after you file your 2009 taxes. Which, if you are like most people, means after April 15, 2010.

Or even later if you wait until you are nominated for a cabinet position to file them.

Hope. And Change.

All of the talk of the supposed Bush "Imperial Presidency" and the unprecedented expansion of the Executive branch of government....and of course, the knee-jerk claim that Bush has "shredded the Constitution" that is offered up, unchallenged, almost like a protocol that establishes a communication link between two "progressives".

So where is the great "rollback". Which of the powers that W so blatantly grabbed up during his term are being released back to their proper places?

It looks as though President Obama plans not only hold on to these powers he plans to do some expanding of his own.

Like having the upcoming census handled through the White House.

I remember how Tom Delay was vilified for the redistricting here in Texas based on existing census numbers. Now the Obama White House wants to game the numbers themselves.

Any of this starting to look less like Hope and Change brought by the Great Lightworker and more and more like good old two-fisted....and corrupt...Chicago politics?

I was surfing television last night and paused on CNN with Larry King. His guest, for the 87th time, was the Holy Al Gore, High Priest of the First Church of Climatology, and that most progressive of progressives. My hero.

Larry: Al, I understand that you have a new yacht!

The Holy Gore: That's right, Larry. It's called the Bio-Solar One, and it's the king of Center Hill Lake in Smithville.

Larry: You're the conscience of the planet, earth, the high priest of Gaia. You deserve a yacht.

The Holy Gore: I think so. People have said to me why have bio-diesel when there's no bio-diesel on the lake, but I'm in talks with the Obama administration to install bio-diesel on every lake, pond and horse trough as part of the Stimulus Bill.

Larry: Al, wasn't there a problem with your yacht when people saw it didn't have any solar panels?

The Holy Gore: That has been exaggerated way out of proportion. I have a solar still on board. Also I have a telescope on the top. I keep looking for flying saucers. You know that I was born nine months after Roswell, don't you? Our friends from space have answers for us, you know, and anyway I want to get my family's medical history.

Larry: Yes, Al, I heard when you were born. Do you spend a lot of time on the boat?

The Holy Gore: Not as much as I used to, Larry. The lake is getting full of creepy people. Whenever I went ashore I'd hear people muttering about that lunatic's huge rubber ducky with the evil eye. I am a brave man, Larry, but a lunatic with a rubber ducky--did you know that I was in the military?

Larry: Yes, Al, I know that.

From Iowahawk:

PALO ALTO, CA - An international mathematics research team announced today that they had discovered a new integer that surpasses any previously known value "by a totally mindblowing shitload." Project director Yujin Xiao of Stanford University said the theoretical number, dubbed a "stimulus," could lead to breakthroughs in fields as diverse as astrophysics, quantum mechanics, and Chicago asphalt contracting.

"Unlike previous large numbers like the Googleplex or the Bazillionty, the Stimulus has no static numerical definition," said Xiao. "It keeps growing and growing, compounding factorially, eating up all zeros in its path. It moves freely across Cartesian dimensions and has the power to make any other number irrational."

Jean-Luc Brossard, a researcher with the European consortium CERN, said the number is so staggeringly large that it is difficult for even mathematicians to grasp, let alone lay people.

"The number itself is incomprehensible by human minds, and can only be theoretically understood in a fractional parallel universe which we refer to as the DC dimension," said Brossard. "The best way to understand a stimulus is to imagine a dollar sign followed by a packed string of hexidecimal nanodigits, wound into a triple helix, woven into a dodecahedron, and stacked on top of one another. Now imagine you were a black hole on the far edge of the universe, trying to escape the stimulus at 30 times the speed of light. The stimulus would still catch up to you and ram your black hole with such furious, repeated force that it would cause your entire reality itself to collapse."

Xiao said the team discovered the number with the help of an international network of 24 nitrogen-cooled Cray Ultracluster supercomputers, the CERN particle accelerator, and "three pounds of Humboldt County Chronic."

"The exciting news is that with more powerful computers and drugs, we believe we are on the verge of discovering an even larger number, which we refer to as a 'stimulusconferencebill,'" said Xiao. "Speaker Pelosi has already promised us the funding."

I saw Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison being interviewed and she, with her usual good humor, explained that the Republican senators were not even being given a chance to view the new huge pissing away of taxpayer money, using the excuse that is emergency legislation.

I see that bipartisan now has a new meaning--Republicans don't take part at all. One part is Democrats taxing, spending, and proposing cheats and thieves for high government posts, and the other part is Republicans. Doing nothing.

One is where a handful of people in the government fanned by fears of a catastrophic economic collapse spend a lot of other people's money to subsidize favored businesses in a wide range of industries that they know little about in an attempt to direct and stimulate the economy, who don't produce measurable results, and who are generally unaccountable to the public.

And the other is the Stimulus bill.

Otherwise known as the Scharbauer Sports Complex, the Lemon Bowl has failed so spectacularly that it has surprised even its harshest critics. The demand for the facility that the original proponents assured us was there has never materialized and it almost seems as though we have been taken by surprise that even seriously under-used major facilities still cost a lot of money to operate and maintain. Who knew?

So the only solution seems to be to establish a permanent and dedicated tax to pay for the operations and maintenance of a facility that *cough* pays for itself.

4B Board Chairman Jay Isaacs said the panel will ask voters to keep the tax, perhaps reduced to an eighth of a cent, to support the complex after the indebtedness is retired in 2016. "We're being very prudent," Isaacs said.

You can almost see what is going to happen here, campaign-wise.

Let me put on my High-Dollar, Out-Of-Town Consultant hat: Instead of doing the honest thing and letting the existing 4B tax expire altogether and then begin a campaign to install a new 4B tax specifically for the maintenance of the Lemon Bowl, you instead set it up so that the referendum is to make smaller but permanent (permanent....as in foreeeeeeevvvvvveeeerrrrrr)...the existing 4B tax rate. That way you can run the campaign as though we are all going to the polls to vote on a referendum to decrease our taxes. And who could be against that?

There, I just saved the "Save The Lemon Bowl" steering committee about $15,000 in consulting fees.

Bob Campbell's article is a good one but one thing that I would have like to have seen is a series of questions asked of those so heavily involved in the original idea and campaign. Things like, "How did you so wildly over-estimate the demand for the facility? And under-estimate the ongoing costs?"

And one more: "Would you object if the new 4B tax were named after you?"

The "Burns/Marks" Tax.

I like it.

UPDATE: Re-reading the article, this quote stuck out:

Councilman John James, a 4B Board member, said covering maintenance "is only one-third of the discussion.

"The other two-thirds are revenues and costs and the onus is on us to say there is a problem," James said. "If we do nothing else this year, we need to get control of these.

I thought this would be a good time to call on all bloggers on jw or elsewhere. I have one position on the managed competition committee that needs filled. We are going to review the sports complex in January. Fill out a resume or give me a call. I am also putting together a committee to look at the mdc,chamber and the sales tax to see if we are getting our moneys worth---do we need 5 mil for economic development? Can a portion be used for property tax reduction? It will be a very interesting study. Jon Morgan and Ken Burgess have agreed to head up this in-depth look. I need others , both pro and con. It's ok to come out from behind your pseudo-names.

Judging from Mr. James' statement, I guess we know how that worked out.

NRO's Mark Hemingway has a short post:

"I think about the stimulus as an economist but I feel it as a father. Barack Obama is destroying my daughter's future. It is like sitting there watching my house ransacked by a gang of thugs. That's how I feel, now back to how I think."

...said Economist Arnold Kling. Follow the link to the entire article.

Then, write your representative and Senators. They still have to thrash this thing through committee.

The Baby Boomer generation, having spent every advantage handed down to them by previous generations, now seeks to maintain their lifestyles by spending every advantage that they should be handing down to future generations.

In general I have a good deal of trouble watching the news; the MSM has proven itself utterly unreliable, sneering from the view of their colons, ranging from the suiplenitudinous Katie Couric to the loopy Dan Rather. And then there is Chris Matthews, with the tingle in his leg over His O'liness, and of course Keith Olbermann, whose friends really ought to start him on an Ativan drip and make sure he has a medical power of attorney.

And round-table discussions between journalists have been described as a circle-jerk. Inelegant but true, and it's vexing to hear various journalists jockeying for face time to relieve themselves of the thoughts they had over, or received from, their Alpha-Bits.

The only reason to watch Fox News, really, and they're the best of the lot, is Charles Krauthammer. A man who has overcome tremendous difficulties, he's far and away the most intelligent commentator in front of the camera and his mind is the most acute, homing in on the essentials. I suspect he's had a philosophical journey since he wrote speeches for Walter Mondale in 1980. I'm very glad he's speaking, and writing now.

Here Krauthammer eviscerates the man, the legend, the myth of Obama.

Obama is turning out to be a frail reed. Highly intelligent but untested, and unworldly in a particularly leftist way. I don't think it's an accident that so many divines are leftists for their eyes are not fixed on their path but on their wishes for reality. Obama, with his charm and his elegance, has schmoozed his way through his life, aided to no small degree by his looks and by being a black who is not angry and threatening and is therefore the ideal of a certain sort of guilty voter who finds thinking more bothersome than feeling good. I myself, no liberal, wanted a lot from him because I wanted a black to do well as long as I didn't do badly from it. Or even too badly for I'd have borne some difficulties just to prove that in America a black can make it.

But try as I might I couldn't swallow his past: democrats have traditionally gotten a pass for past crimes and misdemeanors but even Bill Clinton would have had trouble explaining Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, and why he didn't pull back from those loathsome people. I knew then that he was a lightweight, insulated by arrogance and the lack of achievement from making choices, knowing that his soaring rhetoric will carry the day. He is finding out that good sounds are not enough now that he's in the big, the biggest, league.

One down, billions to go.

Republican rule being a massive underdog in a horserace with "natural causes" at this point in her career.

The link.

For the sake of argument let us stipulate that money needs to be spent in order to stimulate the economy.

Why is it necessary that the government do all of the spending?

Whoever it was that said the the best rehabilitator of the image of the Bush Administration would be President Obama was ahead of the curve. It turns out that more and more of the things done by the Bush administration concerning the handling and interrogation of terrorists are to be continued under the Obama administration.

So to review:

Harsh interrogation techniques (2000-2008): Torture!

Torture! (2008- ): Harsh interrogation techniques.

Amazon is selling Pocket Obama. It's 156 pages of, er, goo, with one treacly sentiment per page, and at the bottom is a threat--"Copyrighted material." No doubt we are being enjoined from stealing it; I rather think they're boasting.

From the Amazon blurb:

This is the little blue book that right-wing partisans love to hate. Printed in a size that easily fits into pocket or purse, POCKET OBAMA is an anthology of quotations borrowed from Barack Obama's speeches and writings, intended to keep the momentum going for those inspired by his message of hope and change. The portable book serves as a reminder of the remarkable ability of this man to move people with his words, a primer for readers who want to examine the substance of his thought and reflect on the next great chapter in the American story. His captivating oratory has earned comparisons to John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and this collection presents words that catapulted his remarkable rise to the American Presidency and set a true course for the future. Includes themes of democracy, politics, war, terrorism, race, community, jurisprudence, faith, personal responsibility, national identity, and above all, his hoped-for vision of a new America. POCKET OBAMA is essential reading as we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin the work of remaking America.

Notice that start--on the same level as, "Call in the next 15 minutes!" as some shouting fat man booms crap at you at 3 AM. It's impossible to lampoon the lickspittle gush of that fool blurb-writer. Right-wing partisans "love" to hate it? You don't have to be a partisan or even right-wing to contemn it and those who mistake these little platitudes and bromides and non-sequiturs for wisdom. Although I might be stretching to say that some are non-sequiturs for a non-sequitur normally takes more words to have two conflicting ideas.

Andrew Ferguson, an intelligent and thoughtful man, and a very graceful writer, reviewed the campaign books of all the candidates perhaps nine months ago for The Weekly Standard. Obama's first book, he wrote, was one of the best of the now-abandoned class of thirtysomething memoirists; his second book was just a campaign book. In his typical gently snide fashion, Ferguson thought it a bad deal to trade a good writer for just another politician.

You can read inside this Little Blue Book of The One's, and choose a random page. It doesn't matter for they're all much the same. Too bad from a man who, Ferguson said, is the best presidential writer since Teddy Roosevelt.

It's proof of the sad fact that Obama has turned himself into a cult figure and vacated his sensibility to become Clinton II, so pleased that he is in the White House that everything must be sacrificed for it.

And it is sacrifice too, for after a while, how can you tell the dancer from the dance? Or as a friend of mine said about Bill Clinton, "He believes his own bullshit."

From the Texas Legislature RSS Feed for all bills and resolutions filed for consideration:

HR 238 Introduced
Today, February 05, 2009

Welcoming the Sweetwater Jaycees to the State Capitol for their Rattlesnake Roundup.

Think they'll make a good haul on the House Floor?

It seems that our new President, who urged that individuals sacrifice for the Common Good™ in his inaugural address, has decided that the White House is entirely too cold and has therefore turned up the heat.

While people in the northeast suffer through a particularly cold winter. The reason is that he was born in Hawaii, and feels more comfortable when it's hot, while he lectures the rest of the world on energy conservation. Hypocrisy? In a Democrat? Heaven forfend. Just ask, oh, Tom Daschle or Bill Richardson about the need for utter transparency and they'll tell you that ethics are for the little people. Because they're special.

I recall when James Earl Carter lectured us on turning down our thermostats, and he put his money where his (astonishingly dentulous) mouth is: he appeared in a sweater, much to the amusement, and bemusement, of the American people.

Not a week in office and I thinking that Jimmy the Pious may be more honest than His O'liness. But then Jimmy was merely a fool.

Do these people have no shame?

In the afternoon of February 3, 2009, Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination to be secretary of Health and Human Services. I recall Mr. Daschle very well--he's a steely-eyed vicious little leftist. In 2004 the people of South Dakota retired him. I once asked a lawyer from South Dakota why they, a conservative state, would elect Faschle Daschle and he said that everywhere you stop there is a post card signed Tom. You can do that in such a small state. Daschle inspired in me a visceral loathing second only to Howard Metzenbaum; I literally prefer Our Empress Hillary and Chuck Schumer.

Mr. Daschle did not pay $140,000 in back taxes, a move which he stated was unintentional. How interesting that a man who has spent so much of his life in what I'm sure he would call public service would not know about $140,000 in back taxes. Perhaps he was rich before he entered the Senate? That's the only explanation of him forgetting that works for me.

Quoth Mr. Daschle:

This work will require a leader who can operate with the full faith of Congress and the American people, and without distraction.

Right now I am not that leader...

Tom, you never had any faith from me, and in 2004 when you were kicked out by the people of South Dakota, they obviously didn't have faith either and were glad to give a sitting Senator the boot--which, considering the rate of the re-election of incumbents, is a slap in the face with a wet fish.

Mr. Obama continued to support Mr. Daschle, though, until the resignation. Which follows upon the resignation of Nancy Killefer, who was nominated to be his chief performance officer, and who withdraw over a relatively small (less than $1,000) tax lien on her property.

Our new treasury secretary Tim Geithner had neglected to pay $40,000 in back taxes--this from the treasury secretary of all people--and we all know about Bill Richardson.

I finally understand why this sorry lot never hesitates to raise taxes.

Because taxes don't apply to them. No doubt Leona Helmsley spoke for them all, "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."

I need a cigarette.

I have a friend, Chris, an American who is a professor of English in Japan. This morning he wrote

In today's Tokyo newspaper there was a vertical two-panel political cartoon. Top: Obama on stage, smiling, the crowd yelling "Obama!" Bottom: Obama, head hung, crowd yelling "Obaka!" ('fool,' although the o- is an honorific). Maybe the fact they've been had is setting in.

Wising up? I'm quite sure that most of Washington is still smoking cigarettes in the longest afterglow in history.

Not so much the style books as the "official narrative" now that thier guy is in the White House and not George W. Bush.

Every day at least one news report appears on the wires that, if you liked George W. Bush and/or were generally a person who prefers honest reporting, makes you wonder how it would have been reported during the bad old Bush administration.

Kentucky frozen over and millions without power for weeks? No mention of any failure of FEMA or lack of action by the Obama administration, must less accusations that President Obama hates white people and wants them to freeze. Now in defense of President Obama, the municipalities and the state of Kentucky are the first line of defense against these natural disasters and always have been. At least they were until Hurricane Katrina came ashore creating the perfect storm of 1) One of the biggest hurricanes in history, 2) coming ashore near a major U.S. city that, 3) is located mostly below sea level and that, 4) had a incompetent nincompoop for a Mayor and was, 4) in a state with an incompetent nincompoop for a governor and 6) 65% of whose citizens have been conditioned to think that everything either does come from the government (or should) and, of course, 7) there was Republican in the White House. Judging from the press coverage of the icing over of Kentucky I guess that the responsibility for handling these types of disasters now rests with the states again.

Renditions? Under Bush these renditions were war crimes on a major scale causing America to lose its moral standing within the world community. The Obama administration has preserved the ability to keep doing these renditions with a recent executive order. But President Obama closed Gitmo! No, actually, he did not. He signed an executive order ordering it be closed within a year. Let's talk then.

In the middle of the "worst economic crisis since the 1930's", President Obama hosts a party for lawmakers and serves Kobe beef steaks that cost $89 per pound. And look at the way that MSNBC....all BDS, All the Time....just savages the current administration for serving $89/lb steak during a major recession.

Tax cheats in cabinet posts? Faithfully reported as "honest mistakes" by noble public servants. Contrast that with news reports concerning "Joe the Plumber's" tax lien. In the former case tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes are not a disqualification for serving in the Obama administration collecting and spending tax dollars and determining tax policy. In the latter case, a simple local tax lien renders a citizen unqualified to even offer a personal opinion on a candidate's tax plan.

The mainstream press will only begin to regain their credibility (and in the case of many major dailies perhaps become solvent once again) when it becomes apparent to the news purchasing public that it is something other than the steno pool for the Obama administration.

I am not holding my breath.

It isn't online (yet), and it was buried on page 4A of Saturday's (1/31/2009)MRT (top left corner), but in this story, the MDC, besides talking about another Airport Hangar Project, got a report from DK Communications, a consultant from Abilene.

Ms. Denise Baily from DK Communications basically told the MDC board that the public is generally not aware that the Midland Chamber of Commerce Staff are part of the Tax Funded organization and that:

"There is a lack of communication from the MDC," "Nobody knows how it works."

It is so bad, MDC member Laura Roman said many constituents don't understand why the MDC doesn't pave roads to rural homes or supply more policeman to patrol Loop 250.

So you have an agency that nobody knows who works for it, what it does AND is sitting on piles and piles of taxpayer cash. What's the problem?

UPDATE: Here's the story link.

Surfed across a new website this morning called Stimulus Watch. You can go there to see what it is that the Democrats in control everything think will jump start the economy.

It has the added feature of letting you vote on a line item basis whether you think that that particular item is necessary or not.

For instance, the popularity of spending $500,000 for a dog park in Chula Vista, CA, is not very high.

But the dog park is doing much better than spending $99,600 to create two "jobs" that have something to do with doorbells in housing projects.

This stimulus bill may be the best instrument ever for illustrating the liberal democrat mindset when it come to the role of government in our lives. This is why I am glad that the bill passed the House garnering zero GOP votes and may do the same in the Senate. This thievery will be codified and the Democrats have full ownership of it.

The returning chickens will not have to choose between competing roosts.

UPDATE: Economic Development Alert! Part of the so-called "stimulus" bill is $386,000,000 for a "convention center hotel" in Dallas. And if you apply the standard ChamberMath (TM) multiplier effect on this project alone then the entire stimulus bill AND the automakers bailout is paid for thrice over. A Win-Win!