A friend, who goes by Opiate of the Masses, send me a testy but funny email, which I'll steal. It follows:

From the Just One Minute blog:

The Great Communicater (Obama) shared his new-found philosophy about mandates at the summit:

When I was young, just got out of college, I had to buy auto insurance. I had a beat-up old car. And I won't name the name of the insurance company, but there was a company -- let's call it Acme Insurance in Illinois. And I was paying my premiums every month. After about six months I got rear-ended and I called up Acme and said, I'd like to see if I can get my car repaired, and they laughed at me over the phone because really this was set up not to actually provide insurance; what it was set up was to meet the legal requirements. But it really wasn't serious insurance.

justoneminute

Can anyone guess what went wrong for the super genius college graduate here? Yes, he was required to buy LIABILITY insurance but was not required to have COLLISION insurance. I knew the difference when I got my license just out of HIGH SCHOOL because my parents didn't drive and I had to buy my own insurance (I did something radical - I asked the agent what the policy covered.)

We can excuse Barack Obama, super genius college graduate and future constitutional scholar for not KNOWING the difference but what is truly mind boggling is that it never occurred to him to ASK the insurance agent "Hey, if I total my car, will my insurance policy pay to fix it?" He just ASSUMED it would, didn't he? (As the late Benny Hill said, when you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME.) But the irony here is that because OBAMA was too stupid to ask a basic question about insurance, he assumes that the rest of us are also too stupid to ask these questions. And by this dubious reasoning, we need the help of DOPES LIKE HIM WHO WERE TOO STUPID TO ASK THESE QUESTIONS IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!! In other words, if Obama is a klutz who went to replace a light bulb and ended up causing a short circuit that blacked out half of Chicago, he has decided that no one can be allowed to replace light bulbs but instead must hire him to do it. This is the type of bullshit that passes for logic in Washington. And the fact that the media can report his silliness with a straight face makes me wonder not why the old media are dying but how the hell they managed to survive this long.

Another fake newscast. Lots of good things but the best was, "... but Oprah could be mistaken. Once she mistook Barack Obama for presidential material."

"You can't let the articulate incompetents shape the future of Midland," he said.

Amazing.

Your tax dollars at work.

Here's the link you won't find on the Midland Development Corporation Website!

The entire Midland and Odessa Business Focus from the February 2010 Spirit Magazine.

Here's the link to the Spirit Mag Advertising Rate Card. The card rate for a full page 4-color process ad for one month is $37,600. I'm sure there is a "Business Focus" discount since there are multiple advertisers, but you have to add back the cost of preparing the copy.

Feel free to speculate about the total price in the comments.

A little girl named Suzy was standing on the sidewalk in front of her home. Next to her was a basket with 11 newborn kittens. In her hand was a sign that read "FREE KITTENS!"

Suddenly a line of black cars pulled up beside her. Out of the lead car stepped a tall, grinning man.

"Hello there little girl, I'm President Obama. What do you have in the basket?" he asked.

"Kittens," little Suzy said.

"How old are they?" asked Obama.

Suzy replied, "They're so young, their eyes aren't even open yet."

"And what kind of kitties are they?"

"Democrats," Suzy coyly answered with a smile.

President Obama was delighted. As soon as he returned to his car, he called his PR chief and told him about the little girl and the kittens.

Recognizing the perfect photo op, the two men agreed that the President should return the next day, and, in front of the assembled media, have the girl talk about her kittens.

So the next day, Suzy was again standing on the sidewalk with her basket of "FREE KITTENS" when the Presidential motorcade pulled up, this time followed by vans from ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and a pear-shaped man from MSNBC who spent his time screaming.

Cameras and audio equipment were quickly set up and President Obama got out of his limo and walked over to little Suzy.

"Hello, again," he said, "I'd love it if you would tell all my friends here what kind of kittens you're giving away."

"Yes sir," Suzy said. "They're Republicans."

Taken by surprise, the President stammered, "But....but....yesterday, you told me they were DEMOCRATS."

Suzy smiled and said, "I know, but today they have their eyes wide open."

If it was reported I didn't see it, but on the agenda for the February 19th, meeting of the MDC were four amendments to four different economic development contracts:

10. Consider a resolution authorizing the execution of an amendment to the economic development agreement between the Midland Development Corporation and Trace Engines, L.P.
11. Consider a resolution authorizing the execution of an amendment to the economic development agreement between the Midland Development Corporation and Natural Gas Services Group, Inc.
12. Consider a resolution authorizing the execution of an amendment to the economic development agreement between the Midland Development Corporation and Sentry Pumping Units International, Inc.
13. Consider a resolution authorizing the execution of an amendment to the economic development agreement between the Midland Development Corporation and Midland College.

Sentry is interesting. The MDC pledged $250,000 for 50 total jobs over some non-reported time period. They got $150,000 for sealing the deal and then they got $50,000 for meeting the 25 job plateau. The March 2009 MDC Newsletter had this to say upon meeting the 25 employee goal:

"Not only did Sentry meet the expectations of full-time-employees, they hit the ball out of the park," said Mike Hatley, vice president of the MDC. "They certified 42 full-time-employees by year end. We're impressed with their internal performance as it relates to their contract, to say the least."

So, we had to move the fence in to keep "the ball out of the park" for a company that was 8 jobs shy of meeting their goal last year?

Then there is Midland College, They are teaching wind courses, per the requirements of their grant, maybe we're giving them more money?

Personally, four development contract amendments on one meeting agenda is a big deal in my book. It is obvious that these companies aren't meeting their original development commitments (as I've speculated about repeatedly using publicly available sources) and their promises to invest in property tax generating capital improvements and jobs is the only thing that masks the illusion that these economic development payments aren't anything more than a lump sum to the bottom line.

I'd just like to see the MDC spin all these amendments after they made it a point to say that the Accutel/Semperian deal was "successful" a couple of weeks ago in the wake of the Cingular "Clawback."

I'm not sure riding out the development contract terms and then immediately starting to wind down operations, is a success. Add to that, Semperian Closed their Knoxville Office last week and didn't list Midland as one of the core centers where they were going to transfer employees. Given Semperian's investment in a huge facility in Lewisville in mid-2008 and their recent pattern of closing call centers I wouldn't be surprised to see the Midland office fold by the end of summer.

If that happens, just how much of a success was that fulfilled MDC contract? I think it is embarrassing to have your "First Big Win" closed down within a decade.

UPDATETexans for Public Justice recently posted an update to their "Watch Your Assets" series which looks at the status of the Texas Enterprise Fund grants in this recession. Check out their synopsis of Trace Engines and Huntsman in Odessa.

Partly because of the internet, sure.

But mostly because they aren't great anymore. They aren't even good, really.

The industry is much too overrun with lefty J-School idealogues out to "change the world" to provide reliable, unbiased information to the news-consuming public.

And that is when they actually do provide something. What they don't cover is just as telling.

Case in Point: The largest scientific scandal in history (perhaps). Totally uncovered by the American press.

One of the truths of life is the law of unintended consequences. The welfare state led to the breakdown of many families, and most black families, and it was not intended. Laws which fine drivers for having an empty beer can in the car meant that the drivers would throw them out and litter.

One of the unintended consequences of Nancy Pelosi's statement that Obamacare was the most transparent legislation in America's history required a new portrait of the Speaker of the House. It's on the next page and it's not pretty.

Today I was listening to the radio news, which stated that President Obama was recommending President George W. Bush for an honor.

He wants to name the seismic flaw which resulted in the earthquake in Haiti in honor of President Bush.

Henceforth that flaw will be called Bush's Fault.

Central Falls, Rhode Island, is a poor town in a state with very high unemployment, and its school system is one of the worst in the state. And one of the most expensive too--and it's funny how those so often go hand-in-hand. The teachers make about 3.5 times the average townsman's salary, and half of their students are failing all of their classes.

The superintendent, Ms. Frances Gallo, knew she had to do something. She asked the teachers, who have of course an iron-clad union, to teach 25 minutes more a day, help in tutoring, and eat lunch with the students once a week. That was too much of course to ask of the teachers. They refused.

Superintendent Gallo has fired about 100 high-school teachers, administrators and assistants. A bit more detail here.

This reminds me of the time that President Reagan fired the striking air-traffic controllers. PATCO, the union, was decertified in 1981, and twenty-five years later I heard Robert Poli, the quondam union chief who lead them off a cliff, still snarling about Robert Reagan. Robert, you lost, you cost a lot of people their jobs, and you destroyed your union.

Over Christmas I was dining with friends in Las Vegas. P. has a job as administrator in a program that trains people to work in the service industry on the Strip. I remarked, foolishly it seems, that even though Vegas is having financial problems now, at least it won't be ruined by unions like Detroit. I was told that that is precisely the worry. With a day's training one can get a job as a bar back for $14.00 an hour, and tips.

Without question there have been times and places for unions; mine owners were until not that long ago extraordinarily vicious and grasping to their help, keeping them indebted by forcing them to buy from the company store. But it is the unions that ruined Detroit, the American automobile industry and American education.

This does not have, of course, the effect of Ronald Reagan's action, which set an example for private business to follow when hiring and firing unionized workers, but still, it's a good start and tremendously bracing.

Brava, Superintendent Gallo.

Last night I listened some more to Mike Malloy on XM's (and Sirius') America Left. I didn't hear any calls and he'd play entire songs without talking; either he had some emergencies or he was overcome with the evil of anyone who isn't just like him.

The only thing that ejects Mike Malloy from his ten-second seismic sighs is the mention of a Republican or a Conservative.

Last night he was debating with someone who was good presidential material. Someone brought up the Hildebeest. Malloy jumped in, "Hillary is a Republican, straight up."

And after he delivered himself of another seismic sigh he roused himself to say, "And all you Republicans can go play in the rain and melt!"

We may be about to see what a difference a Margaret Thatcher makes.

Midland's newest blog: Tim Kreitz's "Libertarian Flux".

Or maybe this post's title should be set out as....

Climategate "scientist" attacks bloggers

The money paragraph:

[Former Director of East Anglia University's Climate Research Unit Phil] Jones said he might submit a correction to Nature. But he nonetheless attacked bloggers and other critics for "hijacking the peer-review process... Why don't they do their own [temperature] reconstructions? If they want to criticise, they should write their own papers," he said.

Remember, this is the same guy who conspired to keep his data and methods secret from valid FOIA request by people who were trying to do exactly that.

This stuff is all over the foreign press. Even lefty outfits like The Guardian in the UK are covering it.

Yet it is still essentially embargoed as news here in the United States while the Cap and Trade folks are trying to figure out how to slip some sort of job-killing carbon tax in under the wire.

And like they are trying to do with ObamaCare.

The legacy media is ignoring the sound of the entire corrupt edifice of global warming crashing to the ground. The BBC World Service, which is a leftie nightmare, would be having a crisis of faith over climate change if they were self-aware enough for one.

The major sources of this con game have been shown to be downright lies, studies by pressure groups, or even hobbyist magazines. Himalayan glaciers will not melt. Forty percent of the Amazonian jungle will not disappear--that hysterical claim was made by the World Wildlife Fund, and they had fundamentally misrepresented a study in Nature. (Question: cannot anyone read the magazine? It is prominent and has a decent circulation. Or is the WWF's bloviation considered ex cathedra and therefore beyond question?)

The IPCC was entirely too happy to accept, as settled science, the encyclicals of advocacy groups, because when you're going for the gold of the biggest bit of socialism in the history of the world, what's a little truth? And until the last few months it wasn't even an inconvenient truth because it was an ignored truth.

This is another bit of fun with that video of Hitler yelling at his staff. This time it's about the exposure of anthropogenic global warming as being the complete and utter con game that it is.

This is the best of the Hitler knock offs yet. Among other lines, we are given

Hitler: Can you imagine in me in a real job?

Aide: Mein Fuhrer. These are the best scientists that we could buy!

Hitler: Inbred morons, camp followers and failures!

Just so, Adolph. Just so.

And they are leading knaves and fools: witness Mike Malloy saying that snow doesn't mean it's cold, snow means there's moisture.

But really. Couldn't anyone see that this climate-change stuff was mere BS by the fact that it had Al Gore attached to it? Would you have Jeffrey Daumer do your plastic surgery?

A year ago, when President Zobama was first installed, at the Dusseldorf carnival we were treated to this float:

A year later we see in the same Dusseldorf carnival parade

Last night I again listened to Mike Malloy on America Left on XM. He's the gift that keeps giving. He must have taken some good pills though; his sighs were not as tectonic as normal.

I'll try to repeat this as well as possible; I was in a car and driving and the disbelieving snorts and laughter did not help.

Last night Mr. Malloy was stating that for the first time ever, there was snow in 49 states at the same time. Then, "For all you right-wing crazies who thinks that this disproves global warming, listen. Snow doesn't mean it's cold. Snow means that there's moisture."

I am not making this up. According to Mr. Malloy, you get snow wherever there is moisture. Since the only state without snow was Hawaii, and it's surrounded by water, which is moist, I don't quite follow his reasoning.

But then causality is a casualty to progressives. These are the people who don't believe that an individual is responsible for anything but that groups are responsible for everything.

Note to the Vision 2010 Parks and Sports Committee:

"Support" for a Community Center is when a room full of people who have been specifically instructed to refrain from employing any critical analysis whatsoever to an idea so as not to "hinder the free flow of brainstorming" then do as they were told and stay silent no matter how impractical and unwise they consider the idea.

"Demand" for a Community Center is something else entirely.

The proposed community center has some of the former and none of the latter.

And because of the nature of the process you are even over-estimating the actual "support".

(Hat Tip: Stewart Doreen)

From a New York Times interview with this generation's Rosa Parks:

Q: Have you seen James Crowley, the Cambridge Police sergeant who arrested you, since you sat down with him and the president and reconciled over beers? A: Yes. We had a drink at my favorite pub in Cambridge. We met at the River Gods cafe several months ago, and he gave me the handcuffs.

Q: The handcuffs that you are wearing in that disturbing photograph of you held captive on your front porch?
A: Yes.

Q: He gave them to you to keep?
A: I donated them to the new National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian. [Emphasis mine]

Why? Because there isn't yet a National Museum of Self-Important, Tenure-Poisoned Ivy-League Race Baiters? Sounds like a shovel-ready project for some stimulus bucks to me.

Of course, it always was unsettled science, but......

Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995

The rest is here.

It wasn't all that long ago that even dishonorable men knew to withdraw from public view after being found out as a fraud and I would like to think that this means that we have seen the last of Al Gore.

But everyone reading this knows that it doesn't.

Related: As bad a shape as the American MSM* as an industry is, even they have to look at guys like this with some pity.

* Please note that for the last few months the only actual journalism and reporting on the collapse of AGW as an issue has been done by the foreign press.

I got this on the old RSS feeder today:

Jimmy Wolk has landed the lead in Fox's Marc Webb-directed drama pilot "Midland," and "Avatar" co-star Laz Alonso will star in another hourlong Fox pilot, "Breakout Kings."

Ohhhhh, a pilot called "Midland," you won't guess what it is about:

"Midland," from 20th TV, is a soap set against the backdrop of an oil business that centers on a polygamist (Wolk) living a double life. Wolk, who toplined the ABC pilot "Solving Charlie" last season, is repped by WME.

Hmmmm, maybe they should have named this pilot "Eldorado" or "Schleicher"

A man was washed up on a beach after a terrible shipwreck. Only a sheep and a sheepdog were washed up with him. After looking around, he realized that they were stranded on a deserted island.

After being there for a while, he got into the habit of taking his two animal companions to the beach every evening to watch the sunset. One particular evening, the sky was a fiery red with beautiful cirrus clouds, the breeze was warm and gentle--a perfect night for romance.

As they sat there, the sheep started looking better and better to the lonely man. Soon, he leaned over to the sheep and put his arm around it. But the sheepdog, ever protective of the sheep, growled fiercely until the man took his arm from around the sheep.

After that, the three of them continued to enjoy the sunsets together, but there was no more cuddling. A few weeks passed by and, lo and behold, there was another shipwreck.

The only survivor was Nancy Pelosi.

That evening, the man brought Nancy to the evening beach ritual. It was another beautiful evening--red sky, cirrus clouds, a warm and gentle breeze--perfect for a night of romance. Pretty soon, the man started to get "those feelings" again. He fought the urges as long as he could but he finally gave in and leaned over to Nancy and told her, "I haven't had sex for six months."

Nancy coquettishly batted her eyes and asked, "Why, is there anything that I can do for you?"

"Uh, as a matter of fact, yes. Would you mind taking the dog for a walk?"

So sue me.

Roger Kimball gives us

A friend sent me a splendid story from London's Daily Telegraph this morning. The headline alone is worth the price of admission:

Arab ambassador discovers bride is bearded and cross-eyed behind veil.

This is definitely one of those stories that lives up to Horace's injunction to delight as well as instruct. The moral: there's no substitute for first-hand research. Seeing is believing. Accept no substitutes. When your fiancé's mother offers you a picture of her daughter in lieu of allowing you to see her yourself, be skeptical, especially if there is more than one daughter in the family. According to the Telegraph, "The envoy had only met the woman a few times, during which she had hidden her face behind a niqab." (In the market for one? Click here for online shopping options.) Alas, "After the marriage contract was signed, the ambassador attempted to kiss his bride-to-be. It was only then that he discovered her facial hair and eyes."

The unnamed diplomat is out of pocket to the tune of one wife, since his petition to have the marriage annulled was granted by an Islamic Sharia court in the United Arab Emirates. He is also, however, out some ₤85,000, since the court denied his request to be reimbursed for the clothes, jewelry, and other gifts he had lavished on his bride-to-be.

Last night, as is my wont, I listened to Mike Malloy on America Left. I figure he's feeling like the Ambassador, but not about a wife but about Barack Hussein Obama. He is not turning out to be the man who will lead us to the Progressive World of Next Tuesday™. And as for being sanguinary, Malloy was inviting callers. Left-wing callers come in two groups--sad and shills. Last night he was inviting any callers, "Except right wingers. If you're a right winger and you're living in a part of the world with 52" of snow, take off your clothes and play in the snow."

Mean, mean, mean.

Asked how and why small business loans would help small business, President Obama replied:

"If [small businesses] can get the bank loans to boost their payroll... they will do so."

Breathtaking isn't it?

And would these be the same banks that he is about to smack with more punitive taxation policies or other banks entirely?

It's funny. Even after all we have found out about "Senator Happypants" I still see a number of Kerry/Edwards stickers on cars. But at this point you have to go into the bowels of Austin to find an Obama sticker now.

That, or enter the office of a faculty member somewhere.

And why not? Better for her to hang around with television chefs than people who can do things to us.

There was some grumbling on the radio this morning about President Obambi giving an interview to Katie Couric before the Superbowl. There is no limit to his self-love. Still, I wonder if Ms. Couric is the newsman that I'd have given the interview to--she's watched for news by 1/7 of the people who watch the comic Jon Stewart. I anticipate the day that Obambi is giving interviews to Mike Malloy on America Left and chatting with Rachel Maddow. That's media skid-row.

I'm sure you know that The Onion is a satire website, and by far and large it's a good one. Here's a news piece that they did on President Awesome's home TelePrompTer breaking while he was talking to one of his daughters:

President Obambi. But there is a difference. A hunter didn't kill President Obambi's mother. He himself threw his grandmother under the bus.

As most Midlanders know Jal Draw Improvements, (the Ditch north of Wadley) have been necessary for well over a decade. To see the City moving on rehabilitating this channel is comforting to the residents and businesses who are located along the channel and the thousands of residents along a line from Whitney to Fannin to Scharbauer who rely on that channel to protect them from flood waters.

I think the story lead and the quote from former Councilor Morgan sum up the situation pretty well.

The rehabilitation of Jal Draw, perhaps one of the city's most urgent needs, could be under way by spring......

Former District 1 Councilwoman LuAnn Morgan said the deteriorating, dirt-walled draw has worried her for nine years and now is a priority of her successor, Jeff Sparks

However, the quote from our Mayor a couple of paragraphs down is a little troubling:

Perry said the task has been budgeted for two years but was delayed while the council bolstered the downtown tax base. "When those investments paid off with values going up by double digits every year, we went back to the basics and Jal Draw quickly came to the top of the list," he said.

"Repairing this kind of infrastructure is like putting in new air conditioning or plumbing. It's expensive and you don't see it, but if you don't have it you don't have a house."

Huh? Increasing the tax base in downtown over the last two years has been more important than a budgeted, vital infrastructure rehabilitation? It's not like those increased downtown property values are actually going to help pay the cost of this rehabilitation, or any rehabilitation that doesn't occur within the downtown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone.

Since 2001, every single property tax dollar from the City of Midland, Midland County, Midland College and the Hospital District generated from downtown taxable values greater than $98,933,311 dollars, go straight to the TIRZ account, only to be used within the TIRZ boundary per the requirements of Chapter 311 of the Tax Code.

Since 2004, the year the property values rose back above $98,933,311, the Midland TIRZ has banked about $1.4 million dollars. I don't know about 2009, but according to City of Midland CAFRs for 2005-2008, the TIRZ spent a grand total of $17,167.

Personally, I think Downtown should be left to the TIRZ, the Downtown Midland Management District the MDC and their bankrolls. Ostensibly thats why those entities and their tax funded accounts were created? So why is something that was these entities direct concern (downtown tax values) siphoning off budgeted dollars from needed infrastructure for thousands of citizens while they make bank?

I hope the Mayor was taken out of context or misquoted, because I think the Council can safely take their eyes off the development of downtown and concentrate on the infrastructure of our City as a whole.

Because, the fruits of the City's labor to increase the downtown property values aren't putting money in the City Budget to pay for needed infrastructure improvements, nor are they decreasing the overall property tax bill for the citizens. It is benefitting the TIRZ and the DMMD. Maybe it is time to make them let loose their bounty in their own self interest.

If this doesn't wobble your tripes, nothing will.

I lunched today with a friend who said, wisely, that she thought that the Clintons were first and last for themselves, but if they perceived America's interest to coincide with theirs, they'd be good to have on our side. And I think that is just.

I don't feel the same thing can be said for President Obama. My brother thinks that there's no one home, and last night I saw a video of Jon Stewart on O'Reilly, who, when asked what he thought of President Awesome, said

I'm torn. For me I feel like..I can't tell if he's a Jedi master playing chess on a three-level board way ahead of us or if this is kicking his ass.

And we see him turning control of his pet ideas over to other people, like the odious Pelosi. "Just get something passed." Does he care what? He has no ideas of his own? Has he thought it through? Can he think it through? Why let Congress make this dog's breakfast of it?

I read a review of Lauren Bacall in a London play. It said that Ms. Bacall never learned to act; she was taught to star. She stood on the stage, starring, while the other people acted around her.

Just so with President Awesome. But if Ms. Bacall forgets her lines, or even stumbles or even falls, it is remarkable but not serious. It is after all a play.

The presidency is serious, and it's filled with a man in completely over his head. Which you'll see at unguarded times in his performances.

In a clip here, President Obama talks about a medical corpsman but calls him a "corpse man."

This would have been utterly unremarkable, for everyone does stupid things like this, except for the endless hooting that I heard about Dan Quayle and a potato.

A friend, Oleg, tells me that President Awesome spoke the truth--considering how many corpses tend to vote in Democrat strongholds. Especially Chicago.

And speaking of the meanness of the left, tonight I was listening, as is my wont, to Mike Malloy, on America Left. I don't know how much longer I can; his self-loathing is getting oppressive and laughing at him seems at times like mocking someone with a problem.

Not a lot of good diction there; very little decent word choice. Mike thinks that anything which doesn't look back from the mirror is fascist.

And the progressive meanness. He warned his listeners in the great American middle (fly-over country?) to be careful of the storm and stay inside.

"But if you're a Republican, go shopping and when you hit a patch of ice, floor it!"

As loathsome as the KKK is, and as unattractive as I find David Duke, I don't recall him ever saying anything nearly that sanguinary.

As I understand it, the Department of Justice, which is being horribly mismanaged by Eric Holder, is looking to hire "up to 10 experienced attorneys for the position of Trial Attorney in the Voting Section in Washington, D.C."

The Civil Rights Division encourages qualified applicants with targeted disabilities to apply. Targeted disabilities are deafness, blindness, missing extremities, partial or complete paralysis, convulsive disorder, mental retardation, mental illness, severe distortion of limbs and/or spine.

This from the department that wants a civil trial for KSM. Well, it's all of a piece.

Last night I was listening, as is my habit, to America Left. Great stuff. Seismic sighs, rage, admissions of wanton drunkenness, cuss words right and left. One woman, whose name I cannot remember owing to laughing too hard, was moaning about the seemingly failed attempt at socialized medicine. For now.

She was adamant that Nanski Peloski summon the votes to pass the Senate bill and then work it out in reconciliation. The fact that Peloski cannot do it didn't hold water with her--it must be done so that we can have socialized medicine as soon as possible.

Practicality didn't come into it. Nor did the opinions of the individual House members. Nor did any analysis of this bill's virtues come into it. The Holy Grail for her was socialized medicine, and how she got it didn't matter, nor did the quality of what she got.

I now understand what a True Believer is.

Danny Williams is the premier of Newfoundland, which as we all know, is in Canada, and which as we all know, is very proud of its socialized medicine.

Mr. Williams needs heart surgery which will be done in America. He is a Progressive Conservative, a moniker new to me but I'm betting that the Progressive taints and utterly spoils the Conservative bit; in 2008 he ran a very nasty federal campaign which said, "Anything But Conservative," and it was effective.

So I'm betting that Mr. Williams is all for socialized medicine and is not slow to hold up Canada's health-care system to the world as a shining beacon of hope.

Which he doesn't trust enough to use.

Recall that the Clintons, enslaved to the teachers' unions, nonetheless put their child into a private school. Liberals, and often conservatives after enough time in office, are always too good for the commoners whom they rule over; they fancy themselves modern royalty. Congress is not subject to the same retirement that we are subject too. That's another perk.

And I'll make a bet with anyone: after Williams returns back to Canada, his life saved by American medicine, he will still extol the virtues of socialized medicine in words of "equality" and "fairness" and "justice."

Well, all animals are created equal but some animals are more equal than others. Especially Newfoundland pigs. (pace George Orwell.)

From the WSJ:

If the election were held today, Sen. Blanche Lincoln would lose in a landslide, according to the latest polling from Public Policy.

The poll shows 33% of voters would pick the Arkansas Democrat, while 56% would vote for Republican Rep. John Boozman.

The 23-point edge for Boozman, who has yet to officially announce his campaign, underscores that Lincoln is one of the most vulnerable incumbents of the 2010 cycle. Among independents, Boozman fares even better, 66%-20%.

Also troubling for Lincoln is her 27% approval rating, and 62% disapproval rating among Arkansans. Even among self-identified Democrats, her approval rating is a lackluster 51%, and just 17% of independents approve.

According to Barack Obama, the voter anger that will get John Boozman elected is the the same voter anger that elected Chris Christie, Bob McDonnell, Scott Brown, and Barack Obama.

Except that Barack Obama couldn't even get elected President of MOAS at this point.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams is set to undergo heart surgery this week in the United States....no doubt to show his solidarity with those poor souls in America who don't have the benefit of Canada's totally free and world class health care system.

Or something.

This is one of the more satisfying reads on the internets today.

...life is what it has always been: hostile. The viewers are disappearing, and all that remains is a Krakatoa of rage, of poisons spewing forth from a shell of a man on a shriveled network into the homes of a shrinking audience.

Seems like his viewers are down to a rotating lineup of his last 3 his ex-girlfriends laughing at him, Theo and me (but me only occasionally).

Being surrounded by examples of the self-annointed, self-absorbed imploding does supply some satisfaction during our current grim times.