Maggie's Farm

The Right Wing Prof offers thanks to all for prayers and support.

This Is Not Your Grandma's Humane Society. Just one more non-profit co-opted by moonbats.

Pelosi: Buy a $15,000 policy or go to jail. They had better begin building more jails - maybe with stimulus money.

AARP's tacit endorsement of Medicare cuts line its pockets, but shortchanges seniors

The O at MIT: “We’ll just have to deal with those people.” I guess he means me. Nice approach to a fellow citizen.

Related: Frustrated in Copenhagen. Good. Those people are nuts. Al Gore Himself already said that CO2 isn't the main problem.

This is crazy, isn't it?

The Headline of the Day, from the BBC:

Shooting Raises Fears For Muslims In US Army

Really? Right now the body count stands at:

Non-Muslims 13
Muslims 0

Obama cedes the center. RCP

The truth leaks out on health care. Powerline. Not only do the Dems want to cover abortions - a truly elective procedure - they want to cover sex change operations. On my nickel? Of course, boob jobs would be fine with me...

Insty:

ROBERT REICH: Forget healthcare, focus on employment. “Obama’s focus on health care rather than jobs, when the economy is still so fragile and unemployment moving toward double digits, could make it appear that the administration has its priorities confused. While affordable health care is critically important to Americans, making a living is more urgent. Yet the administration’s efforts to date on this more basic concern have been neither particularly visible nor coherent.”

Problem is, the only way to make jobs would be to cut taxes and spending.

Bad: Obama's Frightening Insensitivity Following Shooting. A bad week for Democrats compounded by an awful moment for Barack Obama.

Via Viking: Yeah...we know - Real Clear Markets: "Why middle class tax hikes are coming"

From the Krautman:

November ’08 was one-shot, one-time, never to be replicated. Nor was November ’09 a realignment. It was a return to the norm — and definitive confirmation that 2008 was one of the great flukes in American political history.

PTSD by Proxy? Plus the video of the Major in a minimart.

Who wants the Gitmo terrorists and Jihadists in the USA? Besides the O?

A short essay on ubermensch myth and politics. Flopping. Related and equally good: No-one saw Barack in the balloon?

"In a fast-breaking development comes word that agents of the Attorney’s General office in Louisiana have raided ACORN’s offices in New Orleans. ACORN’s New Orleans was, for decades, the headquarters of the national community organizing association"

Canadian students march for "good jobs for all." What's a "good job"?

Joblessness:

"This may be the toughest employment situation we've seen in the postwar era," Mark Gertler, an economics professor at New York University, said in an interview earlier this week.

Who would hire a new employee if you don't know how the Dems will screw you? How can you make a business plan?

Photo from yesterday's protest in DC

Office gossip. NYT

AVI: The liberals I am most familiar with

Is abortion pro-family?

WSJ: The Madness of Queen Nancy

Guy reinvents the Constitution

Eurocourt Bans Crucifixes in Italy

Related: Europe - a leviathan is born

Are mammograms worthwhile? NYT

Get a clue, O: Iran doesn't like you. But they enjoy toying with you.

Gitmo prisoners don't like the alternative

VDH on the plutocratic Left

Voegli on California vs. Texas

We'll miss Jungle Trader

Census blocked from asking citizenship questions

Stossel:

Reporters who think coercive government control is generally good
and I, who thinks voluntary market forces are generally better, both have a point of view.

So why am I the one called biased?

Is this the truth about men?

'All men want is sex and for you to make them a sandwich.'

In that order. And a few cold Coronas, please, with lime. Some gratitude for the masculine attention and some snappy repartee are always welcome too. Don't forget the chips with the sandwich, and please turn on ESPN.

Is this true about the O?

But he was right the first time about not being ready for the Oval Office. As president, he seems confused and a bit distant on the issues, leaving the details to congressional Democrats and an ever-growing number of “czars” while he golfs and launches attacks at Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

I hate to say it, but our friend The Englishman eats ripe arse.

Thanksgiving dinner for 8 for $20. WalMart. Plus other great deals there. h/t, Carpe Diem

Global income inequality is down. I guess that's a good thing. Income is good. It provides choices. We want everybody to be as rich as they want to be.

Famous Prof proposes punitive taxes on meat.

Health Care was a loser in Tuesday's elections. It does make me wonder why a new Pres would want to start out with hugely divisive issues  and a combative style instead of with more widely popular issues, more modest steps, and the kind of conciliatory approach he brings to Putin, Chavez, and Iran.

Related: Perhaps part of the problem is that the O is surrounded by partisan campaign hacks instead of by some seasoned statesman-types with perspective and governing experience.

Related: Will the Left try a kamikaze rush?

Eliot Spitzer - morality expert

Kaus: The winners and the losers

No limits: voters in two states reject government limits. Why?

I've heard of Pay to Play, but this Pay to Pray is ridiculous.

Claude Levi-Strauss

We are disappointed that Hoffman lost in NY 23. Surprised, too. The "meaning" of these elections will be spun to death. Ace notes that the O managed one big win in Maine.

WSJ: Obama and the Liberal Paradigm. "The sheep are quite capable of looking out for themselves. Someone tell the Democrats."

We sheep would be even more capable if the gummint would leave us alone.

Health Care Bill postponed further. That's good. This bill is antiquated New Deal entitlement: government-heavy baloney. Regressive - not Progressive.

Sen Lieberman on the O:

ANDREW NAPOLITANO, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST:  Is he a Marxist, as Bill Kristol says might be the case in today‘s “New York Times?”

LIEBERMAN:  Well, you know, I must say that‘s a good question.

From Sowell on the costs of medical care:

Britain has had a government-run medical system for more than half a century and it has to import doctors, including some from Third World countries where the medical training may not be the best. In short, reducing doctors' income is not reducing the cost of medical care, it is refusing to pay those costs. Like other ways of refusing to pay costs, it has consequences.

I do not think this is a racial thing. I think it's an effect of urban one-party governmental cultures of corruption. A generation or two ago, it would have been Irish pols - but nobody expected integrity in pols then.

Gays protest against free speech. Good grief.

The Archbishop has a blog? Cool.

Coyote: An ACORN Relief Act

Politico terms it an "uncivil war." I think it's just what parties do to figure out what they are about. It's healthy. Parties should debate and contain conflict.

Powerline: "This video on health care, produced by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, features Eline van den Broek, founder of the European Independent Institute."

She makes the point that it is third party payments for medical care which have permitted the rise in cost of medical care in the US. I think that is part of the story, but the other part of the story is that our higher costs buy us access, choices, abundance, and quality.

More Dem dirty tricks in NJ. The third party guy is splitting the anti-Corzine vote.

Big Con: Gore making millions from "warming" scam, headed for his first billion.

Stanley Black and Decker? Sounds like a slip-and-fall law firm.

59% say country on the wrong track

Our obsolete US Constitution. Am Thinker

Hubris of the incompetent. What's the Dunning-Kruger Effect?

Where the white Leftist men live in America. Related: Why are the groovy  "Progressive" cities the white cities? Real, interesting cities are full of everybody. Portland is white bread. I'll take NYC.

How come we never found this blog before? Black and Right. This one goes straight onto Ye Olde Blogroll.

Roy Spencer: AGW is an urban legend

Those taxes on the rich aren't inflation-indexed. We know what that means.

From Ace, the pithily amusing AP: Even If Republicans Win Tomorrow, They Still Suck

Related, from Red State: We hear this all time — conservatives in the GOP have to play nice with the moderates.

The Krautman has it right: those "saved" jobs are all gummint jobs. Plenty of SEIU jobs, I am sure.

Everything - and more - that you might want to know about Nancy Pelosi

Related, in WSJ:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told fellow Democrats that she's prepared to lose seats in 2010 if that's what it takes to pass ObamaCare, and little wonder. The health bill she unwrapped last Thursday, which President Obama hailed as a "critical milestone," may well be the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced.

In a rational political world, this 1,990-page runaway train would have been derailed months ago. With spending and debt already at record peacetime levels, the bill creates a new and probably unrepealable middle-class entitlement that is designed to expand over time. Taxes will need to rise precipitously, even as ObamaCare so dramatically expands government control of health care that eventually all medicine will be rationed via politics.

Boeing begins to say Good-bye to Seattle

My trick or treaters said Thank you.

Coleman waders 50-60% off

Academic ranking of the world's great universities

"Roots" was a bogus book. Well, a work of fiction - with plagiarism.

Should alimony be forever?

When people get richer, families get smaller. How many dressage horses, ballet lessons, piano lessons, trips to Europe, tuitions, and tutors can a large family afford?

Iowahawk considers Caesar's writings, in view of Landesman's claims. One Quote from Julius:

Back in the day those Gauls had some straightup warrior badasses like Vercingetorix and Ambiorix, but apparently somewhere over the last 2000 years they turned into the biggest bunch of Eurohomos since the Athenians. Yo, you Gauls think Obama is sorry? The Juice is sorry he ever introduced you assholes to public baths.

We like Rep. Michelle Bachman, but the Left hates her as much as they hate Palin. From her bio (my bold):

Congresswoman Bachmann is a graduate of Anoka High School and Winona State University. Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, live in Stillwater where they own a small business mental health care practice that employs 42 people. The Bachmanns have five children, Lucas, Harrison, Elisa, Caroline, and Sophia. In addition, the Bachmanns have opened their home to 23 foster children, which has inspired Congresswoman Bachmann to become one of Congress’ leading advocates for foster and adopted children, earning her bipartisan praise for her efforts.

Repubs try to protect us from Cap & Trade nonsense

Now it's time to worry about what the Dems are doing to Death Taxes

Chavez cannot bring power to the people

Byron York: It's OK to criticize the O now

Natural Food Fight: Obamacare vs. Mackeycare. On the video, the white Lefty essentially terms the happy black female Whole Foods employee "ignorant"

Bribing the voters of New Jersey: How Democrats like Corzine survive

Biofuels will destroy the planet

Dede, and the Gingrich view vs. the Limbaugh view. Uh oh, she endorsed the Dem. This is strange.

Who is Ted Cruz?

The Aussies beat the US in per capita carbon. Good on 'em. I think they beat us on per capita beer too.

Obamacare vs. the Hippocratic Oath

The other side of the Scozzafava case: RWNH

WSJ:

...at this point, Democrats have dumped any pretense of genuine bipartisan "reform" and moved into the realm of pure power politics as they race against the unpopularity of their own agenda. The goal is to ram through whatever income-redistribution scheme they can claim to be "universal coverage." The result will be destructive on every level—for the health-care system, for the country's fiscal condition, and ultimately for American freedom and prosperity.

How did government insurance mandates work out in Massachusetts?

Via Driscoll:

...Nancy Pelosi has taken the Peter Principle to its logical conclusion — “She’s combined the most unpopular Democratic and Republican proposals of the last generation in one piece of legislation”

Big Lizards offers a reform plan everybody would probably support

Rush:

“This is not about insuring the uninsured, this is not about health care, this is about stealing one sixth of the private sector and putting it under the control of the Federal government, and when they get this health care bill, it they do, that’s the easiest fastest way for them to be able to regulate every aspect of human behavior.

“Because it will all have some related costs to health care, what you drive, what you eat, where you live, what you do, there will be penalties for violating regulations, it’s gonna be the biggest snatch of freedom and liberty that has yet occurred in this country.”

At National Journal, A Reaganite or Jacksonian wave?

I think it's time for a JFK wave. Things have changed: he would be a pretty good Republican candidate today. His murder by a Lefty-loser-Commie-Cuba-sympathizer set in motion a generation or so of bad things from which we continue to experience the repercussions.

Photo is Saul Alinsky. His ghost walks. Boo!

Thomas Sowell's Dismantling America, Part 1 and Part 2

Soros and Gore among WH visitors, but Andrew Stern of the SEIU was the most frequent, chalking up 20 visits.

Coyote on the Dem tax/health bill:

The implications for my business are staggering.  I have already mentioned in the previous post that it imposes an 8% tax on wages on my business — a business where 50% of revenues go to wages and margins are in the 6-7% range.  You do the math.

Via Gateway:

Rick sent this on the Pelosi Health Care Bill pages 1219-1246–

Just these 27 pages are enough to see what this bill is all about. I bet you will agree. PLEASE take time to read these 27 pages. Anyone who reads these pages and still says this bill isn’t about the government takeover of health care is either a fool or a liar. It’s just that simple.

The high cost of Aromatherapy: Premiums to Skyrocket Under Obamacare

‘Jobs Created or Saved’ Is White House Fantasy

Washington culture of corruption proceeds on course. Actually, dozens.

Re Henninger's piece which we linked:

Daniel Henninger writes a biting and inspired column today in the WSJ.  Oh, the irony!  Democrats caught hopelessly in the out-moded and tired ways of the past?  In an age of iPhone apps and de-centralizing trends, Dems are pushing a miserable model of government that should have been left in the 1930s where it originated.  Obama rides on a false reputation as a hipster.  He's actually a crusty throw-back.  As Henninger puts it, it appears irrefutable.  

New Jersey plans vote fraud

Via our Irish friends re the US economy:

Ah well, the economy's getting worse then. Debt spending is not economic growth. Printing fake money does not create wealth no matter how many trillions you order up. The idea that GDP growth on the back of the Fed's printing press means a growing economy is the boneheaded thinking that got the US into this position in the first place. In fact the economy is in an even worse state now than when the recession hit; Americans have been saddled with a debt they cannot ever repay, unemployment is around twenty percent, the Dollar is sinking, inflation has gone orbital and prices will follow when the banks flood the markets. The fundamentals are not only still chronic, they're getting worse.

Cash for clunkers has screwed the used-car buyer. Well, that was predictable. Who got screwed? The taxpayer

Casinos in Ohio? Governments are money addicts.

How is that bending-over approach working with Iran?

Hockey stick returns to climate textbooks. Related: Al Gore still addicted to nonexistent hurricane-climate link in new book

Related: Gore says 220-foot ocean rise in ten years.

The Copenhagen Climate Extortion

Pelosi’s Bill Will Punish States Who Pass Tort Reform.  

Michelle Bachman on Pelosi Health Care Bill: “This Is the Crown Jewel of Socialism”

Masterfleece Theater at RCP:

The word "shall" - as in "must" or "required to" - appears over 3,000 times. The word, alas, is never preceded by the patriotic phrase "mind our own freaking business." Not once.

From Reason's The Unhealthy Public Option:

...the key to the success of this program, writes Cato Institute analyst Michael Cannon, is that "government possesses both the power to hide its true costs (which keeps its premiums artificially low) and to impose costs on its competitors (which unnecessarily pushes private insurance premiums higher)." Private insurers will be "competing" against a team that gets to write the rules, run the draft and hire the referees.

With those artificial advantages, the public option could eventually become the only option. If that happens, a lot of Americans will be surprised. But I suspect Harry Reid and Barack Obama will not be among them.

Mark Helprin: Obama and the Politics of Concession - Iran and Russia put Obama to the test last week, and he blinked twice. 

Do Dodd or Frank care why TARP failed? Washington Examiner

Government Takeovers: Is Charity Next? (h/t, Riehl)

As the GDP shows some growth, Democrats are now admitting that they like their miserable POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) economy.

It's getting old: Intertubes turn 40

AG tries to shut down school voucher ad. Screw the kids. This is union payback.

How Putin is Separating America from Europe

The mess the Dems are creating with health care. From Robb at RCP:

...the change in incentives in the Democratic reform will turn the entire health care market topsy-turvy. Politically, this could be disastrous.

A very large number of people will have to change their health care coverage regardless of whether they want to. That's a hassle to begin with. The combination of a weak individual mandate, guaranteed issue and a public option will mean declining private sector options and a large increase in the number of people on some form of government health care.

Every health care provider, even the government, has to say no sometimes. Even Medicare says no. But now, rather than some demonic health insurance company saying no, it will be the government.

Republicans think the Democrats are engaged in a ruse, that they really want a government takeover of health care.

In their heart of hearts, Democrats do believe that health care should be a public good, provided by government irrespective of ability to pay. But I don't think they've purposely set out to achieve that by misdirection.

Instead, I think they honestly don't appreciate how fundamentally they are changing health care incentives and what the huge consequences of such changes will be.

I think it's a trick. So does Dick Morris. Here are some initial details.

Happy Halloween, from your Federal government.

WSJ: Doctors on Health-Care Reform 'Government is in the process of duplicating everything that managed care did for the last 15 years that was reviled by everybody.'

Report: Cash for Clunkers was a lemon

George Soros launches a $50 million effort to purge economics of its free-market zeal.

Peeing on the O's photo would show true artistic courage, but it would be equally adolescent.

Well, nowadays, true artistic courage would be to create something that would add grace, nobility, and beauty to the world.

Speaking of "art," desecrating the flag for health care

Chicago Trib endorses Repub health plans

Hitchens dares enter the Christian world, finds it's not scary

Marginal Rev: Mandates don't stay modest. Autism treatments

Via Vanderleun:

"Northwest Nap"

It's the word of the day @ Urban Dictionary - A very deep sleep where you are unable to hear telephones, text messages, and even the Air Force. Named to honor the two fine pilots from Northwest Airlines and their little "in flight snooze."

Gateway:

Pelosicare will force individuals to buy the government insurance, will tax the wealthy, and will result in rationed care and the end of private health insurance industry.
It’s a socialist’s dream.

If you want to do something about freedom of speech, then the only choice is USE IT, exercise it.

Kurt Westergaard in this interview

The O to tax pacemakers, artificial hips, etc. Brilliant. Heck, plastic canes are cheap at WalMart. 

The O's media control strategy

WSJ: Washington's Suicide Mission

I don't know about "narcissistic rage," but Mr. Bring Us Together isn't bringing us together. Who hasn't the Admin demonized yet? Besides ACORN/SEIU?

Quote via Dr. Sanity on the goals of the enviro movement:

Liberal democracy is sweet and addictive and indeed in the most extreme case, the USA, unbridled individual liberty overwhelms many of the collective needs of the citizens. The subject is almost sacrosanct and those who indulge in criticism are labeled as Marxists, socialists, fundamentalists and worse. These labels are used because alternatives to democracy cannot be perceived! Support for Western democracy is messianic as proselytised by a President leading a flawed democracy

There must be open minds to look critically at liberal democracy. Reform must involve the adoption of structures to act quickly regardless of some perceived liberties....

We are going to have to look how authoritarian decisions based on consensus science can be implemented to contain greenhouse emissions [emphasis mine].

Love that "perceived liberties."

 AA via Insty:

ANN ALTHOUSE: “The answer, Ms. Herron (Merron?) is precisely that pop culture permeates the world of young Americans. Why pursue even more of it in college? Learn new things. Get what you can’t get just living in the world soaking up the things you naturally love and enjoy. What is the point of going to college?”

Sipp: Norm Abrams is the real Reality TV

Thank you Joe Lieberman

1 in 7 taxpayers flee New York

The KrautMan on why Barack is like Brazil

The hopey-changey National Endowment for the Arts

Gingrich on 23

The new ACORN $ scandal

Robert Reich Fesses Up On Death Panels

UN preparing for a Copenhagen failure. Good.

Neoneo: Why does the government want to give us something nobody wants? Related from Jules: First do no harm.

Kristol: A good time to be a Conservative

No, this is not about the national WTF? health care bill. While our Editor tends to focus on supporting Ducks Unlimited and the Nature Conservancy, both highly worthy volunteer organizations, I have been a supporter of the National Wild Turkey Federation for many years.

The recovery of the American Wild Turkey populations, like that of Egrets after the turn of the last century, has been a giant success of intelligent conservation.

Whether you want to shoot 'em and eat 'em, or just look at these huge birds (I like to do both), their resurgence is a great gift to America - thanks to conservation organizations.

The WTF has basically accomplished their goal. Turkeys are everywhere now, and huntable in most places. However, like government programs, non-profits rarely close up shop when their work is done. They tend to find something else to do, if only to keep their jobs. It's a sad fact that Ducks Unlimited still has much of their original mission to accomplish - wild duck populations, and the other wetlands critters that inhabit the habitats that DU protects and rehabilitates - remain far below where they were in years past.

There are a number of species of Wild Turkey in the New World. None native to the Old World.

Photo above: You all know that the males only display like that when they are overcome with love and/or horniness.
Photo below:  Our Editor-in-Chief Bird Dog (before he gained weight) with a bird in the hand.

More on the health care debate as a moral struggle

NRO: The conformity enforcers of "tolerance" and "diversity" are growing ever more explicitly totalitarian.

How to lie and get away with it. h/t, Vanderleun

Our Golfer-in-Chief. Hmmm. I don't care if he plays golf a lot. I just wonder what they'd be saying if it were Bush. Plus sets a record for attending fundraisers. Easy gig, President. Just be the figurehead while others do the work.

The power of the Soros-funded think tanks in DC

ACORN. Read the first comment on this Tiger piece. Good grief.

The problem with ignoring Milton Friedman

Via Legal Insurrection:

Instead of solely considering costs, shouldn't we ask if Americans are willing to die sooner from cancer, to give up access to specialists, to be refused safer, more accurate diagnostic imaging, to lose the most accessible screening programs, and to lose their autonomy in pursuing treatments for their families? Shouldn't we ask if Americans want to replace the most advanced and successful medical care in history with the restricted care and lower cost social programs of Europe, and insure the less than 5 percent of people who don't buy insurance but receive care anyway?

Those evil health insurance companies

Via Powerline:

57% of voters nationwide believe it will raise the cost of health care, and 53% believe the quality of care will get worse. ... Just 18% say passage of the congressional plan will reduce costs, while only 23% believe it will lead to better care.

Remarkable: by a margin of 3-1, voters think Obamacare will raise the cost of health care, and by more than two to one, voters believe it will make the quality of health care worse. Isn't that the death knell for government medicine? If not, why not?

Via SDA:

The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity", according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett. [...] The "deliberate policy", from late 2000 until "at least February last year", when the new points based system was introduced, was to open up the UK to mass migration, he said. Some 2.3 million migrants have been added to the population since then, according to Whitehall estimates quietly slipped out last month.

Note to self - when fishing in the Alaska bush

More on the polls: New Gallup Poll Finds 40% of America Conservative– 20% Liberal

The O's war on business. Via Driscoll:

Obama has demonized just about every business sector in America.  Through the 2008 campaign to the present,  he has gone after credit card companies, the coal industry, mortgage companies, real estate companies, steelmakers, utilities, drug companies, doctors, oil companies, Wall Street, defense contractors, and health insurance companies, just to name a few.  In each case he has dinged them for greed, taking excessive profits, and failing to put people first.  His criticisms have not been over minor matters but over their basic core functions, and their values or lack of them. [His demonization of talk radio and Fox News also constitutes a front in his attack on business -- Ed]

Obama demonstrates almost complete ignorance about the private sector and it’s no wonder:  he has so little experience in it.  

Noonan: He owns the rubble now

WSJ: Why Government Health Care Keeps Falling in the Polls - The health-care debate is part of a larger moral struggle over the free-enterprise system.

Samuelson on the fake health care debate:

The promise of the public plan is a mirage. Its political brilliance is to use free-market rhetoric (more "choice" and "competition") to expand government power. But why would a plan tied to Medicare control health spending, when Medicare hasn't? From 1970 to 2007, Medicare spending per beneficiary rose 9.2 percent annually compared to the 10.4 percent of private insurers -- and the small difference partly reflects cost shifting. Congress periodically improves Medicare benefits, and there's a limit to how much squeezing reimbursement rates can check costs. Doctors and hospitals already complain that low payments limit services or discourage physicians from taking Medicare patients.

The revealing photo from Politico

Why do I own pianos? AVI explains, or tries to.

David Horowitz’s “Alinsky, Beck, Satan, and Me” Series

Remembering the fall of Communism, 20 years ago. However, the O does not find it a worthy event: I think the Lefties still mourn the day of the collapse of authoritarian socialism and the burst of freedom behind the old Iron Curtain.

Joblessness, by state

Books to read for people who disagree with me. Insty

"Conservatives continue to outnumber moderates and liberals in the American populace in 2009..."

Jerry Nadler's ethics

Dr. Sanity:

The truth is that most of the drivel that issues from the radical environmentalists' mouths these days is pure, unadulterated neo-Marxist fascism, disguised as compassionate concern for the planet; and steeped in a deep hatred of humanity.

Via Blue Crab: What the fraudulent health care “reform” will actually do to health care costs

This is a re-post of an NJ piece from a couple of years ago -

There are people living "deviant" lifestyles in the Northeast, and, sadly, they are frequently invisible and marginalized. After much searching to locate the most deviant family your reporter could find in western Massachusetts, we decided to interview Jim and Sarah D. We summarize our interview with this extremely deviant, euphemistically-termed "traditional family," here:

Social deviant Jim D. 42, leads what we might best term a paleo life, largely out of touch with modern reality and seemingly oblivious to the exciting opportunities of modern lifestyle choices. Married for 21 years, with three kids, Jim drives 25 minutes to work each morning in his 8 year-old Subaru sedan. A college grad, Jim, on his fourth job, is CFO of a medium-sized manufacturing corporation based in Pittsfield, MA, making around $120,000 per year, not including generous benefits.

"I worked my way up the ladder to reach my level of incompetence," he laughs. "The job is a daily challenge, so I try to meet it each day determined to have some fun with it, and to rise to the challenges with a can-do spirit, corny as that sounds. I go to work every morning wondering what sort of pitch will be thrown to me, and hoping at least to hit a single. When I get stuck and confused, I call Sarah to talk it over." Really? "She's my partner, in every way. We joke that by combining the two of us, we add up to one barely competent human."

Jim claims his wife is "great to me and for me" and says "I love my kids to death." They go to their Presbyterian Church together every Sunday, and they tithe. "Budgeting our tithing is a blessing to us," says Sarah. Jim and Sarah have a date night every Thursday night, and family Sunday dinner with his in-laws.

They have lived modestly, and have accumulated over $500,000 in their 401-K savings. Jim says "Business hasn't been loyal to its employees for 20 years, so you have to take care of yourself. That's fine with me. My Dad did it by always living below his means, which were minimal for a long time, and I do the same. Unlike my Dad, though, I doubt anyone will let me continue working as long as I want to."

What did his Dad do? "He quit high school to join the Army. Hated school. They stuck him in the Corps of Engineers. Then worked up to a construction supervisor as a civilian, which he still does. He will never quit work, although he could retire now if he wanted to. He owns three houses; rents two and lives in one. The job gives him something to grouse about, and gets him out of the house and out into the world."

When asked what were the most important things in his life, Jim answers "Knowing God and being a responsible adult male. Working hard, paying my bills, being a good parent and husband, a good citizen and a good friend." For hobbies, Jim and Sarah enjoy gardening, jogging in the Berkshire Hills, and cooking together. When their first child was born, they gave their TV away and have been without one since. "Brain rot," says Sarah. "It interferes with family time, and we didn't want the kids to be passive zombies."

Sarah was a grammar school teacher until the kids came. "I would never have married a woman who wanted to work while we had young kids," Jim says. "That's an experiment with human nature I would not want to subject them to." As the kids enter high school, Sarah is planning to return to teaching high school English this time, having made herself "an amateur expert" in Medieval and Renaissance literature over the past 15 years. "I polished up my French, and learned Italian." What's her dream job? "Teaching Beowulf and Dante."

"Unlike Sarah, I was the first kid in my family to ever go to college," Jim says. "My first day at UMass, my Mom insisted I wear a jacket and tie. That is how traditional - or out to lunch - my parents were then. Mom baked a huge layer cake when I got my admission letter. They were both children of immigrants, my Dad's parents from Romania and my Mom's from Ireland." He says "UMass set me up for a fine career, but I had no big dreams. I just wanted to be able to support my family, and to find a way to have a fairly good time doing it. Math was easy for me, so I majored in it, but I made sure I got myself educated as widely as I had time for, while staying on the Rugby team and without too many drunken nights. I took some accounting classes to be practical about the future, but I met Sarah in a Chaucer class. She was cute as hell, and I said to her after class 'I don't think I belong in this class.' She said 'Let's discuss it.' The rest is history."

Politics? As Sarah says "We go to every Town Meeting, and we speak up when an issue is important to us. We don't obsess too much about national politics. We are local." When pressed on the issue, they confessed "Well, we do listen to Rush when we have the chance, but we are usually too busy." 

Hinckley Yachts experiencing the recession. Photo is a classic Hinckley DS 42. Perfection. Only problem: in my (limited) experience, Hinckleys cannot point worth a damn.

Kindle-killer: Barnes & Noble Unveils Kindle-Killing, Dual-Screen ‘Nook’ E-Reader

Nookie-reader?

Laptops for overseas Marines - plus dancing Marines

"Victicrat" - cool video

The O in Stamford, CT on Fri raising Dem money, with Dump Dodd. Ted Kennedy's old skirt-chasing, low-life, pub-hopping partner Dodd is a goner.

Mark Steyn: Obama a tough guy, at least with Fox News. With real tough guys, the O is a pussy.

On the other hand, the WH did pick a fight with the Chamber. That takes nerve, because they are tough. They aren't exactly Conservative though.

Related: Beck on The Chicago Gangsta Way

Camille Paglia, last of the open minded liberals

Let's All Buy a Hybrid! It will pay for itself in 25 years!

The facts about high executive pay. WSJ. I don't care what they make. I do care about what I make. I could never be CEO of Goldman Sachs or GE: I lack the brains, talents, skills, knowledge, decisiveness, interpersonal skills and personality for that. Great biz managers are as rare as great shortstops or sopranos or ballerinas. Got to reward them well for what they do or they will quit, retire - or go to your competitor. That's how free labor markets work, isn't it? It's about scarcity and added value. Like truffles. Supply and demand is a fundamental of freedom.

Destroying all the forests can save the planet!

The bailouts were not meant to really save GM and Chrysler. Duh. It was just a payoff to the union - by us, the lowly taxpayers.

More on your tax dollars at work: Cash for Clunkers fails again

Of great value to single, social-climbing, or designing women: Tax records open in Norway

Medical insurance costs rise for small biz. So can they dump the cost on me? People ought to be able to buy their own insurance on their own, like adults, in a free market.

Golden Eagle attacks reindeer calf

What's holding back nuclear power?

Regulating the internet. Is this a slippery slope? However,

...Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said he introduced legislation on Thursday aimed at prohibiting the FCC from enacting rules to regulate the Internet

Dem: Repubs are the real enemies of America. Things are getting strange.

Hey, here's a reason to do it! Cap & trade could be a boon to NYC trading firms

Coyote on free speech and the UN:

I continue to be confused why the Left in this country is so absolutely hostile to Baptists in Alabama but are so deferential to Muslims in Saudi Arabia.  Is it simply because one group makes credible threats of violence while the other does not?

By what Constitutional authority could the Federal government force me to buy medical insurance?

India: We’re Not Hurting Our Economy For “Climate Change”

A Lefty has a Moore-gasm

"Sending" more kids to college? Why? We "send" too many already who just waste time and their parents' money.

Health care: They tried to do too much, over-reached, went too far Left, tried to grab too much control, and now they are in a pickle.  It's their own darn fault. Hubris. Even the Blue Dogs are facing spending fatigue.

Meanwhile, the "Great Uniter" remains on the attack. Please, O, bring us together!!!

As VDH rightly says:

Please, please

Right now to save America we need some steady leadership that reassures businesses of lower taxes, less government spending, no new regulations, educational reform to improve the work force, and confident expansionary energy exploration and development. Instead, we get a prescription to terrify private enterprise: Mr. President, every time you besmirch someone as greedy, lying, and unduly rich, some business, somewhere, pulls in its horns.

O'Reilly: “Obama is fighting harder against FOX News than he is the Taliban.”

Like we said yesterday

Copenhagen and national sovereignty. No Pasaran

It takes a governor to be an effective Pres

Re ACORN, at Powerline: The last shoe drops

49 of 50 states have lost jobs since stimulus

It's quite simple: price-fixing masks costs

All the Commies in Obama's admin. Am Thinker

Urbanism update: The white city and white flight

Outlawing manhood. Human Events

Hurricanes? Global warming. No hurricanes? Global warming.

DOJ: Blacks will only vote for party labels. Unbelievably insulting.

The No Insurance Club. One annual fee to your doc. Basically, the doc takes the risk of his time.

Is it paranoid to imagine that Obamacare is about the government owning your body?

Have fun. It's 1502 pages of bureaucratese.

The Pope welcomes Anglicans back home

Protesting Geert Wilders at Temple:

"The decision to allow Mr. Wilders to share his viewpoints is a danger not only for the public safety of Muslims and the honor of the core principle of Islam, but also for academic integrity and objectivity on campus."

Related: Minuteman's Jim Gilchrist banned from speaking at Harvard. Modern academia is afraid of ideas.

Related: Amherst wants Gitmo detainees.  I guess it's some weird version of Radical Chic.

Polarizing America the Alinsky way.  Related: ACORN vote fraud in NYS

Even the Left is lining up against the WH proposed Internet regulation. A quote:

Opponents of the policy rightly argue that its implementation would stifle innovation and impact service—a little bit the way that a government takeover of health care would with regard to that industry.  Also like health care, the internet is something that most Americans are unable and unwilling to go without.  Turning the internet into the functional equivalent of the US Postal Service (a communications system in which Genachowski takes a deep, and arguably ironic, personal interest) is the wrong answer to preserving it in a viable, useful form.  

Last week we had Anita Dunn praising Mao. Now we have another Mao-praising Czar in the WH. See Dr Sanity's If it walks like a Marxist...

From a Carville poll report on my half of America:

They believe Obama is ruthlessly advancing a ‘secret agenda’ to bankrupt the United States and dramatically expand government control to an extent nothing short of socialism. While these voters are disdainful of a Republican Party they view to have failed in its mission, they overwhelmingly view a successful Obama presidency as the destruction of this country’s founding principles and are committed to seeing the president fail. Instead of focusing on these intense ideological divisions, the press and elites continue to look for a racial element that drives these voters’ beliefs -– but they need to get over it.

With two Mao-lovers in the WH, it's no surprise some people wonder what's going on.

The Maldives are running a slick scam.

Govt control of insurance will lead to greater denial of care. Fro sure. In fact, Massachusetts now faces government rationing.

Afghanistan: Deciding not to decide is a decision

I want to go into the not raising pigs business

Founder of Human Rights Watch denounces Human Rights Watch. Same thing happened with Greenpeace. Non-profits commonly get taken over by Lefties.

Brit NHS pays its staff to get private medical care

Geniuses. Photo shows how they protest Geert Wilders.

World's largest duct tape factory

When firing your greedy money manager is a mistake. Harvard, in this case.

Remaking the system for 5% of the population. It does seem stupid, doesn't it? But it's part of a plan. Related: Only 42% favor health care reform./ Related: Health Bill or Stealth Bill? What's in those 1500 pages?

Why some utilities like cap and trade. They can make money on it.

"the actual climatological outlook is: morally cloudy, with a hyper-political chance of poor discernment." Kathryn Lopez

Via Powerline: Seriously, what can be done to stop this insidious invasion of our public space by left wing propagandists spouting costly nonsense?

AVI on "racism": Progressives may have convinced themselves that the victim claims of numerous groups are so unlimited that any accusation must be acknowledged as fair in its own way.

The New Left Gospel. Am Digest

PM: Only 50 days left to save the world. Yikes.

Via Insty: H1N1 is Obama’s Katrina. The US Gov’s response to H1N1 has been subpar at best.

David Thompson: I sense a malign presence

At Betsy: In his presidential radio address this weekend, Obama criticized insurance companies for offering up "smoke and mirrors" and false promises on reform. How ironic when Obama has been doing the same.

SISU on human nature.

An email we received today:

Law Seminars International presents:

EPA Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Rule
A one-hour TeleBriefing
October 20, 2009
10:00 AM PDT, 11:00 AM MDT, 12:00 PM CDT, 1:00 PM EDT

View the program agenda here.

Dear Mr....:

Sign up now. You can call in from anywhere to hear expert analysis by phone of EPA's recent reporting rule for greenhouse gas emissions. This is the first comprehensive nation-wide reporting system implemented under the Clean Air Act and in this one-hour TeleBriefing you will hear from moderator Elizabeth Thomas, K&L Gates, Traci Goodwin, Senior Port Counsel, Port of Seattle, and Douglas Dougherty, PhD, PE, CIH, Environ International, how to navigate EPA's final greenhouse gas reporting rule.

Intended Audience
Lawyers and business executives whose business or clients will be impacted by this landmark environmental ruling.

Registration
Register here or call us at (800) 854-8009

Tuition
Tuition is $125 per caller and $50 each for additional people on the same line who wish to receive continuing education credit.

Available Credits:
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Other credits available, please call

I hope you can join us.

Kate Johnson
President

Note: If you do not want to receive email notice of upcoming professional education programs, or want to limit the topics you receive, you can safely tell us by replying to this email. You also can give us a quick call at (800) 854-8009 or go to LSI News Assistant.

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What is equality? AmThinker

WH: We control the media

Obama’s $787 Billion Stimulus “Created or Saved” 20 Jobs in Connecticut, 28 Jobs in Vermont & 22 Jobs in New Hampshire

Health reform:

The bill creates a new health entitlement program that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates will grow over the longer term at a rate of 8% annually, which is much faster than the growth rate of the economy or tax revenues. This is the same growth rate as the House bill that Sen. Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) deep-sixed by asking the CBO to tell the truth about its impact on health-care costs.

Sad but true: Everybody wants something from big government. I want a pony.

Also, I want my reality back.

FOX has really gotten inside Obama's head.

Is Obama anti-American? h/t, Doug Ross

Grassley: Senate Health Plan Depletes Medicare, Raises Premiums, Thwarts Constitution Related: They said one trillion last week, now its 2 trillion. Do I hear 3?

An appreciation of my husband: Anchoress

The religion of the Left, revisited. Vanderleun

Stimulus Success: At Only $533,000 per Job 

LEAKED NETWORK MEMO REVEALS: Obama Controls Your Television Set

We are all Rush Limbaugh now

Free speech for me but not for thee. Riehl

Candide (or is it Don Quixote?) goes out into the big world. But these Dems know nothing about Ketman:

Unfortunately, no one prepared Clinton for her trip by explaining the rules of ketman. This is an Oriental form of dissimulation first described by the 19th-century French ethnologist Count Gobineau and perfected, as it happens, by the Persians. According to Gobineau, the people of the East believe that, “He who is in possession of the truth must not expose his person, his relatives or his reputation to the blindness, the folly, the perversity or those whom it has pleased God to place in error.” In other word, he must hide his true beliefs.

How do you do a "reset" when the other guys are playing you for fools?  These people are in so far over their heads. Relevant image above via Flares: http://yargb.blogspot.com/2009/10/when-don-quixotes-rule-world.html

The pitfalls of paternalism. Somin at Volokh. It's not a joke. If people want to be children, they will be treated as such.

Raul Castro on Socialism:

"Nobody, no individual nor country, can indefinitely spend more than she or he earns. Two plus two always adds up to four, never five," he said. "Within the conditions of our imperfect socialism, due to our own shortcomings, two plus two often adds up to three."

Reality is a bitch.

FIRE: Victory for Free Speech as College of William & Mary Dumps Speech Codes, Earns ‘Green Light’ Rating

We love FIRE. Please consider them for your end of year donations.

The new America? People are learning from Washington: "Everybody was like, 'I still want my free stuff,' and that started the riot," he said. Related at Betsy: The reality facing the money-for-nothing crowd

Glenn Beck VOGUE puts on blackface and nobody cares

Wall Street Journal surpasses USA Today as No. 1

Dems now represent the rich zip codes. So much for the "evil rich Repubs."

The Baucus plan would bankrupt the states. Say, how's that plan working out in Massachusetts?

From The Mind Boggles at Am Spectator:

It behooves us instead to take a moment to marvel at the insanity of the process we have allowed to steer the fate of the Republic.

Think about this. We have decisions made about matters desperately close to home, affecting our health and wealth, our lives and livelihoods, and by whom? A group of Senators, fairly capable people, farm the work out to aides of whom we know nothing. Who are these people and how is their capability determined, their efficiency measured, their accuracy gauged? The work produced by these ciphers in their crypts is hardly understood by the legislators, then subject to manipulation by jurists. It seems unimaginable that your life and mine may be offered as human sacrifices to the meddling of these wizards of Oz hiding behind their curtains.        

                     More on the topic of covering the field with slime -

The media war on the smart and charming Liz Cheney

Steyn on Rush:

...the geniuses at Media Matters say: You want chapter-and-verse on those "Slavery was great/Give James Earl Ray the Medal of Honor" quotes? Okay, here's some stuff Limbaugh has said about Obama...

The race deck is all trump cards:

Step One: You can't say that. It's racist.

So you don't. Next:

Step Two: You're using "code language".

As I always say, "code language" is code language for "I’m inventing what you really meant to say because the actual quote doesn’t quite do the job for me." Still, you steer clear of "code language". So then:

Step Three: We'll just concoct it out of whole cloth, and, after running for a week with "Slavery Advocate Wants Medal Of Honor For MLK Killer", our fact-checkers will confirm the accuracy of that statement by citing something you said about Donovan McNabb or Obama's economic policy. Close enough.

PS Can Rush buy the St Louis Rams if he gets Roman Polanski to front the deal?

Powerline's post on the topic, Rush is Out, included this pic from CNN with a totally manufactured Rush quote. This kind of thing is dangerous stuff, besides being immoral, unethical, and despicable:

Aussies hoard incandescent bulbs.

The WH's war against FOX 

The Dem war against Rush: State-Run Media Scum Smear Rush Using Fabricated Quotes. Says Steyn: Prove you never said it. But Rush is rightly contemplating legal action.

As a long-time Rush listener, I can state that Rush has no trace of racism. What he does is to refuse to condescend or pander to anybody. Is that considered racism these days?

The Dem dirty political fights this season

Dems: We don't need no steenkin' ethics

Villainous: E.J. Dionne Explains Angry White Men to Blue America

Who's on the hook for the growing state and municipal pension messes?

Blankley: Washington is nuts:

That's right. The federal government is giving the "green light" for the country to drive to the poorhouse -- and drive there, I would argue, by way of the lunatic asylum. Are they nuts?

Sen Mitch McConnell on the Baucus bill:

Afghan Pop. Watch the Afghan Star trailer.

From John yesterday re Columbus Day:

Speaking of Columbus, the Associated Press finds that the boldest explorer in world history did not have quite the same sensibilities as a liberal 21st century schoolmarm. This apparently surprises some.

Is mass transit really green? Probably not, but could you imagine NYC without trains, buses and subways? It just wouldn't work.

Nuclear weapons deserve the Nobel Peace prize

Most ominous graph of the day

So how many properties does Charlie Rangel own?

This kid definitely needs Reform School

Businessman Steve Wynn takes on Michigan Gov.

A fine Driscoll essay: Man’s Crisis Of Identity In The Latter Half Of The 20th Century

Parents & Kids Protest Obama, Democrats & The Teachers' Unions: PJTV Video

Oh great: Obama to SEIU: "Now the Time Has Come For Us to Do It All Across the Country - We Are Going to Paint the Nation Purple With SEIU"

Instructing monsters to be monsters. Am Thinker

Jules:

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn whines that Fox acts as a “wing of the Republican Party.” No complaints about the rest of the White House Press Corps acting as a Democratic high-rise condo development, though.

John at Powerline says of the Dem medical reform "this isn't reform, it is stupidity." I disagree. I believe it is a medium-to-long-term strategy to raise prices to drive people to the government plantation. Trouble is, people will blame the insurance companies instead of the government. The Dems have not really made a secret of their clever but deceptive strategy to achieve government control. Graph from Powerline:

This is the plan - to drive private insurance out of business so we can be relieved of the burden of making our own choices. 

The insurers have finally caught on to the Dem strategy.

Yes, at the very least the Dem reform will drive costs far higher in the short term. That is, insofar as anybody knows what the heck is in it.

One thing we do know is that insurance creep will be part of it. Not only will we lose the choice of major medical, or to be self-insured, but we'll end up paying for sex change operations, abortions, hair transplants and massage therapy.

Here's the Dem war against the specialists.

The most insulting thing about this whole mess, however, is that the taxes for it begin right away - but the program doesn't begin until after the next Pres election. Hmmm.

Aren't most folks working today? Scroll down and catch up with our posts from the weekend.

Darn good point from Powerline: "Any government medicine system suffers from a fatal contradiction: health care is a "right," but a right that must be rationed."

Former Dem Senator Bob Kerry (via Gateway's post on Sen. Feinstein):

On vision, President Obama is very inspiring. He has given moderates in Muslim countries room to move by speaking to them directly and respectfully, while at the same time continuing to wage an aggressive and necessary battle against radical Islamists who have declared war on the U.S. However, he has made too many apologies. And at this point, his strategy is too naïve and has too little coherence to be called a strategy. If the issue of foreign policy had been more important in his presidential campaign—and therefore important to the electorate—I might be more critical. And if I weren't a supporter, my judgment would be harsher. But in this realm, I'm still hoping for improvement.

Insty wonders

COULD MONTY PYTHON BE MADE in today’s Britain?

And as Mark Steyn puts it:

As Canadians have discovered, liberty is lost very quietly and quickly. And trying to get it back is slow and painful - particularly at a time when artists, universities, publishers and others who congratulate themselves incessantly on their truth-telling courage find increasingly pre-emptive self-censorship the better part of valor.

Surber:

Al Gore’s big question is paper or plastic.

I don’t have time for this fool.

A brief history of the prevention of tyranny. Doug Ross. One quote:

The French nobleman and legal expert Charles-Louis de Secondat, the Baron de Montesquieu, studied the rise and fall of the Roman Republic. He believed that a properly designed government, in order to prevent tyranny, would require three branches of government. He wrote, "If it is to provide its citizens with the greatest possible liberty, a government must have certain features. First, since 'constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it … it is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power' . This is achieved through the separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of government... [to prevent any one] from acting tyrannically."

 Want more to read? Try Federalist #42

What's the #1 reason women want sex? (Hint: Same thing guys would say)

The last days of the polymath?

The action of the journalists was to shut down the journalist and defend the politician

What's the matter with you, Sen. Graham? It's a political hoax, you bozo.

CBO: Malpractice reform would save 40 billion

CBO: Finance Plan Would Save $81 Billion - by raising taxes like crazy on everything, by cutting Medicare - and by one other trick

Related: Massachusetts Is like health-care hell for one universal health care advocate

Related: The health care bill - which doesn't even exist yet - will go unread and unreadable

Too old for medical care? Brit Docs leave old lady to starve

Banning the bulb? Not too smart

Related: Record cold kills playoff game. The Ice Age is coming. How often do we have to warn y'all? 

Ship of Fools: Obama's Intimates and Advisors

Obama wins Miss World 2009

On Chavez' side? Why won't the O support Hondauran elections?

Advice about marriage. Villainous

A Conservative Bible? Include me out.

Is anti-trust used for consumer protection anymore?

Charlie Rangel: Poster Boy

The O: Taliban should be part of Afghan govt.

How reform is destroying medical care in Massachusetts

The Quinnipiac health care poll. Related: Docs turn to GOP

Stanford U doesn't want you to see this video. It's yet another Prof who swtiched from being an Ice Age alarmist to a warming alarmist.

The plummeting US tax recepts.

Related: The example of Vermont:

In sum, 13,912 Vermonters were responsible for almost half of the revenue generated through the income tax, and the income tax revenue constitutes about half of all the general fund revenue the state collects.

To visualize this inverse relationship, consider a pyramid standing on its head, with the broad side at the top representing what’s being spent, and the bottom point being the few upon which all this spending depends.

It doesn’t take much to upset a fragile balance.

Insty:

TAXPROF: 80% Marginal Tax Rates After Health Care “Reform”?

The CBO did a mark-up on the Baucus Bill - but there is no bill. As noted at NRO:

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, says that the new CBO report is “an estimate of a concept, not a formal cost analysis of an actual bill.”

“What we know at this point is that the bill cuts Medicare, raises taxes, and increases insurance premiums for tens of millions of Americans,” says Alexander. “It imposes onerous new costs on states and is likely to increase the federal debt.  We need to see the actual bill text and know its exact text before we begin a lengthy debate about whether it’s the right direction for our country.”

WSJ: The major provisions of ObamaCare already have been tried. They've led to increased costs and reduced access to care.

Rove: The GOP Is Winning the Health-Care Debate: Gallup says independents now favor Republicans by nine points.

Is the GOP folding?

Gateway:

Currently, only 29% of Americans say it’s more important to give people a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option than to keep their current plan.
But, facts don't matter to the agenda driven democrat-media complex.

Insty:

GETTING SNEAKY: New plan might allow Dems to slip public option through Senate.

Senate Democrats desperate to find a way to pass a health care bill that includes a federal insurance plan may have come up with a way to do it without putting moderate members who oppose it in political jeopardy.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is weighing a plan to bring the final health care bill to the floor without a public option — making it much easier to get the 60 votes needed to prevent a Republican filibuster — and then adding the provision later as an amendment.

Yeah, that’ll work . . . .

Via Marginal Rev:

Jim Capretta looks at the Baucus healthcare bill and concludes that, because the subsidies phase out as income rises, it imposes an effective marginal tax rate on income of about 30 percent for many families. Add that figure to the income tax, the payroll tax, and the phase-out of the EITC and "the effective, implicit tax rate for workers between 100 and 200 percent of the federal poverty line would quickly approach 70 percent — not even counting food stamps and housing vouchers."

Whatever the Baucus bill will say, we can be certain that it is designed to screw things up badly enough that people will beg for single-payer government-controlled medicine.

Upper photo: Are you too young to know who those Docs are?
Lower photo via Jammie's piece on the NHS

Bill Ayers admits writing Obama's book. OK, maybe he was kidding. Who knows?  Photo is home-grown commie terrorist Prof. Ayers. I hope he was paid for his work.

Another Obama nominee nutjob. She wants polygamy. Where do they find these people? I mean, like, who could afford polygamy except multimillionaires? Well, but on the other hand, you could send them all out to work and just hang out and collect their paychecks...

Is "Obama Trauma" beginning to sink in? (Ms. Robin, note you have mixed up cow-tipping with kowtowing. "Cow towing" is a distasteful sexist term for a method of removing a spouse from the mall)

John Leboutillier has a website. We'll link it. We like him.

For crying out loud, would you please sit up straight. Sheesh.

New strict rules for the Aussie's Bathurst races:

Australian police are gearing up for an annual crackdown on motor-racing fans - limiting race-goers to 24 cans of beer a day. Spectators at the Bathurst 1000 - a three-day race meeting staged this week - will be told to stick to just the one "slab" of beer while at the racetrack. Wine-drinkers must also show restraint, facing a four litres per day limit.

One carton or four bottles of wine per day? Have the Aussies become pussy drinkers?

African-American "Studies" has been around for 40 years.

When you control the cash, you can control everything. Pay Czar wants to slash exec salaries. That's one way to get rid of them.

Good-bye Chrysler. They are going down, but still scrambling.

Related: How much of what "American" cars are made in the US, and how much of foreign brands are? Truth is, these concepts no longer have much meaning.

Education: Government thinks they came up with a brilliant idea. Turns out it is already being done privately, and is widespread. Watch government try to do it anyway and try to duplicate what is already being done.

I used to think that giving away the Panama Canal was the dumbest thing Carter did, but nowadays I think it was creating a Federal Dept of Education. Education is neither a Federal responsibility nor a Federal power.

Because the first "stimulus" worked so well, let's do it again

The propaganda unit of the DOJ. Imagine if Bush had pulled this trick...

                                      Medical-related

As a companion to Bobby Jindal's piece posted yesterday, here's What a Republican health-care plan should look like. The Dems could have hit a home run with ideas like these, instead of imagining that they can run American medicine.

Save your pennies. You may be subject to an "individual mandate." AKA a big "tax"

The big lies of the UN Climate Report. Am Thinker. Related, I still think the notion of CO2 as a "pollutant" is patently insane.

Related: Dr. Holdren used to be a Coming Ice Age catastrophizer. Maybe he is a catastrophizer by nature.

Equally insane: schools banning bake sales. Next they will replace pancake breakfasts with raw broccoli and tofu - and nobody will show up.

Camel's nose in the tent: FTC to begin to regulate blogs

I blame last year's economic mess ultimately on the government. Now they want to do it again. Of course, a good down-payment is a good idea - but what if the government gives you that too?

It's a great time to be a consumer - if you have any $ left

The 125th birthday of Ludwig Van Mises. Why he is important.

                 Medical-related

Jindal: The Conservative case for reform. I like it.

Democrats Mired in Chaos, Confusion Over Healthcare Bill

The infant mortality canard

Country With Worst Health Care In The World Wins Nobel Prize

I don't know where the WH rounded up those docs yesterday, but docs are overwhelmingly opposed to further government involvement and control.

Another point of view re Polansky, from NYM:

I tend to view the Polanski affair, not as an authentic case of rape, but as a payment dispute in which one side is able to whistle up the assistance of the criminal law.

Mayor at Drudge: Bloomberg: 'We can't just say everybody can go everyplace and do anything they want'... (fixed link)

A guy who wrote verse for Hallmark Cards (h/t, No Left Turns)

A new way to think about crime deterrance

Nice photos of the Adirondacks from Tiger. Nice place he has there.

How government is keeping unions alive

Did we elect a Beta male?

Horowitz banned from speaking on campus

The NEA is all about power

Do you want this Copenhagen Treaty? I don't.

California wake-up call

Althouse on the insulting, condescening, adolescent speeches to the Olympic Committee

Prelutsky:

The idea that any sane person would be in favor of the government’s running the health industry simply doesn’t compute.  Leaving such important matters in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats is beyond mind-boggling; it’s lunacy. 

Can the middle class afford Obamacare? 

Baucus' plan is the same old thing. From Weekly Standard:

Along with new taxes, the bill seeks to offset its enormous increases in government spending by squeezing Medicare, and particularly the Medicare Advantage program that millions of seniors use to get extra coverage through private insurers. But rather than use cuts in Medicare to shore up that program's ailing finances and help make it sustainable, the Baucus bill (like other Democratic plans this year) would use the money to create yet another unsustainable entitlement.

The bill would therefore exacerbate the chief causes of the rising costs at the core of our health care woes: inefficient entitlement spending and the absence of real market pressures in health insurance. Instead of addressing these, Baucus is offering tax increases, a new entitlement sure to grow more costly every year, fewer options for doctors and patients, a far greater government role in health care, and the prospect of health care service shortages, disruptions, and rationing.

Why do the Dems want to undermine Medicare Advantage?

"Boost the United States"? I thought we were a terrible, evil country. How can you say both?

The US gives up control of the internet. Good or bad or neither?

USAF pilots who cannot fly?

The Incest Lobby jumps on the Polanski story. Good grief. The non-incestuous are termed "outbreeders". I hear the theme from Deliverance. (h/t, No Pasaran)

Pence: We are on the verge of a great Conservative Awakening. I hope so. It requires radical Leftists to get them to pay attention - since they have demanding jobs and lives, etc.

Related: If I had told you, would you have believed it?

Finance Committee Democrat Won’t Read Text of Health Bill, Says Anyone Who Claims They’ll Understand It ‘Is Trying to Pull the Wool Over Our Eyes’. Just trust them. They care about you.

No climate change bill this year. Thank goodness. It's been too darn cold. I wish our Masters in government would turn the temp up a tad.

From WSJ Online re Olympics:

"This idea that other nations will do something that's not in their best interests because they like you is just silly."

It adds doubts. No kidding.

SDA:

The always-amusing Ace: Chicago dodged a bullet

As they say:

Few presidents have suffered this much loss of support in so short a period of time — and things will probably get worse before they get better. Friday didn’t help. Mr. Obama has sustained a political wound at a vulnerable moment for him.

Related, from Powerline:

We don't want this crap. The pols want it.

A joke: Ralph Nader's novel.

Why are the Dems trashing Medicare?

Related: If you were a doc, would you treat Medicare patients?

Government Motors' deepening troubles

Wow! Iran is nice enough to agree to MORE TALKS. Is this Kindergarten?

Related: Nuclear disarmament and the Tooth Fairy. Nyquist

Your tax dollars at work:

Homeland Security Waste Part 1

Part 2

The cost of non-profit journalism

The annual banned book charade

$615,000 tax dollars for a Grateful Dead library.

I wouldn't mind being this kind of "blithering idiot"

The one-millisecond trading issue

"Studies show..." Ace: all taxes are for your personal benefit

A holocaust? These guys are desperate

The Dem court-packing scheme. Imagine if the Repubs pulled this

Roger Simon: And yet those people are defending a man who drugged and sodomized a thirteen-year old!

Villainous quotes PJ O'Rourke:

I'm a 61-year-old man with three young children and a yard to rake. While I appreciate the attention from our most ex- of ex-presidents, I'm really too busy to properly accomplish all this loathing and detestation. I quit smoking so I don't even have a lighter to set crosses on fire. We don't happen to own white bed sheets and I'm five nine and--dressed in Ralph Lauren candy stripes and tripping on fitted corners--I'd feel like a fool at Klan rallies (and Tea Parties and Town Hall meetings, to the extent that there's a difference).

Then I have the task of finding people to disrespect, denigrate, and discriminate against. I know people who are black, gay, Jewish, and Hispanic. But, unfortunately, I like them. When you like a person it's difficult to treat him (or even her) with the kind of vigorous and unrestrained bigotry that Jimmy Carter expects me to engage in. I have to go looking for people (people of the proper race, creed, and ethnic origin) whom I can't stand.

Is the O "playing at being President?" Gratuitously cruel but cute-as-heck photo of the O is h/t NE Repub.

Sarkozy: The O incredibly naive and egotistical.

The O wants the US to surrender sovereignty - but to whom?

These are supposed to be savvy guys. Don't they realize that they are being used as window dressing?

More from the Frenchies: How French women stay thin. h/t, Tiger.

Massive ACORN vote fraud in NY. Related: The Politico gets played by ACORN

It wasn't rape. As neoneo notes, after all she was a 13-year old sexually active temptress at the time. The rules do not apply to Hollywood, apparently. Sodom and Gomorrah over there. Vanderleun nails the story.

In praise of political anger. Gets your heart working too.

The FCC cannot tie its own shoes, but wants to dig into the internet. Arrogant jerks. Leave us the heck alone.

The enraged and hateful Left aims at critics' jugulars

The Are all men pigs? meme. We believe that, at heart, all men are not pigs, but dogs, invested with a powerful mating urge. However, most of us also believe in civilized, honorable, and honest behavior especially when sober or when not in the throes of uncontrollable biological urges and desire...

NYC celebrates 60 years of Chicom rule. Perhaps New Yorkers might enjoy the same thing?

Why the O bombed on health care. WSJ. No, the public isn't stupid.

NY Post - Reform horrors: The O's total disconnect

Via Wilkinson:

I actually think we are going to get a reform that is both worse than the status quo and worse than a pure single payer system.

Maybe they want to break it, so they can come in and "fix it" later. That is termed "tactics."

 Praying to Obama. Good grief. That is sick.

Ace on why it matters:

...it's why defeating health care in general and a government option in particular is so important. Once people turn their very lives over to the beneficence of government, it's game over.

Right. It makes us all slavish dependents on the government plantation.

Insty:

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: “Liberals are screaming over public option failure even tho WH says plan is no biggie. Someone has their story wrong.”

If anybody thinks Congress and the O know what the heck they are doing, please make your case.

With ObamaCare in a Hole, Will the White House Stop Digging?

The real obesity problem is with the government

The hockey stick is dead. It was a fraud

Fiendish plot to create government daycare

Insty:

CANADIANS PUSH FOR PRIVATE OPTION: “Whereas U.S. healthcare is predominantly a private system paid for by private insurers, things in Canada tend toward the other end of the spectrum: A universal, government-funded health system is only beginning to flirt with private-sector medicine.” (Via American Power).

Will Small Businesses Stop Offering Health Insurance If Reform Passes? I think that's their plan

Coyote: But’s Its My Hard Work Paying Your Unemployment

Seems quite clear now that the O did not write his books

Dr. Government by Sen. John Kyl

The new museum in Athens. Sounds good.

Bring it on! Coldest winter. But I was sorta hoping for some global warming by now. They promised!

From Surber:

Wild turkeys attack a little boy in New Jersey. Why do you think they call them wild animals, New Jersey? I say an ax, an oven, some cranberries — bada-bing, bada-boom — Happy Thanksgiving.

The video.

We like John Kasich. Wonderful fellow.

What?

The admission of foreign students is something policymakers haven't focused on sufficiently. Such visas should only be granted for graduate schools and four-year colleges — no high schools, community colleges, or technical schools, like the Golf Academy of America, the California School of Dog Grooming, or John Paul's Hair, Nails & Skin Care Institute, all of which are on the list of approved schools to admit foreign students.

No flight schools?

I cannot believe that Radical Chic is still cool in California. It's so 70s.

Give us back our bullets. I have mine.

Whatever you say, Sen Kerry, but to me it's just a new tax:

"I don't know what 'cap and trade' means. I don't think the average American does," Kerry said. "This is not a cap-and-trade bill, it's a pollution reduction bill" (E&E Daily, Sept. 25).

Baloney.

A Liz Cheney update. Like her a lot. Rising star?

Works as well as an aerobic workout. Today's photo of one of our farm staff is for our male readers' health. We need to keep them alive.

We commit 6 felonies/day? Heck, I am sure I can do more.

Upping the predictions on climate in preparation for the conference. But not to worry - Bundanoon will solve it for us. 

America's ridiculously large economy. India's national economy is equal to that of the NYC metropolitan area. Sheesh.

Oil bonanza in California (h/t, Miller)

George Will likes Marco Rubio

Neoneo: Are they laughing at us?

Stop allowing the Left to set the rules

Fineman: The limits of charisma. Somehow the charisma never really affected me.

Via Insty:

AND DON’T LET US CATCH YOU BEING NEIGHBORLY AGAIN: State bureaucrats threaten to fine, jail a Michigan woman for watching her neighbors’ kids. If people are neighborly, they need the state less. This cannot be permitted.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “‘If people are neighborly, they need the state less.’ You have unwittingly provided every ’social-service’ bureaucracy with a motivational slogan to be posted prominently in parts of the building where the public is not allowed.” I don’t think it’s anything they haven’t figured out already. . . .