Maggie's Farm

Looking forward to fishing season, and hoping Capt. Tom will have some fresh info for us, especially about fly fishing in Yankeeland. In the meantime, I will dig up some of our archival bamboo fishing posts -

That's Editor Bird Dog in the distance, happily fishing in the rain on an April Saturday on the Eleven Mile Brook in CT, with a Haney 7'4"  quad bamboo, on Beat #4. Plenty of mostly hatchery Brook Trout, all sizes. Which are not trout, as I am regularly reminded. Called trout, look and act like trout, but Brookies are, in fact, a species of char, not trout. 

Illo: h/t Theo

Dr. Karasu: Every man is a sex addict (h/t, Insty). Count me in.

Related: Hourglass Figures Affect Men's Brains Like a Drug (h/t, Tiger)

Related fun: What's under your burka?

Related: College on how to perform a textbook BJ. Boring.

Secret turn-ons for women. Plus this:

Other secret turn-ons to feature in the top ten include grey hair, glasses and being a passionate supporter of a sports team.

The evolution of the college dorm: Slide show

An Orchestrated Campaign Against Toyota in Overdrive? Related in WSJ: Trial lawyers and toyota:

Forty billion dollars. That's roughly how much cash Toyota has on its balance sheet, a fat bogey for trial lawyers. Think this was not the animating purpose of the congressional hearings held this week?

Why does the O hate the Brits? Via John's post:

It is astonishing that any administration could make such a mess of both domestic and foreign policy in barely more than a year. One wonders whether we will have any allies left by the end of President Obama's term in January 2013.

SCOTT adds: See also Nile Gardiner's Telegraph column ("Even by the relentlessly poor standards of the Obama administration, whose doctrine unfailingly appears to be 'kiss your enemies and kick your allies,' this is a new low").

How do you shrink a city? Detroit

Best clear explanation of greenhouse gas theory I've seen, from a commenter to this piece at Am Thinker (below the fold and like totally safe for work)

Now the obnoxious nanny idiots are targeting salt. What next? Ten years ago they told us to eat broccoli. Now they say broccoli contains carcinogens. Ten years ago they said to avoid fat. Now they say eat all the meat and fat you want, but avoid carbs. I say "Ignore them all." Food has little or nothing to do with health.

Charlie Munger on China

The next bubble: Carbon trading. As they say, how can the promise not to produce something which is invisible be a valuable commodity?

Al Gore peeks out his igloo and says nothing but untrue things.

The O's team already planning for 2012

Abortion debated, with civility

Obama's Rules of Engagement: Calling Lawyers for Permission to Kill Terrorists.

From Roger on Obamacare:

The issue of freedom is one that is too obvious too require commentary: if ObamaCare passes, you will be less free in about 87 different ways. You’ll be poorer, you’ll have less choice, and you’ll be subject to vastly more regulation and bureaucracy. It’s a horrible thought.  The DMV coming to a doctor’s office near you.

A rant from Prelutsky: Searching for intelligent life on the left

I expect tricks like this from the warmists, but not from the CBO. Computer models?

Warmism at its height, just before the fall

Prager via Lizards:

For the right, the primary moral authority is God (or, for secular conservatives, Judeo-Christian values), followed by parents. Of course, government must also play a role, but it is ultimately accountable to God and it should do nothing to undermine parental authority.

For the left, the state and its government are the supreme authorities, while parental and divine authority are seen as impediments to state authority.

Can the Euro survive?

Cuba is great because...no MacDonalds

How crappy was Haiti before the earthquake?

Driscoll:

...from Walter Duranty to Pinch Sulzberger, Thomas Friedman and Frank Rich, the Times has a long history of being dazzled by the abstractions of totalitarianism, and thus being blinded from the workaday world of actually reporting the news.

How Stupid Do the Elites Think We Are?

How stupid do Swedish elites think the people are?

Climategate Meets the Law: Senator Inhofe To Ask for DOJ Investigation

Krauthammer video: Krauthammer: Obama's Health Plan "Is Really A Travesty Masquerading As An Outreach To The Republicans"

It's my health, it's my choice.

McCotter: The Crisis of Consent: Republicans Must NOT Abet Obama’s ShamWoW! Summit

Like we said: Will the White House demand that every business “justify” its price increases?

FAIL… White House Can’t Find GOP Health Care Bill That’s On Their Website

Brilliant analysis from Vandy:

Obamacare takes a long and detailed look at the current state of American health care and identifies those areas in which it is not yet fucked-up and closes all those unfucked-up loopholes in only 2,000 pages. Given the problem of having to fuck up still functioning elements of the health care system in all 50 states, Obamacare is a masterpiece of concision.

"Contemporary mainline churches have confused the Blue social model with the Kingdom of God."  Bingo.

One way to drive them out of business: Obama to Urge Oversight of Insurers’ Rate Increases. Hey, why not do the same with the cost of cars, and tuition...and the cost of government?

Are all narratives untrue? Jawa

Senators do not want Obamacare restrictions. Says Legal Insurr:

Obama's plan (and so too the House and Senate versions) is the worst of all worlds. It is a replica of the housing bubble, thrill for the first few years, and then the bill becomes due without any way to pay for it.

The trap. Q&O via Blue Crab:

Obama gets his moment recorded by the TV cameras no less. And mournfully he pronounces the Republicans as obstructionists who refused to negotiate in good faith as the great and wonderful Democrats have offered to do. And because of that, it is with a heavy heart and reluctantly he is forced to agree with the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that reconciliation is the only route left open to them to do “what is right” for the American people.

Insty:

I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANY MORE ABOUT MY CARBON FOOTPRINT when U.N. “climate change” commissars are meeting on Bali — again. “Yet again, we are asked to believe the UN deserves special exemptions from its own preachings. Its conferees are jetting to Bali for the greater good of all the little folk, whose job is merely to pay the bills for such pleasures, and live with any resulting rationing and regulation. According to the Jakarta Post, some 1,500 people from 192 countries are expected to attend this shindig — where UNEP claims that envoys of some 140 governments will be present.” Somebody tell these people about Skype.

Getting rich off climate, Via Hot Air:

“According to Mr Schapiro, carbon trading is now the fastest growing commodities market on earth. Since Kyoto signatories bought in to the cap and trade concept in 2005, there have been more than $300bn carbon transactions, prompting several investment banks, including Goldman Sachs and Barclays, to set up their own carbon trading desks. But that’s just the start. If President Obama and his supporters can institute a cap-and-trade system in the United States – and that’s a big if for this increasingly marooned presidency – demand could explode into a $2 to $3 trillion market…

“‘Carbon developers’, many of them employed by large multinationals, travel the world in search of carbon reduction projects to sell, while firms of carbon accountants have been established to verify on the United Nations’ behalf that those reductions are real. The whole thing, though well intentioned, looks wide open to abuse and scams. Mr Schapiro’s account of the carbon trading market is obviously a sceptical one, and no doubt there are others that take a less cynical view. But I wonder what all the wide eyed climate change campaigners are going to say when the first scandals begin to break, still more what they’ll make of it when the whole thing turns out to be another giant asset bubble – if indeed the non production of carbon can be described as an asset.”

I am not young enough to know everything.

Oscar Wilde

George Washington: The man, the myth, the legend.

How to kill Cane Toads

Sol Stern: The Ramparts I Watched -Our storied radical magazine did transform the nation—for the worse.

Faux nostalgia for American manufacturing

Climategate: The World’s Biggest Story, Everywhere but Here

Related: Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels. Another "Woops, we goofed".

Pajamas: The glory of gridlock

Bolton: The O "not qualified" to be Pres

Beware the health care reform zombiecrats. Related, from Jules: 50 Votes In 60 Days! ROTFLMAO!

How the O has lost voters like me: Althouse. She quotes Chris Rock:  "'He speaks so well' is some sh*t you say about ret**ded people that can talk." I think Ann A. was duped by her own wishes. Quite related: Was Chris Matthews born yesterday?

We have met the enemy, and it is the Anglo-Saxon media

If I had a nickel every time a conservative said "limited government" and didn't mean it, I'd be a very rich man.

Back from the dead? The John birch Society

An interesting legal challenge to the EPA

100 years of shale gas. That is plenty of time to get a lot of nuke plants up and running.

Der Spiegel takes a look at the Nazis

I hear the snow is good at Jay Peak.

Tofu: Bad for the earth. h/t, Englishman. In my view, it is poison.

Every grandma knows, to her dismay, that personality traits are inherited: The Genetics of Job Choice

Gotta like Mike Pence

Via Insty, A Monstrous Vision For Media Reform. These totalitarians want government to run media - and the internet. Good luck, jerks. We'll die first, with Maggie's Farm in our cold dead hands.

News to me: Farming discrimination. Seeds discriminate?

Dalai Lama literally out with the trash. What? No recycling?

Not another one? Czechgate: Climate scientists dump world’s second oldest ‘cold’ climate record. This is called "science"? h/t, SDA:

The latest independent analysis of world climate data by acclaimed skeptic blogger ‘Chiefio’ (aka E. M. Smith) and his blog contributors confirm that the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) has cynically dumped the world’s second oldest and reliable climate record at Prague in the Czech Republic for no scientific reason.

Climate skeptics claim the censoring of the Czech’s raw data has been perpetrated by climate scientists because the Prague records prove there has been no warming in Europe for over two hundred years.

John H:

In my view, there is something a bit sinister about the petulance with which Democratic leaders bewail their inability to compel their own members to vote for legislation that is massively unpopular with the American people. This is, after all, a democracy.

The WellPoint Mugging: The brawl over rate increases is a preview of ObamaCare.

Robin's life in Berkeley. The group-think there is creepy. One would like to imagine that a college town would have free-thinkers.

Interesting idea: Grad from HS when you pass the exam

The state and municipal pension scam

Bill Maher: People are too stupid to understand. I guess he means me.

Afghan Offensive May Take a Month, U.K. General Says. Reminds me of Fallujah. Jules wonders where the anti-war movement went. 

How do so many pols end up so rich?

Rosen: The Tea Partiers vs. "progressive" leftists and statists. EJ Dionne and the like are going crazy, it seems:

Global Cooling kid's book via Vanderleun - who links today's climate scandal: Antarctic sea ice increasing rapidly

They offered us $100 million for Maggie's, but we said no, on principle. Thus this blog deal.

Raccoons in Central Park? Who knew? How did they get there?

If you were a Conservative on the fiscal commission, what would you say?

Rubio rocks

Harsanyi: Who Doesn't Trust Science Now?

Related: Climategate and the NASA Files

Via Surber:

From the New York Times: “The state of Texas and a coalition of free-market and global warming skeptic groups are asking a federal appeals court today to review U.S. EPA’s finding that greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare… The state argues that EPA’s finding is legally unsupported because it relies heavily on reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”

Sow it, reap it, liars.

Hewitt: Meme Of The Left: "Gridlock" iS The Problem, Not Obama's Policies. Quote:

When the GOP lost control of the House and Senate, the annual budget deficit was $161 billion.  President Obama's budget for next year --with no stimulus and no TARP-- calls for $1.6 trillion in red ink.

Thus in three years of democratic control the deficit has swell from 161 billion to 1,600 billion.

That's the opposite of gridlock --that is one party rule by the party of massive spending and unlimited pork.
 

Sowell: Politicians Taking Away Your Freedom

Barack Obama Mocked at This Year’s Mardi Gras Parade

Insty:

HAYEK’S THE ROAD TO SERFDOM continues to rack up stellar sales. Well, if ever there were a time. . . .

Trial lawyers: Democrats' other money machine

In Brookhaven Collider, Scientists Briefly Break a Law of Nature. It's about anti-matter, in part, and the mystery of baryogenesis: Why does matter exist?

The evil 60s: The Night They Burned Ranum's Papers

Red wine and dark chocolate are cancer killers (h/t Tiger)

Democrats Reeling Under Losses of Veteran Lawmakers, Declining Poll Numbers

Free Conrad Black!

From Gordon's Milksop Nation (h/t, Boing Boing via I Forget)

For two decades and counting, we citizens of the land of the free and the home of the brave have happily traded freedom for every scrap of bogus safety dangled before us. Indeed, we have devoted prodigious energy to inventing threats that demand the sacrifice of liberty, privacy and even basic human dignity.

Blowing threats out of proportion is, of course, the stock in trade of TV news, whether the menace in question is a summer rainstorm or the distressing stains revealed when an investigative reporter shines ultraviolet light on a freshly laundered bed sheet at an upscale hotel. But television reflects its viewers' attitudes as well as shaping them, and clearly there exists a very large audience receptive to the never-ending theme: Life is meant, ever and always, to be safe--and you're not safe.

Nigerian activist and Nobel laureate for Literature Wole Soyinka:

England is a cesspit. England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims. Its social logic is to allow all religions to preach openly. But this is illogic, because none of the other religions preach apocalyptic violence. And yet England allows it. Remember, that country was the breeding ground for communism, too. Karl Marx did all his work in libraries there."

Go figger: 2009- Global Warming Causes Foggy Days in San Francisco… 2010- Global Warming Causes Fog-less Days in San Francisco. At best, we are talking one degree per century since the Little Ice Age. As they say, "Is there anything global warming can't do?"

Prof Plimer:

Since Copenhagen there have been weekly revelations that the IPCC used non-valid sources for some of its exaggerated claims. If such activities took place in the corporate world, the courts would be full. All the poster displays of a forthcoming climate catastrophe such as Himalayan glaciers, Amazonian forests, inexorable rise in global temperature, Arctic ice, polar bears, retreating Kilimanjaro ice, etc., have been shown to be implausible, wrong, or fraudulent.

And at Am Thinker, The experiment that disproves AGW:

...the results of three different peer-reviewed papers show that over a period of 36 years, there is no reduction of OLR emissions in wavelengths that CO₂ absorb. Therefore, the AGW hypothesis is disproven. 

From today's Lectionary, Psalm 51:1-17: "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart."

1:1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.

1:2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

1:3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

1:4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.

1:5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.

1:6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

1:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

1:8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.

1:9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

1:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.

1:11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.

1:12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

1:13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

1:14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.

1:15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.

1:16 For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.

1:17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Grad school in the humanities is a big lie

Soda = Big Tobacco, According to No-Fun NYT Food Writer

Was there any actual warming to begin with?. Well, don't tell Cambridge, MA because they are going to save the planet!

WSJ: The continuing climate meltdown. And WaTimes: The Scam Unravels. One quote:

Not everybody is on to the global-warming scam, not yet, but all the people — or enough of them — are getting there. "Global warming," or even "climate change" as Al's marketing men now insist that it be called, is becoming the stuff of jests and jokes. Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, a Republican, built an igloo of that hot stuff that buried Washington last week on the Capitol lawn and dubbed it "Al Gore's new home."

It has been a topic of jest at Maggie's Farm for years.

Glenn says the Climategate story reminds him of the Bellesisles story

The skeletons of wind energy. Meanwhile China is buying Canadian oil sites

Race and fairness:

A few years ago, however, when I worked as a reader for Yale’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions, it became immediately clear to me that Asians - who constitute 5 percent of the US population - faced an uphill slog. They tended to get excellent scores, take advantage of AP offerings, and shine in extracurricular activities. Frequently, they also had hard-knock stories: families that had immigrated to America under difficult circumstances, parents working as kitchen assistants and store clerks, and households in which no English was spoken.

But would Yale be willing to make 50 percent of its freshman class Asian? Probably not.

Why not?

Somin on political ignorance

Amy Bishop Is A Far-Left Extremist "Obsessed" with the President

Obama's chance to be next FDR or Reagan fading fast. The fellow is a classic Legend in His Own Mind.

Why the Russkis still see the US as an enemy

What happens when you get drunk?

DC Post Runs With Climategate; NY Times Still in Tank. Says Mead:

What?  There is no statistically significant evidence of global warming for the last fourteen years, and the debate over global warming is not over in the opinion of “the vast majority of climate scientists?”  And this is what a defender of global warming now says?  No one who depends on the New York Times for information has a clue that any of this could be true. 

New TSA Training Video - Hug A Jew

Surber: Downside of school lunch programs

Not Your Father's Britain Department: Health and Safety regs prevent rescue

A sacred relic?

The Perils of Professors

How the secular progressives have developed a political viewpoint into a religious experience.

Schools: Only School Choice Will Keep Them Honest

Russian Leaders Order the Privatization of Industry – Will Punish Bureaucrats Who Hamper Investment

Lots of $ at stake: Following Obama Comments, Corporate and Environmental Special Interests Scramble to Lobby Administration Officials on Global Warming Legislation

During the Olympics, The Feds Will Be Reading Your Tweets – And the Blotter. Related: Cell Phone Records: “No Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy”

Amazing:

The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change,” said John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a former lead author on the IPCC.

Rep. Bill Delahunt (D, MA): why did you put Amy Bishop back on the street? I doubt that he will run again.

U.S. Unemployment Compared to European Unemployment

Why Cheney attacks

Barack Obama:"Americans Are Tired of Politicians Who Don't Walk the Walk on Fiscal Responsibility."

Kudlow: The Washington, D.C., Disconnect

Something good: Obama Nuke Plant Loan Reflects New Energy Strategy

Climategate's Phil Jones Confesses to Climate Fraud. For starters,

Imagine a man who has spent the better part of the past 25 years toiling to convince the world of CO2-forced 20^th-century warming now admitting that the difference in warming rates for the periods 1860-1880, 1910-40 and 1975-2009 is statistically insignificant. Jones even acceded that there has been no statistically-significant global warming since 1995; that in fact, global temperatures have been trending to the downside since January of 2002, although he denied the statistical significance of the -0.12C per decade decline.  

All the details at link above. And he said:

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

Related, IPCC admits that they are not a scientific organization.

Related, World may not be warming, say scientists. Al Gore, Call your Agent.

Their party is over. My big question is "Why aren't the Warmists pleased and relieved to learn that it was a giant hoax perpetrated by grant-seekers, rent-seekers, carbon-credit investors like Al Gore and the oil companies, greedy governments, and the absurd, corrupt, and amoral UN?" Why not celebrate! They should be thrilled to know that they can quit worrying, and just get on with life.

But it just seems to make them more angry. Go figger. Maybe some people just like to be angry and upset about something or other to give life a bigger meaning.

Photo: A fair likeness of your News Junkie at Cannon Mountain this winter, with his few remaining brain cells well-protected after a nasty run-in with a hostile tree in early January.

Remember the Global Cooling hysteria? Well, Rare snowfall in Rome as cold snap grips Italy

Vibrator addiction?

Addicted to growing opium. Is it a Libertarian thing?

Licenses to use the internet? (h/t, Insty)

Homeland Sec refuses to use the I word. It might offend, I guess. The problem is that this sort of baloney offends me, and insults my intelligence. Plus I am paying for it.

VDH: The New Commandments on the Animal Farm Barn Wall

Putin Orders Obama Not to Defend America. Like Iran, the Russians see the O as a pussy to be pushed around. Yes, we did just call the O a pussy.

Re Sowell's Intellectuals and Society

Tough love for Greece:

Members of both government and opposition parties in the Bundestag said there would be no parliamentary support for any financial rescue package for Greece without clear evidence of drastic cuts in state spending. Eurozone finance ministers are due to meet on Monday, but no detailed rescue plan will be on their agenda.

Re NJ, at Tiger:

One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits -- a total of $3.8m on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair?

Pretending that it was not the Dems who were blocking civil rights

Chose your side: Salmon vs. farmers. Not enuf water for both.

Joe Biden: We did it

Laurence Tribe via Surber:

 “Laurence Tribe, one of the most brilliant lawyers in America, has said that Barack is the most incandescently brilliant student he ever taught. I think brains count. When you combine it with the kind of international background that he’s had, what’s he’s been through as a black person. It has not made him angry, but he’s rather hopeful by it. He’s an extremely positive person about the future of America. He’s the president I’ve been waiting for all my life.”

Get a room, Laurence.

Re the anti-obesity campaign:

"As the government assumes a larger share of health care costs, it is increasingly able to use that as a justification to intrude into personal decisions or private enterprises, whether it's a matter of smoking policy, trans-fats, or salt," we wrote last month. Now the Wall Street Journal is out with an editorial praising Michelle Obama's campaign against childhood obesity, reasoning, "the reality is that U.S. obesity imposes huge costs on taxpayers. In 2006, the per capita increase in spending attributable to obesity was 36% for Medicare and 47% for Medicaid, according to a paper last year in Health Affairs. Many fat kids grow up to be fat adults, and you've got to start somewhere."

This is treacherous turf.

Something has changed. Office romance is OK again.

The (loony) Lancet quietly corrects the record on autism

Bin Ladin's son thinks his Dad is a creep

What does "compromise" mean? Powerline

Obama-Care and Clinton's stent

Broder: Palin is pitch-perfect

Obama's Budget Would Redistribute $112 Billion From Top 1% of Taxpayers. Yes. That's the point.

At Kaus, the bit about the NYT and food stamps.

Iran has no respect for the O. They see him as a weak horse.

The O is changing his mind about raising taxes on the middle class. Nasty rant about the O at Blue Crab.

Via Surber:

“The fundamental understanding of the science of climate change, however, remains unchallenged and unchanged.”

Says who?

Dog training jigsaw puzzle for snowy days

Dr. Helen: Carnival of Misandry

Goofing off in college - and how colleges adjust to it (they lower their expectations)

Bearded and cross-eyed under her burkha

In which Krugman freaks out about the O. Yes, that was about News Flash: Obama Praises Capitalism

Obama Willing to Sign Less Ambitious Healthcare Bill. Duh.

Why Washington is blowing off Euroland

Two photos: Lahore and the UK

Menace in mad march of the thought police. h/t Steyn's Celebrate Conformity

The political goals of immigration in the UK, exposed. Put another way, can a government elect its own voters?

Rasmussen on the political class

MSM Ignores Republican Half of the Story on Healthcare Reform Efforts

From Bolt in Australia:

By deliberately not crossing T’s and dotting I’s, this government blew your billions, torched your houses, made death traps of others and lured four men to their deaths.

That in a simple scheme just to put insulation in roofs. Now they plan a great new tax to re-engineer our whole economy.

Should be a doddle for these clowns.

Andrew Cuomo's role in the housing mess

Knoller via Q&O:

When a sitting president calls for bipartisanship by the opposition – he really means surrender. And if they block his proposals, its “obstinacy” and not political views they hold as strongly as he holds his.

A short appreciation and history of toilet paper

Who knew this was a felony? I am a repeat felon.

The New Dating Game - Back to the New Paleolithic Age.

Everybody agrees that the Obama invitation is a trap

The Federal Government is Working Hard To Shield States From Their Own Irresponsibility

Dick Morris: How Repubs will win the Senate

Hansen collegue says IPCC report "has no scientific merit". Related: Sen. Jim DeMint twitters: D.C. snow will continue 'until Al Gore cries uncle'

Related: Fred Singer on the IPCC:

In this enterprise, the group was aided not only by environmental zealots, anti-technology Luddites, utopian one-worlders, and population-control fanatics, but also by bureaucrats, businesses, brokers and bankers, who had learned how to game the system and profit from government grants and subsidies for exotic schemes to produce "carbon-free" energy and from the trading of carbon permits.  Hundreds of billions have already been wasted -- most of this in transfers of tax revenues to a favored few.

These sums pale, however, in comparison to the trillions that would have been spent in future if some of the mitigation schemes had come to fruition -- such as an extension and major expansion of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to control greenhouse-gas emissions.  Fortunately for the world economy and for taxpayers in industrialized nations, these schemes collapsed at the Copenhagen climate conference in Dec 2009.

Related: Bishop Hill vetted a random IPCC paragraph

Will Wilkerson uses the quote below as a take-off point to try to understand the Progressive's view of the Constitution:

The majority in Citizens United believe that the U.S. Constitution establishes a government of limited and defined powers. They asked: “Does the Constitution give government the power to prohibit speech by corporations (and others)?” The First Amendment indicated the government did not have that power.

The critics of the Citizens United decision assume the Constitution created a government of  plenary powers with limited exceptions. They recognize that free speech for individuals is one such exception.

The short post is Two Conceptions of Government Power. 

Of course, we tend to think that the Constitution already resolved these issues. Furthermore, we view government as an interest group itself - or assemblage of interest groups (the political classes, those dependent on government for jobs or money, etc etc) with unique powers (such as police powers) rather than as a purely benign and altruistic expression of "the will of the people."

I cannot keep up with the uncovering of the global warming scam. Now it's Africagate. Where is Fearmonger-in-Chief Al Gore hiding?

And even more! Now we have Alaska Glaciergate as a companion piece to Himalayan Glaciergate. Related at Driscoll: The global warming guerillas. A quote:

Journalists are wont to moan that the slow death of newspapers will mean a disastrous loss of investigative reporting. The web is all very well, they say, but who will pay for the tenacious sniffing newshounds to flush out the real story? ‘Climategate’ proves the opposite to be true. It was amateur bloggers who scented the exaggerations, distortions and corruptions in the climate establishment; whereas newspaper reporters, even after the scandal broke, played poodle to their sources.

Where is Big Oil? Not in the US

How about Mitch Daniels?

The t-shirt story at Powerline: But Enough About Me. What Do You Think About Me? (By the way, the lady did have medicalinsurance.)

A joke: Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island. (h/t, Jules). Legal Insurrection (of RI) has a new mission.

Am Thinker: Desperate Times and Left-Wing Psy-Ops

$ and politics:

The House Democrats' campaign operation has a significant cash advantage over its Republican counterpart: $16.6 million to $2.7 million. And incumbents are fund-raising in anticipation of competitive contests. Florida's Mr. Grayson said Wednesday that his $861,000 fourth-quarter haul was more than any other Democratic candidate's.

From Fracking the Academic Left:

 I've spent decades trying to teach college students, and I think I can say after all these years that I've never succeeded in educating anyone. Not even one. Occasionally education has been seen to happen in my classes, or at least I would like to believe so. But education always comes from within. Students bring their eagerness to learn with them; you can't make them educated any more than a parent can "grow" a child. People aren't carrots. You can't "grow" them.

Sex Week at Yale

Rightly or wrongly, they used to call these people "not college material." h/t Capt. Capitalism who thinks these things should have been learned in High School. I'd say Grade School. Readin, ritin, and rithmatic, right?

Who are the Tea Partiers? THEY ARE STARVING CANNIBAL MARTIANS WHO HAVE COME FOR YOUR CHILDREN AND PETS!!!!

Related: Tom Tancredo acts like a total jerk. Not funny, Tom.

The maybe coming Iranian Revolution. I hope they go for it.

Vanderleun: "Scientists said" is becoming the numero uno phrase that gripes my ass.

Krauthammer: The Electorate vs. Obama's Agenda

Why Antagonize China? The revitalization of Asian capitalism is the most important positive event in the world in the last 30 years.

Jules on Brown:

Whether Scott Brown realizes it or not, his future is not entirely in his hands. Their are people out there who have plans for him, and this has all the makings of an epic ride that doesn’t necessarily end well for him. Hang on. Remember that thing about getting a dog if you want a friend in DC.

Insty:

WAIT, I THOUGHT CALLING PEOPLE SOCIALISTS WAS A “SMEAR.” Gallup: Majority of Dems View Socialism Positively.

Related: A Stroll Down Extremism’s Memory Lane.

In response to a question asking Democratic Party delegates whether they felt George W. Bush was legitimately elected in 2000, fully 91% of respondents said he wasn’t. The poll also noted the response rate of self-identified Dems overall, 78% of whom thought Bush’s 2000 election was illegitimate (question 56).

Just for perspective.

Obama Reverses on Bankers. Like it or not...

First India throws the IPCC overboard - now the Netherlands. Oh, and now China. It's difficult to keep up. England, too:

Despite active measures by the BBC and the liberal Guardian newspaper to suppress climategate revelations, other media outlets like the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and the TimesOnline have picked up the slack and have run story after story about the fraud, the bad science, and the shameful actions of scientists in trying to suppress opposing viewpoints.

The Economist: Neither the president nor Congress shows any sign of knowing how to tackle the deficit. Related from VDH: Is Greece our future?

However much people may want global warming (the warmists want it for their narrative and for their grant $, and people like me because we think it would be good for humans), the scientists worry: Signs of Damage to Public Trust in Climate Findings

Obama picks campaigning over leading

Where not to die in 2010.

Also from Tax Prof: Law School Only Makes Economic Sense If You Go to a Top 70 School. Top 70? I'd say Top 25.

Fun in Hartford: NORTHEAST FISHING & HUNTING EXPO COMING FEB. 26-28

A bamboo bike?

How come no family members help this poor lady?

The wealthy don't pay the estate tax. Small businessmen, farmers,, and regular people are the ones who get stuck with it.

Rent control in NYC: Taxpayers, Meet Your New Tenants

Unpleasant Grannies rage against Tim Tebow's existence. Wonder whether they have grandkids...

Steyn: Credibility is what�s really melting

Tim Blair: Their faith upset by recent events, warmenists are lashing out.

Related: We have been swindled:

We've been set up as marks by a gang of opportunistic hucksters who have exploited the na�vely altruistic intentions of the environmental movement in an effort to control international energy consumption while redistributing global wealth and (in many cases) greedily lining their own pockets in the process.

Perhaps now, more people will finally understand what many have known for years: Man-made climate change was never really a problem -- but rather, a solution.

For just as the science of the IPCC has been exposed as fraudulent, so have its apparent motives. The true ones became strikingly evident when the negotiating text for the "last chance to save the planet" International Climate Accord [PDF], put forth in Copenhagen in December, was found to contain as many paragraphs outlining the payment of "climate debt" reparations by Western nations under the watchful eye of a U.N.-controlled global government as it did emission reduction schemes.

Then again, neither stratagem should come as any real surprise to those who've paid attention.

"I found it fascinating that the people who were editorializing against it were The New York Times Company and The Washington Post Company," Thomas said, according to a report in The New York Times. "These are corporations."

Justice Department seeking "retarded" or "mentally ill" lawyers.

Art as manifesto: The Bauhaus group

Our blog pal Mr. Free Market signs off. I guess his site has not been corporate enough. We shall miss him.

TREES WILL NOT BECOME UNSTOPPABLE KILLING MACHINES, ADMIT CLIMATE SCIENTISTS

College life: The Hamilton follies cont'd

Burlington VT: Our experiment in socialism

Kudlow vs. Schumer?

Blue Crab:

Longtime readers know that I have a brother with Down Syndrome.

My brother is considerably more decent, honorable, polite and has a better vocabulary than Mr. Emanuel.

By a very large margin.

Why does the US MSM ignore all of the climategates? Perhaps they do not wish to confuse us.

Powerline: Obama Attacks Churches, Charities and Home Values

Is the O's dishonesty harmful? Reason

Obama Budget Includes $4 Billion Bonanza for ACORN

Our friend Roger begins:

Last week, Howard Zinn, reigning anti-American historian of America, died of a heart attack. He was 87. Zinn’s gift to posterity was A People’s History of the United States, a book that has done more than any other textbook to instill hatred and contempt of America in the nation’s teachers and their students. No wonder it was such a runaway success. First published in 1980, it has gone on to sell some 2 million copies. And its brief against America was memorialized in “The People Speak” a 4-part mini-series that aired in December.

The outpouring of sentimental pap that Zinn’s passing occasioned was as large as it was nauseating. Typical was Bob Herbert’s emetic eulogy in The New York Times...

Americans do care about the "greater good." Right now, that means caring about the federal debt.

FOX News may have Megyn Kelly but check out one of our Maggie's Farm fact-checkers (photo).

The intolerant Left: Tebow and NOW at Hot Air

Hypocritical Repubs

What is the IPCC supposed to be doing?

Related: Global warming is dead

The wine train stimulus scam

Keep an eye on Iran this month

Rebellion: Virginia State Senate Rejects Health Care Insurance Mandate

An excess of Ivy League

Legal Insurrection: Here's What Early Draft Of Constitution Said

Insty:

CHANGE! (Or is this Hope! instead?) Estate Tax Repeal Creates Boom for Lawyers. Yay, lawyers!

Read and weep: The new tax proposals

Frank Rich wants to see more violence 

Dems worried about 2012

 Government medical care: Canadian pol to US for heart surgery

Photo from Theo, of course